Dry Start Method

[Ps3Steveo]

Just wondering if anyone has done this as my 35 has all of a sudden become overgrown with algae and its seriously affecting my stems. I was thinking of draining the tank and doing a dry start to bring everything back? Thing I'm worried about is do the plants grow completely immersed and melt on flooding or do they grow like the Tropica 1-2 grow plants and have minimal melt?

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Thought this was to do with biology lol.

 

[BigTom]

I can't really advise about the dry start, having never done it myself (although I'd expect to see a lot of melt - the plants will need to transition to emersed and then back to submerged growth), but I rather think you should be looking to address the cause of the algae instead of starting over, otherwise it'll all just happen again.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

The cause of the algae was the filter I bought which said was full of mature media and wasn't and then the reg I bought wouldn't settle on a uniform bubble count but now its all sorted most of my plants have been out competed by algae so gonna trim them up and dry start as I have little patience .

 

[BigTom]

Hah, fair enough. I think the general consensus on DSM is that it's worth it if you're growing things, especially carpet plants, that benefit from vigorous root growth early on. However, with stems and the like, it's probably not worth it if they have to go through two transition phases - quicker just to flood and be done.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Hmmm, I'm in two minds, either way gonna need to cut any good growth off the stems and re plant so might be worth flooding but if they have any of the algae on them its gonna be difficult as its the brown slime type, not diatoms the other stuff which I cant be bothered to find the tech name of lol, but its so hard to get rid of so that sways me towards the dry start. Might just pull it all apart and buy 9 1-2 grow pots as they're going great in my other scape.