What do I do now?

[Byron]

Awesome, I’ll look into water sprite later today. I have a water wasteria stem plant but it doesn’t look like it’s doing to well and I can’t keep it in the substrate. I was thinking of going to one of the smaller aquarium stores in the area and seeing if they had any that looked better than the petsmart one. Would that be a good idea or should I replace it all together with a different plant?

Wisteria (species is Hygrophila difformis) is a stem plant and like most all stem plants therefore fast growing. Fast growing plants need more intense lighting to drive photosynthesis so they can grow, and in balance more nutrients. When planted in the substrate, light getting down to the lower leaves may be the issue. Wisteria can be grown floating. This way it is closer to the light so that issue is often resolved, but it may need more nutrients.

Nutrients occur from the fish being fed, and from water changes. This can be sufficient, depending upon the fish load and how much they are fed, along with the species and number of plants. Fewer plants and/or slower growing plants, require less nutrients than faster growing plants.

Are you using any plant fertilizer? If the Wisteria and other plants are growing fairly well now, and the only issue is it popping out from the substrate, there may bee no need for further fertilization.

 

[Deidre Bunch]

Wisteria (species is Hygrophila difformis) is a stem plant and like most all stem plants therefore fast growing. Fast growing plants need more intense lighting to drive photosynthesis so they can grow, and in balance more nutrients. When planted in the substrate, light getting down to the lower leaves may be the issue. Wisteria can be grown floating. This way it is closer to the light so that issue is often resolved, but it may need more nutrients.

Nutrients occur from the fish being fed, and from water changes. This can be sufficient, depending upon the fish load and how much they are fed, along with the species and number of plants. Fewer plants and/or slower growing plants, require less nutrients than faster growing plants.

Are you using any plant fertilizer? If the Wisteria and other plants are growing fairly well now, and the only issue is it popping out from the substrate, there may bee no need for further fertilization.

Hi,
The wisteria plant was dying or something. The roots all fell off and the leaves had holes in them so I returned it. My plan is to get a water sprite or a different floater in yhe nrar future. Everything else seems to be growing well but I’m not using any fertilizer at the moment. The lady at the fish store told me that water wisteria and water sprite are the same plant. She also told me that if I wanted plants to help with the fish waste and nitrates I’d have to have more plants than room for fish and that plants are basically decoration.

 

[Byron]

Hi,
The wisteria plant was dying or something. The roots all fell off and the leaves had holes in them so I returned it. My plan is to get a water sprite or a different floater in yhe nrar future. Everything else seems to be growing well but I’m not using any fertilizer at the moment. The lady at the fish store told me that water wisteria and water sprite are the same plant. She also told me that if I wanted plants to help with the fish waste and nitrates I’d have to have more plants than room for fish and that plants are basically decoration.

I do wish store staff had to learn a few things before they are allowed to advise customers. But that is probably a lost cause dream.

Wisteria is the species Hygrophila difformis, Water Sprite is the species Ceratopteris cornuta. However, use of common names may well be totally confused, as these are often local or regional, since they have absolutely no factual scientific basis.

Plants take up ammonia/ammonium rapidly and in considerable volume. The faster they grow as a species, the more they do this. Floating plants are very fast growers so they are good at this benefit. It is true it is not the only thing, but it sure helps.

 

[Deidre Bunch]

I do wish store staff had to learn a few things before they are allowed to advise customers. But that is probably a lost cause dream.

Wisteria is the species Hygrophila difformis, Water Sprite is the species Ceratopteris cornuta. However, use of common names may well be totally confused, as these are often local or regional, since they have absolutely no factual scientific basis.

Plants take up ammonia/ammonium rapidly and in considerable volume. The faster they grow as a species, the more they do this. Floating plants are very fast growers so they are good at this benefit. It is true it is not the only thing, but it sure helps.

Yeah, it’s hard for someone like me who is so new to all of this because all of the forums and different people I talk to have different opinions. This particular woman owns a little mom and pop fish store in my area and since they’ve been open since like 1975 she “knows a thing or two about fish keeping”. I figured I’d go ahead and get more plants and if it doesn’t help then at least it’s pretty, no harm no foul.

 

[Deidre Bunch]

An update on my readings. I’m still getting around 0.25-0.50 ppm Ammonia, depending on the lighting, 0 Nitrite and between 10.0-20.0 Nitrate. Since my well water has 0.25-0.50 ppm Ammonia I was told to do a PWC with conditioned spring water and then run my tests to see if my well water is “tainting” my ammonia test. I don’t know how long I have to wait after a PWC before I can test and get accurate results but when I did test them I had what seemed to be between 0-0.25 pm Ammonia, the same Nitrite and 10.0 ppm Nitrate. It was hard to use the jugs of water because I couldn’t get the temp quite right, the room temp one dropped my tanks temperature a couple degrees so I put the second in a bucket of hot water to try and raise it a little and it went up a lot more than expected. I waited about 30 minutes and then I added the hotter jug simultaneously with a room temp jug to try and balance them and the temp in the tank rose back up. I’m a little worried about that kinda of fluctuation for my fish.