Ugf And Canister Combo

[three-fingers]

I know it isn't fashionable to say this, but there are good arguments for choosing plants that thrive in your tank, rather than worrying about why other plants don't succeed. I'm a big fan of starting out with the indestructible species (like Anubias, Cryptocoryne wendtii, and Vallisneria spiralis) and once they're settled, add the more delicate species. If they succeed, great; if not, pull 'em out.

Yes, I agree, this isn't the way to create an Amano-type tank with a firm ground plan of which plant species are going to go where. But that isn't how I create planted tanks, so I don't care!

Cheers, Neale

And that's the way I always recommend people start out too, saves so much time and effort. I've heard sooo many people switch to plastic plants due to incorrect plant choice/unwillingness to put effort into growing plant that it's actually quite saddening.

I personally mix thing up even more, currently running 5wpg of T5 with no CO2 or any ferts . Used the high-tech method many times, and its great, but I prefer more natural looking "jungle style" tanks with loads of photosynthesis and nutrient uptake going on (driven by the high light) that keeps the water conditions pristine for the animal inhabitants. They key to success (a.k.a algae avoidance) as I see it, is simply choosing the right combination of plant species.

If it's just the plants and/or design using plants your interested in, then a full-blown high-tech method will let you grow anything and isnt very hard, but doesnt always provide optimal conditions for the animal species your interested in.

There's no single correct method for planted tanks.

All I can say is...if it wasn't for Java fern's amazing ability to thrive in my under-gravel filter driven, very low light, very high nutrient (5 well fed goldfish + others in a 70L tank) system 8-9 years ago...I undoubtedly wouldn't have made it this long in the hobby, have a job at the lfs or have a place doing marine and freshwater biology at uni.

Here's to the humble Java fern .

The Crypts could be tied to bogwood in theory, but their huge root structure will look untidy.

Indeed, some suppliers actually sell them like this ...usually at least with a little bit of rock wool though. Not quite suited to be planted this way for most tanks though, usually requires extra macro and micro fert dosing into the water column - not what most new fish keepers want to be thinking about. Especially with all those nutrient and lighting myths going about .

 

[waterdrop]

One of the areas I still completely don't understand about plants is the whole issue of (some plants? sometimes?) dying completely or partially back but then re-growing out of it even though the tank conditions stay the same.

Now I've personally experienced this with my red crypt wendtii going all the way down to just the roots and crown (after starting excel) and then it came back (I understand this one more or less) but I also experienced it with a second large addition of java ferns I got from a friend and in this case it wasn't excel related I don't think, just a move from his tank to mine.

The reason I bring it up in this discussion is to follow up on 3fingers comments. I think that sort of die-back stuff and also the common thing of beginners having tanks that are just sort of sterile, the beginners not yet knowing about nutrients that may be the two most common things that cause a lot of disappointment right at the beginning, when a little more patience might be (indeed, should be!) rewarded.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Crypts are notorious for "crypt melt" WD. It is not at all unusual to end up with nothing but a root clump right after moving a crypt around. They will just melt on you if you change them around much. Often they come back just fine in their new home but I think they are worse than a ficus when it comes to being moved.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, should have used that phrase as I do know about crypt melt. But what about other plants? I have this feeling that a lot of them suffer after being moved. How true is that?

WD

 

[Dave Spencer]

Yes, should have used that phrase as I do know about crypt melt. But what about other plants? I have this feeling that a lot of them suffer after being moved. How true is that?

WD

I think “Crypt melt” can be the result of placing emersed, unlimited growth plants in to an immersed environment where carbon availability suddenly becomes a major limiting factor in the growth of the plant. A major change in the physiology of the plant is required, resulting in the dissolving of the emersed growth.

When I start a new tank I have CO2 levels sky high to absolutely maximize plant growth early on. Planting emersed growth Crypts in to this environment has yet to result in my Crypts dissolving. My thoughts are that it is because the plant doesn`t go through a particularly dramatic change in carbon availability. Later on, I slowly reduce the CO2 levels for fish introduction, but the slow and undramatic change in carbon levels once again shows no sign of the plants dissolving.

These are only my thoughts due to my experiences, but I always find carbon availability is a major player in our woes and successes.

Dave.

 

[waterdrop]

Interesting Dave, when my tank was new I'll bet the CO2 was the opposite of sky high. There was no CO2 or liquid carbon additive and of course the spraybar was carefully placed to disturb the surface, where it was dutifully performing the double-edged sword of adding some oxygen for the bacteria and future fish and yet allowing more than the usual amount of CO2 to gas off, lowering the CO2 even further from what it would be if the water were just standing.

There's ample evidence of the central role of CO2, or, more specifically, carbon. First, its rather obvious to a newcomer that planted tank hobbyists wouldn't go to the trouble and pay out hundreds of dollars/pounds for a complicated, slightly safety-risky device just to enhance the levels of basically only one of the 17 or so nutrients that plants need, unless it made a big difference. Secondly, there's plenty of literature supporting the importance of the C nutrient. For me this was yet another area where I found Diana's chapter(s) to be fascinating (not that I believe everything she puts forward, but she's about the only person who's managed to get into print with aquarium directed water chem topics.) The lasting shock for me has been how poorly evolved most plants are at obtaining C underwater, so many really have an emersion component to their time cycle rather than being adapted to full submersion.

OK, I didn't mean to repeat basic fundamentals so much there, sorry, but I'm still striving to establish a fundamental simplicity to my image of why/how plants use carbon. So far, my understanding is that more than any of the other many things, its the making of sugars, the sugars that then carry energy thoughout the plant that's so central. This, I believe, is the idea of thinking of the carbon then as *food* (or key to food) in the plant's "point of view.) (Carbon Dioxide is the raw material.. wait a minute, let me get this worked out.. some of the light energy goes into ATP, one of the enzymes that helps drive Krebs but CO2 is the raw material that's getting turned into organic materials (the sugars) that are carrying chemical bond energy to cells if I'm remembering some of that cell biology correctly.)

So, am I right? Is it not a stretch to say that we can think of CO2 as "food" for plants and that they are "starving" in our human sense of that word if they are not getting enough CO2? (Gee, , let's not get into the analogy of feeding all our plants lots of CO2 being like making sure there's a food joint on every corner to make everybody fat! Sorry, obviously I think stream-of-conciousness thinking is part of the entertainment of forum life, hey, this is supposed to be our off-work recreation, right? ) OK, so anyway, since C atoms make such great "backbones" for the vast majority of organic molecules, they were a fantastic way for "mother-evolution" to build a "chemistry of life" eh?, hanging all the other important actors, like OH groups and N's and P's and K's off in the right places, gee, you've gotta just love it in its massive complexity but ultimate simple beauty!

Sigh, by now I've taken the wife to the gym and more or less forgotten the point of my argument and question but I think I was going to question why my big bunches of java ferns that were simply floating in masses in my friend's tank (across town, so his water supply may be different) (he doesn't have CO2 and actually there may have been no fish in the tank) would go through a large die-back after being introduced into my tank. This seems different than the crypts!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[nmonks]

Anyone who keeps plants of any kind will be familiar with them dying back when moved. It's what they do. Garden plants, houseplants, aquarium plants. There's an increasing understanding that plants don't operate on their own, but in a complex symbiosis with fungi and bacteria. When you move a plant, you break this connection, and it takes a while to get recreated. The mycorrhizal symbioses between roses and fungi are probably the best known examples of this, at least among gardeners. The bottom line is that plants just don't like being moved. They usually recover, but they don't like it initially.

A lot of aquarium plants sold in shops are the above-the-waterline form, since these plants grow faster and more easily grown as bog rather than submerged plants. When put in the tank, they shed their aerial leaves and begin growing aquatic leaves. One good reason to buy potted plants is that you can see if the pot has new growth, in which case it'll transplant to your aquarium all the more easily. Single plantlets sold by mail order usually come from nurseries where the plants are being grown above the waterline, and will often die back a bit when added to your tank.

Some plants also have a seasonal dying back. If you walk around your garden in autumn, you'll see lots of plants doing this, either shedding all their leaves, or switching to smaller, more frost/wind resistant foliage. My Venus' flytraps are doing precisely this on a nice cool windowsill, with traps half the size of their summer ones. Aponogeton is the classic aquarium example, and if kept in a tank for more than a year, it will die back. You need to rest the tuber. I've also noticed Vallisneria going through cycles, and whether it's precisely the same thing I can't say, but sometimes they grow faster than at other times.

CO2 is not food. It's technically what biologists call a carbon source, but only one of them. Aquatic plants use carbonic acid, and some aquatic plants also use bicarbonate, a mineral ion (this is biogenic decalcification and extremely important to hard water aquarium plants such as Elodea).

Plants are incredibly clever in terms of their organic chemistry. They contain far less protein than animals because they can create all sorts of things using sugars instead of protein. So while animals have to find lots and lots of nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus to make structural tissues, plants use far less, relying on cellulose and lignin instead. This allows plants to grow both quickly (see: weeds) and massive (see: trees).

Cheers, Neale

 

[waterdrop]

That first paragraph was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. I'm not a plant person in other areas like gardening or houseplants and so don't have these other experiences to draw from. Thanks for the insight.

Also thanks for stopping me before I went too far with my CO2 and food analogy. We humans do all too much of that sort of projecting ourselves onto the problem to try and understand it!

Clearly my java ferns didn't like the change of tanks, I'll probably never quite know the main causes of that.

WD