Help! Glosso dissappearing...

[gfink]

I had a decent glosso carpet for a while, and it has progressively gotten thinner and thinner, to the point where it is almost gone now. All other plants are flourishing. :?

Only change I can think of is pH. I have very, very soft water(kh 3, GH 4), and my apple snail's shell was dissolving into the tank water! I added some crushed egg shells (good source of calcium carbonate, boiled first to sterilize) to my filter to increase kH.

Well that worked, but my pH also has slowly climbed up 7.8 or so.

Would the high pH kill off the glosso? Is anyone keeping glosso in a high pH tank?

 

[PrettyFishies]

Glosso needs Co2... you didn't mention what you were doing for Co2 addition.

 

[gfink]

I have DIY CO2.

I did successfully keep it for 6 months to a year, and only now it it dying off. Previously it grew and spreadout. CO2 is the same, light is the same, fertz are the same...only kH and pH have changed as mentioned above.

Here is a pict of my tank from 7/25/06. You can see the glosso was doing well then.

 

[rkilling1]

How old are the light bulbs?

 

[gfink]

Hmmm...I'll have to look it up, but I am guessing they are getting close to a year old. They are CF type bulbs. Maybe it is time to replace them.

 

[Purrbox]

Yup... recommended you change them every 9-12 months. While you can run them until they die, there's still some color shift.

 

[malkore]

I'm not so sure its the bulbs. I kept glosso with really old bulbs, and I'm pretty sure Tom Barr keeps it with barely 2wpg of NO bulbs. he's all about the CO2 though...

what is your actual CO2 level at? I'd keep it at least 35ppm consistently.

 

[gfink]

Hard to say with the phosphates in my water. They screw up all of the CO2 tables.

 

[rkilling1]

I'm pretty sure Tom Barr keeps it with barely 2wpg of NO bulbs.

Having old bulbs vs a lower amount of light are two different things. Old bulbs doesn't just mean a lower amount of light getting into the tank. When bulbs get old, the light spectrum shifts into areas that are not conducive to plants. Even though they may appear to be just as bright as new bulbs, the plants cannot use the light as effective as they once were.

I am not saying that gfink's bulbs need to be replaced, but after a year, CF bulbs are known to start shifting their spectrum. This also depends on other factors besides age. Lighting period, cooling of the bulbs, ect.