gjcarew
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Posts posted by gjcarew
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On 6/28/2022 at 10:34 AM, Corbidorbidoodle said:
Sorry, yeah. I've been trying the Plus version. I always forget to specify that.
Aquarium Co-op's root tabs contain mineralized topsoil and clay. Both have high cation exchange capacity, which means they retain nutrients for a longer period of time. If you are using osmocote+ with coarse sand or gravel, nutrients can quickly leach into the water column rather than staying in the root zone. You could try mixing regular topsoil in with the osmocote in your root tabs to see if that helps.
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Submerge it in seltzer water overnight
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On 6/27/2022 at 3:04 PM, Lauren said:
Hello there! I am also in the Seattle area. I had a recommendation for your plants growing straight. Have you tried using the wooden skewer, sunken down, then super light weight fishing line (5lb strength) to attach the stem to the rigid skewer? You can even super glue a few skewer together to get the full height.
I was talking about the dwarf aquarium lily which is only putting out pads with very short stems. I'm not sure if the skewers would work on a lily. I've tried pushing all the plants around it super close to it, sometimes by crowding plants you can get them to grow upwards. Thanks for the tip though!
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On 6/24/2022 at 9:52 PM, Minanora said:
What power supply are you using for your DC?
Just the one that comes with it? Not sure I understand the question right
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Finally getting around to the cabinet update.
First of all a club member 3D printed some cool tool holders. They seem pretty convenient!
I installed this flow meter which allows me to see how much CO2 I am injecting. CO2 injection has generally been low in this tank because the new Chihiros app sucks and sometimes the light doesn't turn on. For example, that happened today. I turned the light to "manual" mode in the app last night, then turned it back to "auto" mode before going to bed. The light turned off, so I thought it worked, but when I got home from work the light wasn't on yet! The good news is injecting 10 cc/m like I was the fish weren't stressed at all, they were actually super colored up.
I just raised the rate to 17 cc/m while it seems around 30 cc/m is "high" CO2 in a 75 gallon (from what I've read). One thing that I've noticed is a seemingly tiny bump on the needle valve can double your injection rate. Makes me think I should invest in a more precise needle valve.
Last change is I added a Jebao DC pump. It's way quieter than the Oase one, has triple the output, and has a 10 minute "feed" mode. I haven't had it long enough to know if it will last, but so far I'm pretty hyped.
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Now back to the regularly scheduled programming...
I confess I went and bought some more hygrophila difformis. I just didn't want to have to propagate it down to nubs. Things are coming together and all the plants are appreciating my holiday from moving them around.
Gonna give it some more time but the Rotala is not currently working in that back corner. Too similar in color to the blyxa japonica. I may replace it with the that myriophyllum roraima in the center. The myrio is currently a bit too dominant IMO and really breaks the tank in two. Overall there needs to be a group crossing the middle line to tie it all together. Maybe that street could go back to the left rather than circling around the lily.
Speaking of which, that plant does NOT want to grow upwards. Anybody got tips for it?
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Pond update! First I thought I'd post my rainbow shiners. They seem to be doing just fine, I'm only feeding once or twice per week. I have some coarse gravel in the bottom of their tub pond so I'm hoping I'll get some babies out of there come fall. They do look very pretty in the sunlight, but I think that's true of all fish!
The second pond contains (used to contain?) Rhadinocentrus ornatus "Seary's Creek", a type of rainbowfish. I put them in the pond when temps were still in the low 50's, and we have had a very cold, wet, long spring here in the Seattle area. Since I added them, I haven't seen them once. I won't know until I drain the pond in the fall, but at this point I'm not optimistic.
BUT.........
I found some fry in that pond! They are tiny, the size of an eyelash. I assume they are baby rainbows but I have no idea. For the time being they should be good with the microorganisms and green water in the tub pond. I'm going to have to start hatching some baby brine soon, though. So the questions is- are they rhads? Something that hitched a ride on the pond plants? Are there more fry hiding in there or is it just the three? And did any parents survive?
It's all terrifically exciting and requires about 3 hours of work per year. This is why I'm so crazy about ponds!
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On 6/22/2022 at 3:53 PM, Mmiller2001 said:
No problems with the lower leaves? Mine kind of disintegrate and have a few holes.
Yeah the lower leaves get holes and fall off but I don't see that as real problem. That happens with most aquarium plants, I just try to pull them off as they start to get unhealthy
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On 6/22/2022 at 2:46 PM, Mmiller2001 said:
How's your Ovalis Purple doing?
It needs tidying up but it's growing well! One of the few plants to make the "final 12"
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On 6/22/2022 at 9:46 AM, CorydorasEthan said:
Somewhere between 25 and 75 GH.
If I had to guess I'd say you probably live somewhere with very soft water. As the plants are growing they deplete the remaining minerals in the water then starve. This would explain your boom-bust cycle.
Easy green has most nutrients you plants need, but not Ca and Mg, and not enough K (in my opinion). Try remineralizing your water after every water change with a GH booster like Seachem Equilibrium, GLA or NilocG and I bet you'll see more sustainable growth.
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What's up with the total hardness on your test? Could it be a lack of ca/mg?
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On 6/21/2022 at 2:57 PM, squidpie said:
Title kinda says it all. I’m trying out houseplants after success with my planted tanks and I’m wondering if I could use like a 1/2 tsp of easy green and add it to my plants that are being propagated in water as well as just adding a tiny amount to the jug I water with every few months. Just a thought but idk if I’ll try it out. Gonna look into the ingredients more etc
I just propagate the plants in fish tank water
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Still on a plant moving hiatus so I've been trying to get the equipment squared away. This tank is in the "guest bedroom" (in quotes because there is not yet a bed in there) and we will have some of my wife's family coming to visit in July. The filter is currently loud enough that it might keep someone in the same room awake. It has never been really silent, which is disappointing considering how quiet the Biomaster 250 was on my 22 gallon.
Someone on another forum used a Fzone DC controllable pump inline instead of the pump included with the Biomaster. I wanted to do the same but they apparently don't make the Fzone pump anymore 🤷♂️ I bought a Current Eflux dc controllable pump instead. Unfortunately, the inlet for that pump is 1" and the outlet is 3/4", while the Oase tubing is 16 mm (approx 5/8"). While I pondered the plumbing mess of trying to get these to match up, I realized it would be cheaper and easier to get something like a Jebao pump. Sure, it's not name brand, but their pumps have worked well for me in the past and the inlet and outlet are both 3/4" fittings meaning I just have to try and stretch the Oase tubing over it.
I'm gonna do an update tonight (hopefully) with the new flowmeter and the some cabinet updates.
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If the rest of you plants are fine I'd guess it's not a fertilizer issue, or you would see some other indication in the rest of your plants. It's probably something affecting the Monte Carlo specifically.
How is your flow? Sometimes plants grow out and block circulation around the tank, which prevents CO2 from reaching the carpet.
After a while, Monte Carlo stems can become matted. Maybe you could try uprooting a section and replanting it to see if it grows in healthier.
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Yes, it's salvinia minima. Doesn't really need anything to grow, even easy green. I multiplies like crazy as long as there's enough light.
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On 6/10/2022 at 6:50 AM, dan12boy said:
Wait how does it become filled with calcium? Does calcium not evaporate?
Correct. Only H2O evaporates, anything else stays in the tank. So if your water source has calcium in it and you top off evaporated water, you will accumulate more and more calcium.
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On 6/16/2022 at 3:47 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:
My writing made that confusing, I'm sorry. I actually should have added the flame tests we made form evaporating the solutions that the plants were cleaned in. In brief, we saw simple, chemical reactions from the intense electron field of the carbonic acid. We saw (I may have the % wrong, it's somewhere in my notes) something akin to 40% more denaturing in the dark. So, what you said my very well occur at least partially in the light. What we found in the evaporates was largely carbonate salts from the algae Magnesium, some Sodium and some Potassium. I left a lot out as the piece became so long! But it's all available in the downloads in PDFs at the end.
I don't know though. That would be extremely cool though! It was performed as a full, factorial so it's more or less ready for such.
I don't suppose you measured pH after treatment in the dark vs. treatment in the light? That way you could tell if photosynthesis (and subsequent glucose synthesis during the Calvin cycle, which is where the carbon actually gets used) was reducing the acidity of the solution at a faster rate than you would see with only atmospheric equilibration.
It would make sense that higher CO2 levels during the duration of the "dark" treatment leads to more carbonic acid in solution, and greater denaturing of proteins. The expected result would be more carbonate salts in the evaporates since there would hypothetically be more of both reagents in the solution.
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Very cool work. CO2-bombing is a well-known strategy for pest control in terrestrial horticulture, especially in indoor grow operations for *ahem* certain plants. I personally use garbage bags filled with CO2 to manage pests on my houseplants. I don't know why I never thought of using this method for aquatic plants as well!
This could go in a journal. Each separate experiment (on chymatous zones, pest control, algae, subsequent growth rates) probably deserves an independent paper with the whole abstract-method-results-discussion shebang, just to make sure it's reproducible.
You lost me here:
On 6/15/2022 at 12:25 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:“Nothing and Something Create Each Other”
(from Chapter Two, Tao te Ching, circa 500BC)
The findings above were quite significant for us, as they helped to confirm our theories of how Reverse Respiration utilizes available energy, be it photonic or electronic, to act as an algaecide.
Although it takes countless forms, mass, light, heat, x-rays, all are ultimately just energy. Be it a rock or a bolt of lightning, both are the same stuff, a form of energy. What a mass or a form of energy is defined as is relative and depends on the observer.
It is the scale that creates the reality. If we were at the level of an atom inside of the rock, we’d see countless energetic particles moving near the speed of light. If we pull back, it’s just a motionless, dead rock. What makes it a mass is not inherent but rather where we observe it from. But in truth, it’s just the same stuff as the rest of the universe: energy.
The universal equivalence of energy is why Reverse Respiration kills algae more effectively in the dark. When light is present, the energy to facilitate photosynthesis is provided from an external source of light energy, photons. However, in darkness, with no photons for an energy source, the nearest available energy is therefore not photons but rather, the electrons in the algae itself. The proteins and enzymes become highly unstable at a pH this low and easily lose electrons (energy) in this state which in turn destroys all of the algae.
Tell me if I'm understanding correctly: You're claiming that in the absence of light, chlorophylls are "attempting" photosynthesis but somehow oxidizing the surrounding material? What is the evidence? I'm not questioning the phenomenon of algae dying, but that seems like an unlikely explanation. It seems more plausible that given high co2 + light, algae can consume enough CO2 through photosynthesis to create local microclimates of higher pH than in the surrounding solution. This might delay or even stop the "pH shift" that denatures the proteins in the algae.
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Love this. I originally started a fish tank because I lived in a dark basement apartment and I wanted to try to grow herbs hydroponically.
I never liked how sad the fish in hydroponic setups looked so I added more and more aquatic plants until I realized that it wasn't the herbs I was enjoying, it was the fish and aquatic plants.
Of course now I've gone off the deep end in ways I never imagined at the beginning. I still love it!
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On 6/15/2022 at 7:22 PM, Mmiller2001 said:
Looking pretty good! I wish I could come up with something like your arrangement. How many plants total are you going with?
Thanks, I'm going with 12 or 13. Might see how hydrocotyle leucocephala looks on the right side.
It just comes down to practice and not being afraid to change what isn't working. This is probably layout 30 for me 😆
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Pretty happy with this layout overall. I'm on a hiatus from moving plants to let everything grows in a bit more. The actual groups are pretty garbage, but once they grow in more I think it'll be good.
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On 6/13/2022 at 8:41 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:
I am no expert- but for some reason the tall plant on the far left is bothering me. Keeps drawing my eye- like I want to move it to the right or change its color. I think it would have worked better with the Java there.
When I put my hand over that plant I like it.
The myriophyllum roraima? Great minds think alike, I was just considering moving it.
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I took the java fern off the back wall and put it on a piece of driftwood to try to create another mid-ground layer, but it's kinda weird looking. I don't know if it works next to the sword plant either, I'm gonna move it around and see if I can find a better spot for it.
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That was to show what the green lines look like, I found it on Facebook. That one looks like it was grown in low light. Here's a better picture of mine. You can see the variety of leaf colors on one plant
DIY Root Tab - Capsule Suggestion
in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers
Posted
That was gonna be my suggestion. If they work so well... just use them! The osmocote will still be useful around your garden.