glosso hates me

[sandro]

I just tore out my third attempt at growing a glosso carpet in my 10 gallon tank I've got a 28 w compact fluorescent bulb as well as a 14 w fluorescent bulb over the tank, so 4.2 w / gallon. CO2 through a nutrafin system, and I've been fertilizing with flourish as well as fluorish tabs in the substrate (which is just sand). I've planted glosso 3 times now around the foreground, and I've had the same result every time: it doesn't grow at all. It just slowly turns black and dies. The pH of the water seems to be about 6.8. My dwarf hairgrass seems to be having problems too, except it's at least staying alive ... it's just not spreading.

Any ideas why this may be happening? Is 4.2 w /gallon not enough light for this size of tank? I would think the glosso would at least grow upwards if that were the case. Does this maybe sound like the sand substrate is a problem?

 

[Nospherith]

are the bulbs plant bulbs? even though I have a 55w plant bulb, my glosso didn't start growing until I changed the 15w from it's stock bulb to a 6700K. (3.5wpg over a 20g)

how are your other plants doing, besides the dwarf grass? observing the growth on a dependable plant such as hygrophelia or rotala rotundifolia would let you determine wether or not this problem is specific to the glosso or not.

 

[sandro]

Yep, tried that too. A month and a half ago or so I changed the compact fluorescent to a coralife 6700K (used to have a 50/50), and the 14w fluorescent is a life-glo 2 (6700K).

My other plants are growing like mad. I just chopped down my bacopa carolineana because it was growing so fast it needed constant maintenance, and I have a bunch of java fern that's also growing completely out of control. It's only the carpet plants that seem to be having problems, which is why I'm wondering if it could be the substrate.

I've heard that with small tanks (10 g and smaller) the watts per gallon rule doesn't hold true anymore, they require stronger light. Could this be the problem since carpet plants require so much light?

 

[houndour]

I haven't got a clue...and i'm just expressing my opinion....

I've been looking up glosso to carpet my 5 gallon tank. I'll have 24 watts, so nearly 5 wpg, co2, ferts. but i was planning on a sand substrate. Someone...Zig maybe, said they werent sure if glosso would grow well without a nutrient rich substrate. and everywhere i've read says it needs an iron rich substrate.

Now after reading your lack of luck with this stuff I think I'm going to spend the £20 on an entire fluorite substrate.

Have you tested your nitrates? have you tested for iron (altho everyone says they're inaccurate)?

Maybe it does need the iron rich substrate to flourish?

 

[Lateral Line]

How hard is your water? Glosso doesn't thrive in hard water. I'm guessing it's low because your pH is pretty low, but it may be worth having a look.

 

[Angry_Platy]

I've been looking up glosso to carpet my 5 gallon tank. I'll have 24 watts, so nearly 5 wpg, co2, ferts. but i was planning on a sand substrate. Someone...Zig maybe, said they werent sure if glosso would grow well without a nutrient rich substrate. and everywhere i've read says it needs an iron rich substrate.

I have carpetting glosso in my tank with a sand substrate. I have 3.2 wpg lighting and I inject CO2 as well as use liquid and tablet ferts. I have had it growing now for approx 3 weeks and so far it has carpetted 1/2 of the bottom of my tank (still a fine carpet but growing strong)....I got a few small bits....

I would highly recommened it for a planted tank

 

[sandro]

Thanks to everyone for your replies ... I ended up forking out the $ to buy some test kits today in order to try and get some leads on what's wrong with my tank. I bought a new pH test kit as my old was just too old to trust, a KH / GH test kit, and an NO3 test kit. The results were pretty surprising, and so I repeated the tests - same results. So here goes:

pH: 7.0
GH: 60 mg / L
KH: 20 mg / L
NO3: 5 mg / L

I'm still trying to figure out how to determine the CO2 levels with a CO2 calculator.

I did a 50% water change the other day when I was doing some maintenance on the tank, but those levels strike me as kind of low! However, I'm new to the water chemistry thing so I might just be misinterpreting things. Do these levels seem ok?

Not sure if this matters, but I did add a dose of fertilizer post-water change, as well as the 1/2 teaspoon of salt I always add (the fish seem to do better with a tiny amount of salt in the water, and the plants haven't minded for the last year and a half that i've been doing it).

 

[Nospherith]

How hard is your water? Glosso doesn't thrive in hard water. I'm guessing it's low because your pH is pretty low, but it may be worth having a look.

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I've heard that before, and luckily it doesn't apply to my tank. I have extremely alkaline water, +425ppm gH, and +300ppm kH. The glosso is doing fine but I also noticed that it started growing once I started maintaing NO3 levels at 10-20ppm and dosing PO4 and K+ regularly.

 

[sandro]

OK, so I tested the KH and NO3 of my tank again today, same results. The KH is at 1.12 dh (20 mg/L) and the NO3 is at 5 mg/L. So, the CO2 levels in my tank are down around 3.15 mg/L. No wonder the glosso isn't growing.

I'm using a nutrafin CO2 system. The filter is a power filter, but I keep the tank topped up to minimize splashing and surface agitation. Any ideas why the amount of CO2 is so low in my tank?

 

[houndour]

how often do you change the mixture in your nutrafin unit and are u using your own yeast mixture or the sachets?

 

[sandro]

I've been changing the mixture about every 2 weeks, with the last change having been 4 days ago. I've been using the packets until now, but I was planning on using my own mixtures from now on as I just ran out of the packets.

 

[zig]

Hiya Sandro

I would suspect your filter is to powerful or maybe the mix you are useing isnt enough, do you make up your own mix or are you useing the pre bought satchets?

On a 10 gallon you should have no problem producing enough co2 with 1 nutrafin unit.

I run 2 units on a 42 gallon and ive no problems getting 30ppm, you should be aiming for 30ppm co2.

Your Kh is very low at 20ppm or 1.1 degrees, you should consider buffering your water with bicarbonate of soda, one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda will raise the Kh of 13 gallons or 50 liters of water by 4 degrees, ideally a Kh of 3 or above is desireable if you are useing co2, with a low Kh you run the risk of a Ph crash, water with a low Kh can have large Ph swings if you use co2, if you buffer the water it will also raise your Ph, if you do consider this you should do it slowly, raise it a little at each water change until you reach the desired level, like i say 3 is good, and then you would top it up each time you do a water change to keep the level constant.

Anyway thats the bad news, but lots of people have to buffer their water, i also have a low Kh of 1.7, my ph drops to 6.2 in order for me to get 30ppm, so im borderline as well, but i dont get Ph swings so i havent buffered my water yet, anyway like i say just something to keep in mind.

 

[sandro]

OK, just so I have this straight then: if I add sodium bicarbonate, my KH and pH should increase, but my GH should remain stable, right? This is assuming I'm making no changes to the CO2 mixture just yet, as I'm trying to diagnose this one step at a time.

Thanks for the suggestions!