Peat And Co2 And Carbon?

[fazerob]

Hi,

I've been running my first planted tank for around six weeks, everything is going pretty well and plant growth is good (with the exception of my amazon sword which just refuses to grow!). I have noticed though that after initial growth spurts, most of my plant growth seems to slow off - I guess this is maybe to be expected and I'm not too concerned since I don't want to spend every day pruning them

But, I wanna make sure I'm providing the best conditions, so:

My Fluval has the standard carbon filtration, I've added peat (which has brought down hardness from very to moderate and PH from 7 to 6.8 ), and then Biomax. I've read on these boards that peat can cause inaccurate CO2 test results (CO2 is reading at about 19ppm at present) Should I remove it?

Also that the Carbon can inhibit plant growth - should I remove this too? If so, can anyone recommend what I should replace it with?

I've also just started adding Nutrafin PlantGro which seems to have helped a little, not sure what else I might use? (I don't really want to go the EI route, seems a bit too onerous for me )

Many Thanks
Rob

 

[Graeme Edwards]

Hi Fazorb,

I dont know about peat efecting the Co2 readings, i cant see it afecting your plant growth thats for sure.
The problem with the Amazon sward could be a lack of ion, try getting some fertilizer tablets that are high in ion to put at its roots.
Carbon will strip the fertilizer from the water colum, but you can get around this by dosing daily.

Regards
Graeme.

 

[George Farmer]

Activated carbon does absorb everything in the water

Not strictly true. Nitrogen compounds for example . You are along the right lines though of course, activated carbon does adsorb a lot of elements.

fazerob,

You would be wise to remove your carbon as suggested. It does remove some nutrients that the plants need. Dosing daily can be done but why waste money on ferts and carbon?

Peat lowers KH that in turn will lower pH. It will not affect you CO2 readings as these two are intrinsically linked and your CO2 table will take this into account.

Some Amazon swords prefer harder water so you could try removing your peat. Moody's suggestion of adding iron to the surrounding substrate should help.

 

[fazerob]

Many thanks guys for all you advice

I'm going to remove my carbon today and replace it with some filter floss, will leave the peat in for now since everything else is doing fine (& the fish seem to like it!)…. and I’ll try adding some iron

Cheers
Rob