Journal My experimental jungle

[plantnoobdude]

This is the start of my journal.

Endless tinkering, meddling with ferts and having fun (hopefully)

My end goal is to create a system that grows lythracaea, ludwigias and eriocaulom/syngonanthus species well with minimal maintenance.

Currently my dosing looks like this
2N (nh4+urea)
0.26P
1.3K
0.0875ppm fe
0.045Mn
And various micro
Ca 20
Mg 8
K 4 (front loaded)
TDs ~90

I use inert substrate because.. it's just better (for me atleast)

I like experimenting with marschners ratios and seeing how they affect plants. I have an experiment planned very soon for this.

Anyway, it's getting late now so I'll leave you guys with a pic of my tank. (Please excuse the algae and stuntedness...)

 

[Art]

Hi and thanks for posting a build thread. Get yourself a Build Thread badge so people can find this thread easily.

• So much to unpack here! The only thing I know about a Marschner is Horst Marschner's book about nutrition in higher plants. Is that the ratios you are referring to?
• I'm assuming you're rolling your own ferts. What are you front loading versus daily adding?
• What's the square thing on the back left?
• How are you adding CO2?
• What lighting do you have on this? The plants look very healthy from top to bottom. Congrats!
• Tap or RO?

I call this type of tank a "farm" but if you're doing something experimenting, like you are, I think the term experiment tank fits very well. Looking forward to seeing how this goes.

 

[plantnoobdude]

So much to unpack here! The only thing I know about a Marschner is Horst Marschner's book about nutrition in higher plants. Is that the ratios you are referring to?

Yes precisely

I'm assuming you're rolling your own ferts. What are you front loading versus daily adding

I only front load Ca:Mg:K
The rest is dosed at very small levels daily.

What's the square thing on the back left?

Surface skimmer

How are you adding CO2?

Inline co2 diffuser. 0.9~1.0 pH drop.

What lighting do you have on this? The plants look very healthy from top to bottom. Congrats!

Chihiros wrgb2 at 100:100:100

Tap or RO?

RO, my tap comes out over 350ppm tds

Looking forward to seeing how this goes.

I look forward to posting here notice lots of big names around here.

 

[plantnoobdude]

Plant list:

Centrolepis drummondiana
Eriocualon quinquangulare
Ammannia pedicellata gold
Syngonanthus macrocaulon
Cuphea anagalloidea
Ludwigia inclinata pantanal
Ludwigia inclinata Cuba
Ludwigia palustris
Ludwigia senegalensis
Tonina fluviatilis
Riccardia
Rotala wallichii
Rotala macrandra
Rotala hra
Rotala indica
Bacopa colorata
Wild collected fissidens
Wild collected fontinalis

 

[BigWave]

I like experimenting too. Side note, always have a 2nd stable tank with the same species in it so that when things go haywire in the experimental tank you have something to fall back on.
By the way nice tank.

 

[plantnoobdude]

I like experimenting too. Side note, always have a 2nd stable tank with the same species in it so that when things go haywire in the experimental tank you have something to fall back on.
By the way nice tank.

Hi, thank you very much. Glad to find like minded folk here. Most of my rare plants I keep a back up emmersed. Especially my erios as they are quite finnicky and susceptible to melt

 

[BigWave]

Man, I wish I could keep emersed plants but its far to cold up here in WA State. They start doing great then the temps fall and well...

 

[plantnoobdude]

Man, I wish I could keep emersed plants but its far to cold up here in WA State. They start doing great then the temps fall and well...

My temps go down to ~0 Deg Celsius but inside the house it stays round 5-10 even at the lowest. The tanks also have LEDS but if you have T5 itll keep the growers warm. I think an enclosed grower with T5. as long as the temps dont go below freezing for prolonged times, you should be fine.

 

[GreggZ]

Currently my dosing looks like this
2N (nh4+urea)
0.26P
1.3K
0.0875ppm fe
0.045Mn
And various micro
Ca 20
Mg 8
K 4 (front loaded)

First of all good to see you here my friend. I have been following this tank for a while now and always enjoy the updates.

With the dosing above, how often is the 2 ppm N, 0.26 ppm P, and 1.3 dosed? Or is that a weekly total?

With the .0875 ppm Fe what type of Fe? Are you using a commercial micro mix? If so, what kind?

And how often and what size are water changes?

Keep the updates coming!

 

[plantnoobdude]

First of all good to see you here my friend. I have been following this tank for a while now and always enjoy the updates

Thanks

With the dosing above, how often is the 2 ppm N, 0.26 ppm P, and 1.3 dosed? Or is that a weekly total?

Weekly total. For soil 1ppm N weekly was sufficient. But sand it seems that it wasn't enough, I bumped it up and everything seemed happy.

With the .0875 ppm Fe what type of Fe? Are you using a commercial micro mix? If so, what kind

DTPA, my own mix. It's secret just kidding, I just couldn't be bothered to get the numbers up right now.

And how often and what size are water changes

Every couple weeks? ~30%

 

[GreggZ]

Thanks

Weekly total. For soil 1ppm N weekly was sufficient. But sand it seems that it wasn't enough, I bumped it up and everything seemed happy.

DTPA, my own mix. It's secret just kidding, I just couldn't be bothered to get the numbers up right now.

Every couple weeks? ~30%

So this is where it gets interesting to me.

If we convert the N to NO3 and the P to PO4 then you are dosing about 8.85 ppm NO3, 0.80 ppm PO4, and 5.3 ppm K weekly.

If you perform water change every two weeks then that's about 17.7 ppm NO3, 1.60 ppm PO4, and 10.6 ppm K between water changes. Couple that with 30% water changes and the accumulation could be higher.

Do you ever test your levels of NO3 and PO4? While the dosing seems low, with the water change schedule I would be curious as to what the actual water column numbers this leads to?

 

[plantnoobdude]

If you perform water change every two weeks then that's about 17.7 ppm NO3, 1.60 ppm PO4, and 10.6 ppm K between water changes. Couple that with 30% water changes and the accumulation could be higher

Such values could be possible. But I have a couple reasons to believe otherwise.

1. My plants stay relatively red (Hra)
2. My TDS stays within 1-2ppm inbetween water changes. (80ppm TDS is 20 Ca 8 Mg K

 

[GreggZ]

Such values could be possible. But I have a couple reasons to believe otherwise.

1. My plants stay relatively red (Hra)
2. My TDS stays within 1-2ppm inbetween water changes. (80ppm TDS is 20 Ca 8 Mg K

Interesting. I would love to find out what the actual values are sometime.

Whatever it is it looks to working well for you...........but inquiring minds like to know!!

 

[plantnoobdude]

View attachment 1185

One week's growth

 

[plantnoobdude]

Too many plantsss

 

[plantnoobdude]

Reducing sp......



Time to plan a Scape. Red dominated of course..

 

[plantnoobdude]

Algae bloom! Not sure why, funny times.

 

[GreggZ]

LOL you call that an algae bloom??

If that's the worse that it gets then you sir should be very happy. Tank looks just as great as ever.

But will be curious to see if you figure it out.

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

He’s pulling our leg right?

Honestly you should probably just strip it down and call it quits, I’m disgusted by the sight of this.

 

[plantnoobdude]

Dosing more means fat plants. They also grow faster however.....

Algae seems to have gone away.