Help for Kochi?

[Kwyet]

I’ve had this plant (Rotala macrandra Kochi) since September, when I first switched the tank to high tech. It always has a pretty red color at the top, but the leaves always look bad, with spots, holes, and twisting. The other plants in the tank look good to me. I’m doing a slightly more than PPS Pro ferts and the light is a Week Aqua P900 Pro at 60% intensity. Sorry, I don’t have par numbers.
Can anyone suggest which ferts it needs more of to do well? Thanks very much!

 

[OmidNiav]

I treat it as the mac red var. Likes nutrients. When unhappy the leaves get round and wrinkly. For some reason it didn't like it much when I uprooted and moved.

Side note: Vin Kutty brought this from India and it took a good 2-3 years before it spread in the hobby!!

 

[Kwyet]

I treat it as the mac red var. Likes nutrients. When unhappy the leaves get round and wrinkly. For some reason it didn't like it much when I uprooted and moved.

Side note: Vin Kutty brought this from India and it took a good 2-3 years before it spread in the hobby!!

Thanks! I’ve never had the red variety, but I was just reading that it does better with a nutrient-rich substrate. Mine is in sand. I could try putting a couple root tabs just under that plant.

 

[OmidNiav]

Thanks! I’ve never had the red variety, but I was just reading that it does better with a nutrient-rich substrate. Mine is in sand. I could try putting a couple root tabs just under that plant.

Root tabs would help as well as water column ferts

 

[Burr740]

Root tabs wont help much because when its happy its so fast youll be topping/replanting faster than it grows much roots. I grow it in sand very well. Yours doesnt look too bad really. The spots on the lower leaves almost certainly indicates low macros. Could also be low Zn or another secondary micro, but occams razor suggest looking at macros first

As Omid pointed out, all macrandra love high water column ferts (thats not to say a low dosing routine with a rich sub like Dennis method wont grow it very well too, but here you have sand)

Adding: Another thing to consider, if your running a pps-p method, even slightly richer as you said. That low daily dosing for macros only works with small water changes. 30% MAX. If youre doing 50% or more, its too big of a nutrient swing with smaller daily dosing macros. Especially the first few days of the week. PPSP doesnt even do weekly water changes, its 30% every 2-3 weeks whenever tds reaches...whatever its supposed to reach. Dont quote me on those exact numbers

 

[Kwyet]

Root tabs wont help much because when its happy its so fast youll be topping/replanting faster than it grows much roots. I grow it in sand very well. Yours doesnt look too bad really. The spots on the lower leaves almost certainly indicates low macros. Could also be low Zn or another secondary micro, but occams razor suggest looking at macros first

As Omid pointed out, all macrandra love high water column ferts (thats not to say a low dosing routine with a rich sub like Dennis method wont grow it very well too, but here you have sand)

Adding: Another thing to consider, if your running a pps-p method, even slightly richer as you said. That low daily dosing for macros only works with small water changes. 30% MAX. If youre doing 50% or more, its too big of a nutrient swing with smaller daily dosing macros. Especially the first few days of the week. PPSP doesnt even do weekly water changes, its 30% every 2-3 weeks whenever tds reaches...whatever its supposed to reach. Dont quote me on those exact numbers

Thanks for the info! I’ve been doing larger water changes because I was having an algae problem, but I’ll bring it back to 25-30% and see how it goes. The algae seems to be back under control now. I only see a small tuft of staghorn on a piece of moss that I’ll remove tomorrow.
I’ll try gradually upping the macros. I think last time was such a disaster because I changed too much all at once. I don’t even check the tds any more, it’s always under 200, so I just keep to weekly water changes to try to be consistent.

 

[Pepere]

Another thing to consider, if your running a pps-p method, even slightly richer as you said. That low daily dosing for macros only works with small water changes. 30% MAX. If youre doing 50% or more, its too big of a nutrient swing with smaller daily dosing macros. Especially the first few days of the week. PPSP doesnt even do weekly water changes, its 30% every 2-3 weeks whenever tds reaches...whatever its supposed to reach. Dont quote me on those exact numbers

I dose PPSPro levels daily and about 70% water change weekly. Immediately after water change I double dose the tank for a loading dose. By and large testing nitrate levels several times in the course of a week, I have found this gives me pretty much the same nitrate levels throughout the week.

 

[Kwyet]

I dose PPSPro levels daily and about 70% water change weekly. Immediately after water change I double dose the tank for a loading dose. By and large testing nitrate levels several times in the course of a week, I have found this gives me lretty much the same nitrate levels throughout the week.

Oh, yes, I should have said I front-load half the macros right after the water change. Do you mean you double dose one day’s worth?

 

[Burr740]

I dose PPSPro levels daily and about 70% water change weekly. Immediately after water change I double dose the tank for a loading dose. By and large testing nitrate levels several times in the course of a week, I have found this gives me lretty much the same nitrate levels throughout the week.

Interesting, inert or rich sub? And well if it works it works! You must be rolling with a pretty low level of macros in the water, like 3x a daily dose as a base level? Mathematically speaking youd have to be with 70% wc right? Then the subsequent daily doses are about what the plants use

 

[Pepere]

Interesting, inert or rich sub? And well if it works it works! You must be rolling with a pretty low level of macros in the water, like 3x a daily dose as a base level? Mathematically speaking youd have to be with 70% wc right? Then the subsequent daily doses are about what the plants use

I run UGF with about a half inch of Safe T Sorb in mesh bags on top of the plates covered by 2 inches BDBS. My theory is the ugf pulling water column ferts through the Safe T Sorb provides some benefit to the roots for the non stem plants…

I mix up macros per GLA instructions yielding

• 1ppm NO3 (1ppm NO3 or 31 grams of KNO3, also contributes/adds 0.63ppm of K)
• 0.1ppm PO4 (0.1ppm PO4 or 2.7 grams of KH2PO4, also contributes/adds 0.04ppm K)
• 1.33ppm K (KNO3 & KH2PO4 combined already contribute 0.67ppm of K, since the total target K is 1.33ppm you only need to calculate for 0.66ppm target K on Rotala Butterfly's calculator )
• 0.1ppm Mg

This is by dosing 1 ml per 10 gallons

I dose 5 mls in my 29 gallon tank daily.

I water change an actual 18 gallons weekly and dose 10 mls after water change.

I do not know exactly how many gallons the tank is holding with the substrate I have in, but my guess is that it is closer to 24-25 gallons.

Testing nitrate levels with API liquid test about an hour after dosing consistently shows in the neighborhood of 10 ppm nitrates every day, including after water change dosing…

My guess is that it might be a bit less than 10 ppm, but there is no discernible difference from day to day or across the week…

After resetting my tanks in early November due to a purigen bag seam blowout and subsequent purigen snowstorm with all new substrate, I struggled with algae for a bit. Right now, the algae is retreating significantly..

A week or two ago, I added some well cycled BDBS to the new substrate, replaced Purigen with new mesh bags that have the seams sewn as opposed to just heat fused or glued, and recalculated the amount of Ca and Mg that I was adding to replacement water. I am unsure which action helped turn around the algae issues…, but I am not interested in testing it to find out…


“Au Bon Vin”




“It’s Miller Time”

 

[Kwyet]

I’ll test nitrates daily and see what’s going on. Should be interesting.

 

[SkaleyAquatics]

I run UGF with about a half inch of Safe T Sorb in mesh bags on top of the plates covered by 2 inches BDBS. My theory is the ugf pulling water column ferts through the Safe T Sorb provides some benefit to the roots for the non stem plants…

I mix up macros per GLA instructions yielding

• 1ppm NO3 (1ppm NO3 or 31 grams of KNO3, also contributes/adds 0.63ppm of K)
• 0.1ppm PO4 (0.1ppm PO4 or 2.7 grams of KH2PO4, also contributes/adds 0.04ppm K)
• 1.33ppm K (KNO3 & KH2PO4 combined already contribute 0.67ppm of K, since the total target K is 1.33ppm you only need to calculate for 0.66ppm target K on Rotala Butterfly's calculator )
• 0.1ppm Mg

This is by dosing 1 ml per 10 gallons

I dose 5 mls in my 29 gallon tank daily.

I water change an actual 18 gallons weekly and dose 10 mls after water change.

I do not know exactly how many gallons the tank is holding with the substrate I have in, but my guess is that it is closer to 24-25 gallons.

Testing nitrate levels with API liquid test about an hour after dosing consistently shows in the neighborhood of 10 ppm nitrates every day, including after water change dosing…

My guess is that it might be a bit less than 10 ppm, but there is no discernible difference from day to day or across the week…

After resetting my tanks in early November due to a purigen bag seam blowout and subsequent purigen snowstorm with all new substrate, I struggled with algae for a bit. Right now, the algae is retreating significantly..

A week or two ago, I added some well cycled BDBS to the new substrate, replaced Purigen with new mesh bags that have the seams sewn as opposed to just heat fused or glued, and recalculated the amount of Ca and Mg that I was adding to replacement water. I am unsure which action helped turn around the algae issues…, but I am not interested in testing it to find out…

First thing is that ammania is looks freaking fantastic. I am jealous.

A pretty easy way to get a good idea of total water volume after substrate is to take Width(inches) x length(inches) x height from top of substrate to roughly top of water line(inches) / 231. That will give you gallons. You are pretty close to 24-25 is my bet without measuring as well.

If I was a betting man I bet the extra cycled media helped in your case. Again lets not really find out why.

 

[Burr740]

I run UGF with about a half inch of Safe T Sorb in mesh bags on top of the plates covered by 2 inches BDBS. My theory is the ugf pulling water column ferts through the Safe T Sorb provides some benefit to the roots for the non stem plants…

I mix up macros per GLA instructions yielding

Very nice! 10 ppm isnt as low as I imagined when you explained it before. I like how you have the UG filter. Ive always thought one could be useful that way but never done it myself, or seen many others doing it either.

Plants look really good too. The meta/pantanal isnt quite happy which makes sense given the lowish fert levels. The ammania sure is though, which also makes sense because it likes low levels

 

[Pepere]

Plants look really good too. The meta/pantanal isnt quite happy which makes sense given the lowish fert levels. The ammania sure is though, which also makes sense because it likes low levels

I am experimenting and learning. I was doing EI before, and inquired from the seller of the Rotala Rotundifolia Orange Juice how he managed to color his up. It arrived much more vibrant orange. The seller mentioned it colored better under nitrate limiting and that he used PPS Pro dosing.

Well, I cant say that it seems to be working…. In another two weeks, I intend to try increasing light intensity.

I am planning on starting to build a stand for a 75 gallon tank this week. I think the 75 will make a much better home for the Amania. It feels rather crowded in the 29. The 29 has been a practice workspace to learn…

 

[Kwyet]

I tested nitrates every day this week. Right after the 50% water change and front loading 50% macros, and then daily. Every time the API liquid test showed 5 ppm. That was after having increased macros a bit. I was going to increase macros some more starting tomorrow after the water change, but a couple of days ago I started seeing Cyanobacteria in the substrate, mostly pretty deep along the front glass. I treated it with blue-green stain remover, but I haven’t seen any change yet. Are the low nitrates causing the cyano, or did adding more macros trigger it? I haven’t done anything else different except for moving some things around and turkey basting the moss lava rock daily.

 

[Burr740]

Low NO3 has long been blamed for cyano, but Ive seen it happen for other reasons too and never quite believed that anyway tbh. But apparently it is a known catalyst

Having said that, 5 ppm in the water isnt much at all. Assuming you can trust the test. It doesnt sound like you can because that post water change dose surely adds more than 5? Those api drop tests on their best day are only good for showing whether you have none, some, or a lot. Really hard to get more specific than that

Any change in the plants? Youll have to go by new growth, the old leaves wont repair themselves

 

[Kwyet]

Okay, thanks! Is there a better test you know of?

 

[Burr740]

Okay, thanks! Is there a better test you know of?

I'll let others chime in on that, I dont do much extensive testing except to see if somethings bottomed out or really high

 

[Koan]

I believe your choices are API > Salifert > Hanna in ascending order of cost. I think Salifert's an okay compromise since we're just trying to get a ballpark.

 

[Kwyet]

I believe your choices are API > Salifert > Hanna

I have a Hanna marine nitrate tester. I was thinking of trying it because I read elsewhere that it’ll be a little off, but still fairly close. I would have to order the Salifert. I haven’t seen a Hanna freshwater nitrate tester, but I’ll check their website too. I don’t generally test nitrates (or anything really) unless there’s a problem or I’m cycling a tank. Thanks!