Just My Bad Luck Or Potential Advice To Noobs ?

[Dave Spencer]

Your plants are turning to mush, which suggests a carbon deficiency. I reckon pressurised CO2 is the answer. Run it at 30ppm and keep the TPN+ dosing up.

Dave.

 

[aaronnorth]

Your plants are turning to mush, which suggests a carbon deficiency. I reckon pressurised CO2 is the answer. Run it at 30ppm and keep the TPN+ dosing up.

Dave.

dont you think the carbon levels will be ok? He has just under 1wpg T5 with liquid carbon. Surely it shouldnt be too much of a problem?

 

[three-fingers]

I've once again found myself opening up Diana Walstad's 'Ecology of the Planted Aquarium' right now , to see what it said about ammonia toxicity in plants (pages 20-21).
The gist of it is that studies show it varies greatly between species as to what levels they can tolerate. If I remember correctly, most aquarium test kits show the total of both ammonium and ammonia in the results (I think Seachem makes one that doesn't) and with regards to pH, the more acidic the water, the less ammonia present in it, as the equilibrium will shift more towards non-toxic ammonium.
Written in the book it says that for every 1 pH unit increase, there's 10x more ammonia.
So it would rely fairly heavily on pH as to how much toxic ammonia is really in there.

In cycling a planted tank I would expect too see some species suffering if the pH is high, but unless your really unlucky and just happen to buy all ammonia sensitive species, it shouldn't be worth worrying about too much - just buy plants, cycle and replace any that die.
Also, with a more acidic pH, it would be even less of an issue.

plants can be shocked by different water parameters, but it isnt common. Your friends tank may of had a high kH, therefore the java fern was able to take bicarbonates out of the water for a source of carbon. As soon as this source is taken away, the plant has to either adapt to try and find another source, or use another source of energy to make RuBisCo but There are lots of variables.

I think the above says it all about vallis.
I had terrible luck with it from the start (having very soft slightly acidic to neutral water out of the tap), but kept on trying with buying it from different places. Eventually it took hold and is now extremely vigorous in my tank - still in soft water at pH 6 (probably even lower sometimes).

I don't at all think there would be a carbon issue here though, and if there is, it would be impossible to pin it down to that right now.
Injecting CO2 would lower the pH though, so even if it's not a carbon deficiency it might help. But it's a hell of an expensive way to go about solving one issue that the tanks having, especially since the problems will likely vanish after cycling is complete.

I think the issues here are due to any combination of many possible issues at the moment.

My advice would simply be to keep on cycling and buy different species of plants if you wish, everything seems fine, it's like Aaron said "no two tanks are the same".

 

[Dave Spencer]

I have grown vallis in very soft water. After a little die off, it soon flourished. Having said that, I hate the look of it.

If the plants are fading away, it is carbon. You need pressurised CO2 in this tank to make it non limiting.

Dave.

 

[aaronnorth]

I've once again found myself opening up Diana Walstad's 'Ecology of the Planted Aquarium' right now , to see what it said about ammonia toxicity in plants (pages 20-21).

guess what i have sat on my knee too

 

[three-fingers]

If the plants are fading away, it is carbon. You need pressurised CO2 in this tank to make it non limiting.

Dave.

I have to disagree with that, I still have no idea how you are pinning it down to carbon when there's so much else to consider, and even if it was carbon, the plants should really be able to adapt to cope (often thrive) with limited carbon...

guess what i have sat on my knee too

It's invaluable to me even just for the chemistry explanations in it...I ended up with a C in higher level chemistry, I may have done better if I had this book first .

 

[aaronnorth]

lol, it is very useful. just read the NH3 toxicity, and it does vary quite a lot

 

[Dave Spencer]

All parameters have a lower threshold. If there is not enough available carbon, the plants will dissolve.

What are we suggesting is the cause? Not ph shock, please. Let`s not start adding crushed coral for our plants, too.

Plants are approximately 50% dry wieght. Somebody tell me that adding more readily available carbon via pressurised CO2 won`t pick these plants up.

Dave.

 

[three-fingers]

All parameters have a lower threshold. If there is not enough available carbon, the plants will dissolve.

What are we suggesting is the cause? Not ph shock, please. Let`s not start adding crushed coral for our plants, too.

Plants are approximately 50% dry wieght. Somebody tell me that adding more readily available carbon via pressurised CO2 won`t pick these plants up.

Dave.

Have you read the rest of the thread? Lot's of potential causes.

Again, what makes you think it's a carbon issue? Given all the info about the tank, I think it's very unlikely.

Your right about plants dissolving when there's not enough carbon, but in general plants are adaptable and lots of species can deal very well with low levels of CO2, and there are other sources of carbon too. Also, plants will dissolve for many other reasons, so you cant just use 'dissolving' to pin down a carbon deficiency .

Humans are made of of 50% water, giving someone whose suffocating a glass of water isnt going to help though .

 

[Dave Spencer]

Humans are made of of 50% water, giving someone whose suffocating a glass of water isnt going to help though .

Yep! that`s the same.

So adding pressurised CO2 won`t improve the situation? Is that what you are saying to me?

What is the problem with this tank, then, in your opinion? What makes plant disintegrate in this manner? Carbon, that`s what.

Dave.

 

[three-fingers]

OK, I can see this is going in circles and you don't seem interested enough to read the rest of the thread, or if you have, even attempt at discussing or acknowledging points mentioned.

For example, you obviously don't like my analogy, but haven't bothered explaining why...

As I have already covered, injecting CO2 may help (even if it's not a carbon issue), but it's not needed - and considering the cost, would be an impracticable solution to suggest to most people.

Your method of deduction seems incredibly unscientific, which is very surprising considering the usual quality of your posts.

Plants are dying, plants die without carbon, so lets add blindly add more carbon into the tank to solve the problem?

Care to explain?

 

[SuperColey1]

Maybe along the wrong lines but if ammonia poisoning was viable would we not have to wait a wek or so before planting into fresh ADA AS?

No idea on the ppms but just a query

AC

 

[three-fingers]

Maybe along the wrong lines but if ammonia poisoning was viable would we not have to wait a wek or so before planting into fresh ADA AS?

No idea on the ppms but just a query

AC

ADA AS lowers the pH a lot IME, which would mean the equilibrium would shift greatly towards non-toxic ammonium.

So you shouldn't notice any effects with AS.

 

[Dave Spencer]

For example, you obviously don't like my analogy, but haven't bothered explaining why...

Simply because I was talking about the dry weight. Aquatic plants, like us, are mostly water. Take away the water, and the main constituent is carbon, the building brick of life. So, we can rule out a water deficiency.

Your method of deduction seems incredibly unscientific, which is very surprising considering the usual quality of your posts.

Plants are dying, plants die without carbon, so lets add blindly add more carbon into the tank to solve the problem?

Care to explain?

What else causes plant to disappear like this? Ammonia? pH shock? Read the Ecology of the Planted aquarium as much as you like (most of us have on this thread), but sometimes you only need to look at the tank.

Have you read the rest of the thread? Lot's of potential causes.

Could you list these please?

Dave.

 

[three-fingers]

Simply because I was talking about the dry weight. Aquatic plants, like us, are mostly water. Take away the water, and the main constituent is carbon, the building brick of life. So, we can rule out a water deficiency.

OK, you seem to ignore questions, post irrelevant facts and go on to make a faulty/premature conclusion.
All the while, your use of certain emoticons infers a mocking tone which to me suggests a level of arrogance. I'm terribly sorry if that's not the case, but surely you can understand why I would read your posts like that .

I mean yes plants and humans are mostly water, and yes the next main molecule is water.
But, referring to my analogy, that does not mean a water deficiency is impossible in humans. And at no point did I ever imply in the slightest that the plants would have a water deficiency. You seem to have totally misunderstood my simple analogy.

I'll break it down for you:
Your reasoning is that the plants are dying, and that plants are made up of a large part of carbon, so giving them more carbon has to solve the issue.

My analogy replaced plants with humans. In my analogy, a human is dying (I mentioned suffocating because it is a symptom with many causes - like plants going brown and dying), and we are mainly made of water so going by your method of thinking, giving this person water will save them. Which is blatantly not the case.

What else causes plant to disappear like this? Ammonia? pH shock? Read the Ecology of the Planted aquarium as much as you like (most of us have on this thread), but sometimes you only need to look at the tank.

I'm going to list the possible reasons listed for this case below, underneath the last quote in this post. It's important to note however that these are only some of the reasons plants can die like this - there's many more, just the others aren't relevant to this case.

You don't need to read that book to see why your method of thinking isn't reliable. I'm struggling to believe that you have read thet book, personally.

You have obviously had great success with plants in the past, and from your attitude seems to be like that of the proverbial (or maybe not quite so yet) old fish keeper who doesn't do water changes and adds aquarium salt to his fish tanks, he is very experienced and has had great success relying on the look of his fish and his gut to tell him when to do a water change or add more salt.

In other words, very unscientific, your methods have worked for you, but don't hold up to scrutiny.

I ask you, hopefully the last time - is there any specific evidence whatsoever you can see that would point to a carbon deficiency?
Or is this merely a gut feeling you have from the pictures?

Because if it's just a gut feeling, I feel that advising somebody to invest in a CO2 system is terrible advice to give on a forum (with the evidence supplied). Maybe useful if you work in an LFS and are trying to sell things, but considering the evidence in this thread against a carbon deficiency (use of liquid carbon), and the presence of multiple other possibilities for the dying plants, I believe that method of thinking should stay off internet forums.

Could you list these please?

Ammonia poisoning.
Non-aquatic plants dying off.
Various environmental "shocks" that people have experienced (specifically relating to the vallis in this tank), not pH shock, you are the only one to mention that here.

I am still left with the impression that you have jumped into all of your posts here without reading the rest of the thread. At least I hope that's the case.