Journal Ben's Plant Pharm 2.0

[BenB]

This pic doesn't look that great, but read below for explanation and status

General

• Since the picture above, I’ve removed much of the algae covered plants. Cut off the healthy tops and planted them. It looks very different now, but still fighting diatoms and some cyano. Definitely much better than after the vacation and when the tank was cold.
• Originally everything started to improve when I added the heater, but now the algae is coming back.
• The heater wasn’t working for 2-3 days. Maybe this is what set me back but that seems a stretch.

Fertilizer

• I am reducing my fertilizer amount by about 25%
• I ran my routine through Rocco’s calculator and it was off the scale. Pic below. I was assuming/estimating several things. So it could be very different in reality. Still working on it.
• I have algae and per Dennis Wong’s recent discussions, excessive nutrients can exacerbate algae and make it harder to remedy.
• I still want to have an excess. I’m not going for the “zero sum” option, but I only want a small extra amount. Excess vs excessive
• This is always up for re-evaluation, but for now, it seems the right thing to do for me.
• I’m currently also trying to determine my tank’s NO3 uptake rate.

Maintenance

• I’ve been sitting most nights and one by one picking globs of cyano off plants. Right now the diatoms seem to be gaining back momentum and are worse than the cyano.
• I’m scraping algae off with my fingers.
• Cutting off diseased leaves.
• Water changes have been made difficult by house remodeling, but that has improved somewhat.
• I’m running my python through a bedroom with new carpet. If you don’t hear from me again. I got water on the carpet.

Much of this I guessed/estimated, but this is the results of my Rocco's Calculator use.


Sorry this is a bit random. I'm beat. Been a long few weeks.

 

[Koan]

If you don’t hear from me again. I got water on the carpet.

 

[Sb1415]

Sorry that you are going through this, but I am at a similar state. Got tons of filamentous algae and more changes I made more algae that i got. After reading Dennis's recent post, it makes sense to stick to a routine and just practice horticulture.

Looks like that is what you are doing! Having not had experience with aquasoil, i can definitely see how it is taking a while to settle down.

I also lowered my lighting quite a bit, which seems to have helped and not sure where yours is at. Finally, I also see that choosing plants that are easy to grow and easier to trim seems to be helpful in the beginning phase.

 

[BenB]

Sorry that you are going through this, but I am at a similar state. Got tons of filamentous algae and more changes I made more algae that i got. After reading Dennis's recent post, it makes sense to stick to a routine and just practice horticulture.

Looks like that is what you are doing! Having not had experience with aquasoil, i can definitely see how it is taking a while to settle down.

I also lowered my lighting quite a bit, which seems to have helped and not sure where yours is at. Finally, I also see that choosing plants that are easy to grow and easier to trim seems to be helpful in the beginning phase.

Sucks you are having trouble too. I feel like the experience of overcoming this will help me deal with these situations in the future and its a great learning moment..... but it's been awhile and I'm getting a bit burned out dealing with it.

 

[BenB]

This is Eriocaulon truncatum. It looks like a baby plant started at the arrow, but I think it is more likely the flower. Can anyone confirm? It doesn't look like the usual Eriocaulon flower spike.

Also, while I'm making a post, I think my algae is almost all dead. It's starting to disappear. I've been doing extra water changes. I shake the plants and it falls off in a cloud. Been working to suck it out out of the water so my organic load doesn't get crazy. There is so much of it though. What you can see in this pic is just dead debris that gets caught on plants.

 

[BenB]

I hope to get a proper update with pic soon. (It seems I have to take a pic with my ugly face anyway for Wong) But I wanted to show something I'm so happy with.

My tank is finally doing great. The algae is dead. If I had a decent aquascape, it would look amazing.
Just 2 pics to demonstrate where I am.

This is a pic of my filter lift tube from about a month ago. Note the green and brow gunk on the inside and outside with a bit on the glass beside it.
This was taken about the time I was posting that I thought I had figured my problems out, and I could see improvement.


This pic is from today.
You can see through the lift tube. I haven't cleaned it out. The algae has died and slowly been sucked out.

 

[BenB]

It's a mess, but it's a happy mess..... finally!



Aquascape

• It needs some work. I’m not sure how I ended up with the red on the right and the green on the left
• The original intent was just farm and not scape, but as long as things continue to go well, it’s time to go the next step. Not much time during the holidays.

Progress

• I learned that if your plants start growing healthy white roots, they are happy. My Erios and Blood Vomit all have new white fresh roots.
• I don’t know how to describe it, but when things started clicking, the nature of the pearling changed almost overnight. Instead of just random bubbles everywhere, there seemed to be a more purposeful release. I know that sounds vague and weird, but it was obvious there was a change and the algae started dying soon after that.
• Rotala wallachi is a great indicator plant. Seems it gets pissed and stunts easily, but not super easy like Ludwigia Pantanal.
• For the first time ever, I had to divide one of my Blood Vomits and one of my E quings has side growths now as well.

Fertilization

• I was dosing 7.5ppm NO3 and 4ppm PO4, but based on Denis’ most recent article and continuing high NO3 levels, I wanted to decrease my dosing to 5.5ppm NO3 and 2pm PO4.
  • The plants didn’t like the 2ppmn of PO4, so I went back to 4ppm.
  • Probably has something to do with the aquasoil absorbing it some.
• I want to have an excess but not excessive amount of NO3 and PO4.
• I reduced the dosing about a month ago
• The algae is mostly gone, but my accumulation amount is still really high. I had 26ppm NO3 at the end of the week.
• So the plan is to keep dropping.
• I just started 5.5ppm NO3 and 4ppm PO4. Double dose after water change but only 2 regular doses thereafter instead of every 48 hours.

Realization On How to Deal with Algae

• Having only 1 small tank is counterproductive to getting rid of algae. If that’s all you have, then you are constantly fiddling with stuff instead of just leaving it alone and letting it settle. If I had 2 tanks, I wouldn’t have had time to fidget and keep making changes.
• A counter argument might be that if I had 2 tanks, I might not have been able to focus to discover my problem.

Continuing Issues

• I noticed today all the sudden that the tips of many leaves have bleached. The Star Grass is terrible and ratty. It was beautiful yesterday I’ll post more in a couple days.

 

[BenB]

One day I will figure out how to get clearer pictures

 

[Koan]

Perseverance!

 

[BenB]

Seems I can't win for too long. I did something to some of my plants. I think it is from a dose of Excel. I put some in on occasion, but maybe I put a bit too much in. It has bleached the tips of some of my plants. I'm not sure what else it could be. I haven't done anything different. Everything was looking awesome. It will recover. So far nothing else looks affected.

Blyxa japonica


H zosterfolia


R macrandra

 

[Kwyet]

I knew it was bad for Val’s and mosses, but didn’t know about these.

 

[BenB]

I knew it was bad for Val’s and mosses, but didn’t know about these.

I have used it multiple times before. I think I just dumped in too much though.

 

[DutchMuch]

I don’t know if this helps here, but when I was growing Blyxa in my previous setup, I wasn’t particularly strict with dosing Excel. There were times I definitely pushed Excel to roughly double or maybe triple the recommended amount daily, and I never saw any melt or stress. Growth stayed compact and healthy.

The caveat, is that the plants were fully adjusted and rooted into the substrate, so that level of tolerance might not translate here. So my experience might not map perfectly to this situation, but once Blyxa is established, I've found it to be quite resilient to Excel.

 

[BenB]

Big Update

I did a big aquascape change today. My biggest problem is I'm trying to have a bit of aquascape in a farm tank. It doesn't always work out..... especially when it's a small tank. I originally only wanted to move a few things around to minimize any impact on the stability, but I'm pretty sure that never works out. If you saw my previous update, I somehow had ended up with all the green on the left and the red on the right. I tried to fix some of that.

I moved plants and tried, with modest success, to do some suctioning at the same time. I also added about 2L of Control Soil. It's time for some fresh, and I always felt I didn't add enough at the beginning. I ended up making about a 70% and then another 50% water change. I added back 3x my normal fertilizer dose in hopes of causing as little disruption to the stability as possible.

Questions
1. Some of my Centrolepis drummondiana (Blood Vomit) has lost its roots. I've read you have to divide them when they get big or they have issues. They have multiple growths, but they aren't that big. Is this the issue? I though it was that they clogged up with mulm and rotted. I'm trying not to place causation with correlation, but my smaller ones that were divided still have their roots. And wow... these without roots are tough to keep down.

2. Erio truncatum. I posted a similar picture (see below) a few weeks ago speculating that these structures were the flower and flower stalk. I still think they are, but now maybe it looks like a new plant is forming at the tops of some of them. Really cool. The mother plant has morphed into a small plant with many of these stalk inflourescence things. Maybe @HardeeParty knows the correct termonology. I'm keeping an eye on it to make sure the plant isn't over stressed and dies in an effort to reproduce. It looks fine except its a mass of flower stalk things with a small plant out front. Not quite the astethic I was looking for, but this is often it issue with Erios.

3. I bought some Synogonthas 'Meta' from @Burr740. It was unbelievable when it came in. Not a single smudge, crimp, or spot on any of the leaves. All perfect green. I had a little Burr hate that his plants were so nice. Anyway, now they are starting to get a little bit of yellow. I have plenty of fertilizers. MyCO2 ~ 60, KH < 2 and GH ~ 12. So it should be fine. I've had it about 10 days. I thought if it was going to have adjustmet issues it would have shown up by now. Still I'm concerned. It might be aclimatizing issues, but only mild ones, so I'm not recognizing it as such. It has really big heads. It might be too big a plant for such a small tank. I'm not sure the sizing of the other Synos.

4. Gratiola viscidula: I really like the plant, but I'm not sure it has a good spot in this scape. It has to grow in good or it looks scraggly. Its the right size plant for this small tank, but I just can't get it to work. It might be on the chopping block.

If it was warm, I'd have a lot of clippings for people, but can't mail out anything in this weather. I don't know about where you live, but for NC this is probably the 100 year ago "normal" but for now, it's crazy cold.

Terrible pictures. Lots of dust, and lots of growing in to do, but I'll work on the details over the next few days.
Buried the Erio cinereum when I put in the new aquasoil. Had not planned on doing anything with them, but they had to be dug out.


Erio truncatum with flower stalks/inflourescence? and baby plant starting up top?


Failed putting the shorts plants in front with the Syn 'Meta.' I'll move it.


Full tank. Not a great pic. Lots of dust. Glass needs to be cleaned. As I said, stuff will fill in eventually. The R macrandra grows so fast in this tank.

 

[Kwyet]

I had a little Burr hate that his plants were so nice.

 

[BenB]

A few of my stems are stunting. Only the R macrandra and only a few of those.
Ferts should be plentiful, and I'm using Burr Micros.
Right now I'm chalking it up to a bit of shock with a few stems post mini reset. We'll see how it goes.
Diatom algae is raising hell, but other algae is minimal.

 

[BenB]

General

• Overall, its going great. The plants are growing like crazy, and I have minimal algae. It feels like it takes care of itself when things are clicking.
• It looks like a jungle right now, but it makes me happy because most things are so healthy.

Fertilizer/Dosing

• Months back, in an effort to figure out my algae problems, I was doing my tank really high. I found out the reason for the algae had nothing to do with my fert levels, so I decided to reduce them to a more reasonable amount. My saying is, I want an excess but not an excessive amount of ferts. I was attempting to slowly lower the levels over the course of weeks to months in an effort to not disturb the stability and cause another algae outbreak. It didn’t work, but not because of my fert reductions. I’m not exactly sure which was the cause was, but it was one of 2 things. First, my ferts molded but people always say that doesn’t cause problems. Secondly, I diluted my micros by 50% in an effort to not add too much. I remade the ferts and micros, and the algae started to resolve immediately. Was it the mold? Was it a micro deficiency? I did have some leaf stunting. Who knows? Anyway, as a bonus, since my tank was already a big algae mess, I just went ahead and dropped the fert levels to my goal. Now I don’t have to do the big months long taper.

Algae

• Right now gda is my biggest problem. It wipes off easily. The phos amount in my macros is really high to try to help with the gda and counteract the absorption from a recent aquasoil addition, but it’s not really working. So I’m considering slowly lowering the phos to more customary levels.

Plants

• H zosterfolia is just not a good fit for this tank. It’s too big and chaotic for such a small space.
• Syn ‘Meta’ came from Burr. It might be too big too, but I really like it. I’m trying to make it work.
• Erio cerienum is distracting with it’s seed stalks, but I really like it.
• A moment of stupidity led me to try a small dose of Excel again to help with algae. I almost lost all my Xiris red. For better or worse, they had gotten fairly big, and I didn’t known what to do with them. I nowhave 2 left. So at least I didn’t lose everything.
• I lost my Erio truncatum. It was making baby plants. I have some of those in my emersed setup. Their health is questionable. Hopefully I’ll be able to retain that.
• This big ass Erio cuspidatum is awesome but also a headache. It’s somewhat the main barrier to working out an aquascape.
• E quingulaire and Blood Vomit are growing great! I’m so proud. These aren’t easy plants. I started out with 1-2, and now I have several of each. I could further divide a couple more of them.

Misc

• There are some small worm things everywhere. Nematodes of some sort I assume. You don’t really notice them until you look or you work with the tank. Then they go flying everywhere like a blizard.
• The dry weather and working in the tank is making my hands so dry. My finger tips are starting to split open. It sucks. It's making maintenance and aquascaping very difficult.

Going Forward

• I like farming, but I’m itching to try a scape. Maintaining some species I really enjoy is getting in the way. Decisions need to be made.
• I already have some P decanensis to replace the H zolsterfolia, P helferi to replace ones that died, and R Mexicana ‘Gois’ to add some color. We’ll see how it goes.

 

[techman81]

Erio cerienum is distracting with it’s seed stalks, but I really like it.

Wow! I was thinking about getting some of that but those stalks grow taller than I thought based on a few photos.

 

[Koan]

Right now gda is my biggest problem

What temp are you at for this tank?

I have been having some spectacular GDA in one tank, and on @Dennis Wong's recommendation turned the temps down to 74° and it's definitely slowed it down

Running the Oase Crystalskim on it also hoovers down a lot of the GDA before it can settle when it's not running, I can see it appear on the surface

 

[BenB]

What temp are you at for this tank?

I have been having some spectacular GDA in one tank, and on Dennis Wong recommendation turned the temps down to 74° and it's definitely slowed it down

Running the Oase Crystalskim on it also hoovers down a lot of the GDA before it can settle when it's not running, I can see it appear on the surface

My temp is about 79. I'll reduce it. The skimmer is running.
I feel like gda is something we all have to live with, but we can at least minimize it. I'll try anything. Thanks