Seeking Guidance for Good Growth

[RadMax8]

I’ve been keeping this tank for five years now and I’ve never really been able to successfully dial in my plant growth. It’s getting a little disheartening when the only thing I can seem to grow is algae, with the occasional corkscrew Val or Amazon sword having success. I just took some measures of parameters in my tank, and I will share them as well as some photos and some hypothesis. 

Parameters:

Photos of my plants:

Here we have Rotala indica (aka Amania Bonsai), dwarf hair grass, and Hygrophila pinnatifida. 

This is green cambomba and Ludwigia natans ‘Super Red’

This is my Althernanthera variegatus, which has not really done anything. No growth, no roots. 

And finally, here is my Staur repens and my AR, which started off as a tissue culture and has slowly disintegrated. 

I don’t feel like I’m trying to grow expert-level plants here. What’s going on? I use an automatic dosing system to put PPS-Pro ferts in my tank daily, 8mL macros, 3mL micros. I also use root tabs for my root feeders. I’ve got a CO2 controller and it’s set to drop the pH a full point. My lighting consists of two Planted Plus 24/7 lights set at about 70% with no blue light and a photoperiod of 6 hours. The tank is a 40b so it’s not too tall. 

On of the big things I’ve noticed is I have a hard time keeping any Phosphate in the tank. Another issue is I’ve got hair algae (my iron is pretty high), but I’m getting BBA as well, which is usually due to insufficient CO2.  Of course, my Nitrates need to come down pretty far (been sick and out of commission for almost 2 weeks now…).

Does anyone have any thoughts on what I can do to help balance this tank? I’m looking to learn and improve, so thanks in advance!

[Mmiller2001]

What kind of substrate and how old is it? What does your water change schedule look like?

What PPM of nutrients are you dosing per week.

What model Finnex are they?

Edited November 20, 2021 by Mmiller2001

[RadMax8]

@Mmiller2001, The substrate is Brightwell Aquatics Flourin Volcanit Rio Escuro F, and it’s been in the tank for probably 4-5 years now. 

Water change is usually every week or two weeks. This last time has been longer as I was sick and unable to muster the strength.

My dosing is as follows:

• 2ppm NO3
• 0.2ppm PO4
• 2.66ppm K
• 0.2ppm Mg
• 0.05ppm Trace Elements

This is following the PPS-Pro method for the most part, although I doubled my dose of macros when it was clear my PO4 was low. 

My lights are the original Planted+ 24/7 that came out in 2015.

[Mmiller2001]

On 11/20/2021 at 10:53 PM, RadMax8 said:

@Mmiller2001, The substrate is Brightwell Aquatics Flourin Volcanit Rio Escuro F, and it’s been in the tank for probably 4-5 years now. 

Water change is usually every week or two weeks. This last time has been longer as I was sick and unable to muster the strength.

My dosing is as follows:

• 2ppm NO3
• 0.2ppm PO4
• 2.66ppm K
• 0.2ppm Mg
• 0.05ppm Trace Elements

This is following the PPS-Pro method for the most part, although I doubled my dose of macros when it was clear my PO4 was low. 

My lights are the original Planted+ 24/7 that came out in 2015.

Those are per dose totals or weekly totals?

If I remember correctly, those are per dose. Going forward, it's easier to interpret per week totals so try to calculate those numbers if you have questions. All of my suggestions are per week, and can be divided by the days you want to dose for per dose totals

 

But let's address the elephant in the room. PPS Pro, honestly, I would highly recommend moving away from PPS Pro. I, like you tried it, along with root tabs, and my tank looked like yours. It's when I moved away from it and started EI dosing that great things started to happen. Am I an advocate for EI, no, but the system works and would encourage everyone to at least try it for several months.

 

If I remember, even PPS Pro recommends 50% water changes weekly, and honestly you should be doing them. The reason to do them is to remove organics from the tank as not all is consumed by plants and to reset our nutrients each week. 50% water changes also allows us to target accumulation numbers that are easily calculated via 50% water change. Not to get too long winded, but if you have 10 gallons of water, dose 10ppm NO3 weekly, along with 50% water changes weekly, you can never have more than 20ppm NO3. So if we dosed 10ppm weekly, and tested before our water change, and had 5ppm NO3; then we know the tank consumes 5ppm per week. We could then increase our dosing to 15 ppm and over time we will maintain 20ppm at all times. Do some reading and give it a try!

 

Right now, I would do 50% water changes over the next several days, you are way high on nitrates and incredible high on Fe. Fe is probably well into over dosing zone. I imagine you are using CSM+B for micros?

 

Manually remove as much algae as possible, once the plants get healthy and start growing, top them and replant and toss out all the algae covered parts. I would drop both lights to 50% and watch for a minimum of 3 weeks. 

 

You mention the 1pH drop, that's good but you may still be too low on CO2. I would look for a 1 to 1.5pH drop. I myself am at a 1.5pH drop. Just keep an eye on your fish and go slowly.

 

My recommendation after the water changes is to dose:

20ppm KNO3

3-8ppm PO4

25ppm K

.5ppm Fe(Proxy) from CSM+B

 

again, those are per week totals. So if you auto dose, mix your solution to per dose. Example, I want to dose 3 times a week: 20ppm/3days=6.66ppm per dose or 6.7ppm rounded up. And so on!

All of this is dependent on a 50% water change. And STOP****root tabs, they are more problems than they are worth when working with CO2.

 

Sorry this is TL/DR, hope this helps. Look here for some great information, helped me tons.

https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/choosing-co2-why

 

If you look at the last few pages of my journal, you will see how water column dosing is all that's needed. I use no root tabs. 

 

I forgot to mention, I would try moving to 5dGH and 3dKH to 0dKH. Maintaining a 4:1 to 2:1 Ca:Mg ratio are the recommended ratios.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Mmiller2001

[RadMax8]

@Mmiller2001 Thanks for taking the time for such a thorough write up. I will be spending some time rereading your suggestions and branching out and reading some of the other suggested material. If my path to success is through a fundamental change, that’s fine. I’m ready to go a different path, as mine has not yielded fruitful results. 

Thanks again.

[RadMax8]

@Mmiller2001 So I water changed a few times, stopped dosing, and on Monday I started my EI adventure. It hasn’t even been a week, but I can already see a difference. My Staur repens, which was slowly and painfully dying, had begun growing new, healthy leaves. My last twigs of true Rotala indica (aka amania bonsai) are showing signs of life… some new growth and I can see some roots coming off the final leafless node. Heck, even my dwarf hair grass has some bright green strands. 

I know I need to make some adjustments, but I’m going to take a slow and steady approach and not make any changes for three weeks. After that, I’ll make adjustments based on what I’ve learned. Below are some adjustments I will make:

• I know my temp is a little low because my house is at 67 degrees and my tank is open. I don’t think 150W is enough juice to get me to 78 degrees
• My CO2 doesn’t hit the level I’ve got my controller set to, and I’m not sure why
• The flow in my tank is straight up garbage. I am going to make a spray bar and relocate my intake

At some point, I will update my auto-dosing system, as I have a Jebao and it doesn’t seem to be flexible enough for solution-based EI. Dry salt isn’t very sustainable for me because I have a job that in normal times requires travel. I think I’ve found an affordable option but that will require more research. 

It’s early days, but things are looking up. Next reading project is checking out your journal!

[Mmiller2001]

Excellent. 

When I first started EI, things went well too. But then I found out that I was over calculating my water volume. I figured my 75 gallon was about 71 gallons. Turned out it was closer to 66 gallons. When I recalculated for 66 gallons, things got interesting! I was then advised to lower my CSM+B even more, and add DTPA 11% to keep Fe higher. That made a huge difference too.

Here's my dosing now. If you have any questions, please ask. I front load all my Macros, so all I do now is dose Micros daily.

 

Edited December 11, 2021 by Mmiller2001