Help with plant ID

[Poncho.tinoco]

For now I'm doing a daily dose of flourish excel. I'm not sure if ill still need that because I'll get expensive at the rate I'm using it. I use it on a 2.5 and a 10g as well. I decided to turn one of the pairs of lights off since everyone seems to agree that I have too much light. But I put the timer up to 11 hours since I read fish need a day/light cycle. I also dosed with nutrafins plant gro that came with the co2 systems. Ill dose what I have which should last a month and I won't buy it again unless my plants begin to look less alive.

 

[Rivercats]

Honestly I'd set the timer and start with 8 hours as 11 is quite a lot. On my 55g tank that has a 2 bulb T5HO fixture which gives me a strong medium light I only run that lighting 6 hours and my plants grow and color up nicely. I also have a very low light bulb/fixture that gives a very soft dim low light that I run for a couple hours after the main lights go off. It gives a low transition light and allows a couple more hours of viewing time in the evening.

 

[Rivercats]

A CO2 system shouldn't ever need to be supplemented by glutaraldehyde. If you've got a problem where you need to turn co2 up past the point of fish tolerance, you're doing something wrong somewhere else. If you're adding it for algae reasons, that's different, but it is in not way required.

Actually I found in the 220g that has very high light the Glut actually does keep the algae at bay. It just adds that extra something that keeps the tank in balance. Since the OP would have very high light with a 4 bulb fixture over that size tank IMO it was worth mentioning using the Glut along with CO2. It gets really tricky trying to balance a tank with such high light and not have algae issues.

 

[Poncho.tinoco]

I'm starting wth 11 because I want my fish to have that night/day cycle.. Besides the flourish excel and the plant gro I also have the root tabs from flourish in there. I hope that's enough nutrients and if I start to see algae I'll reduce the time. Are those lights really that bright? Here I thought I wasn't gonna have enough

 

[foster53]

11 hrs. is a very long photoperiod. I honestly believe you could end up with algae problems. Also as Rivercats said, the glute in addition to your co2 is a good idea. You may find in the future after your tank balances that you don't need it. Until that time comes using it is a good strategy. I have a couple tanks that still need glute, even though I am running pressurized co2 in them.

 

[Poncho.tinoco]

I'll look into the flute formula once I'm done Christmas shopping. I spent too much money already on this tank that I wasn't gonna spend lol. And all because I saw those bright red plants haha this is an addiction! I could just sit here and stare at the aquarium for hours if I had the time!

So I ordered some mts on eBay and now I see that I could've got them for free from pet stores. One guy I who I bought the giant ambulia from was nice enough to GIVE me free trumpets but he hasn't mailed them due to cold weather. As I'm here looking at my aquarium and anxiously waiting for both my orders of mts to get here I found this little guy just sliding through my substrate! I should've caught him and thrown him into my 2.5 shrimp tank to areate the sand because it's been sitting still for about two months now. Luckily my shrimp in there are doing just fine and the dwarf baby tears are really looking alive! But I do have a problem with having to scrape the algae off the glass once or twice a week!

 

[foster53]

This is only the beginning. We all started out only intending to have one tank, and a few nice fish. HAAAAAA If I had the $ I've spent on tanks, fish, equipment, and everything else associated with aquarium keeping, I would be retired now. It is truly an addicting hobby. One thing just leads to another.
At least you can see, and enjoy what your money is spent on.

 

[Rivercats]

I'm starting wth 11 because I want my fish to have that night/day cycle.. Besides the flourish excel and the plant gro I also have the root tabs from flourish in there. I hope that's enough nutrients and if I start to see algae I'll reduce the time. Are those lights really that bright? Here I thought I wasn't gonna have enough

Not all day/night cycles in nature are 11-12 light to 11-12 hours dark. As long as there is a light and dark cycle that is what matters. Also in nature you don't just have high light then dark as light changes in intensity over the day.

4 T5HO's over that size tank is very high light and the rule with lighting is the higher the light the shorter the photoperiod. Also the higher the light the more CO2 plants need to keep up with photosynthesis which means they need even more nutrients. Liquid nutrients are mostly micro nutrients and plants under high light especially need macro and micro nutrients. My 220g has very high lighting with CO2 and I have tons of non-green plants but I also dose dry ferts daily and run that tank with low nitrates and high phosphates which non-green plants prefer. If you want to run that high of lighting for keeping non-green plants then you have to provide the proper amount of CO2 and ferts that the plants need. Plus you can only run very high lighting a short time. I just bumped my metal halide lighting over the 220g tank down to 5-1/2 hours daily but run 4- 39w T5HO bulb (which is very low light over that deep a tank) for 8 hours which gives a longer viewing time.

I suggest only running 2 bulbs on the fixture for 8 hours max and watch to see with the CO2 using only liquid ferts if you start having any signs of nutrient deficiencies in any of the plants.

If you use high light, dry ferts, and CO2 these are the types of color you can get from non-green plants...

Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community - Rivercats's Album: 220g 8-9-13 - Picture

Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community - Rivercats's Album: 5-12-13 update/new plants - Picture

 

[Poncho.tinoco]

This is only the beginning. We all started out only intending to have one tank, and a few nice fish. HAAAAAA If I had the $ I've spent on tanks, fish, equipment, and everything else associated with aquarium keeping, I would be retired now. It is truly an addicting hobby. One thing just leads to another. At least you can see, and enjoy what your money is spent on.

Yea, I see that. I've been keeping an aquarium for about three years now. It's always just been a basic set up with fish and gravel. This is the first time I set up a planted one though and I'm loving it! I ask myself why I didn't start sooner. I would've had more time for research and then right equipment. Anyway i already dove in and I'm glad you guys are here to help me along the way. I now have three in my room. This 29 gallon. A ten gallon shrimp Tank which has been infested with snails and not doing so great :/ but I'm working on it. And another 2.5 shrimp tank with which only problem I have is algae. I don't focus as much on them since shrimp eat algae and only throw a tiny piece of algae wafer in each a few times a week and a daily dose of flourish excel. I'm gonna check lighting time on the 2.5 because I'm probably doing about 16 hours with light on. Someday when I'm better settled And have more experience I plant to get a reef tank.

Not all day/night cycles in nature are 11-12 light to 11-12 hours dark. As long as there is a light and dark cycle that is what matters. Also in nature you don't just have high light then dark as light changes in intensity over the day. 4 T5HO's over that size tank is very high light and the rule with lighting is the higher the light the shorter the photoperiod. Also the higher the light the more CO2 plants need to keep up with photosynthesis which means they need even more nutrients. Liquid nutrients are mostly micro nutrients and plants under high light especially need macro and micro nutrients. My 220g has very high lighting with CO2 and I have tons of non-green plants but I also dose dry ferts daily and run that tank with low nitrates and high phosphates which non-green plants prefer. If you want to run that high of lighting for keeping non-green plants then you have to provide the proper amount of CO2 and ferts that the plants need. Plus you can only run very high lighting a short time. I just bumped my metal halide lighting over the 220g tank down to 5-1/2 hours daily but run 4- 39w T5HO bulb (which is very low light over that deep a tank) for 8 hours which gives a longer viewing time. I suggest only running 2 bulbs on the fixture for 8 hours max and watch to see with the CO2 using only liquid ferts if you start having any signs of nutrient deficiencies in any of the plants. If you use high light, dry ferts, and CO2 these are the types of color you can get from non-green plants... Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community - Rivercats's Album: 220g 8-9-13 - Picture Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community - Rivercats's Album: 5-12-13 update/new plants - Picture

Those plants look pretty nice! They would stand out in my tank. I already saw very bad algae results pretty fast actually. I'm gonna run one pair of the lights for six hours a day and hope that can help me better balance the tank. I don't know what this plant is but it's covered in some kind of black algae. It's not dead because I scraped some of it off and it's still bright green underneath. Hopefully it survives. It was a little hard to scrape it off without feeling like I was damaging the plant so I'm not sure what to do. Will it survive through the leafs that aren't completely covered? Or is it absolutely necessary to take the time to scrape most of it off? Also does the algae just die off and go away? I think I read it in another forum that eventually it'll come off but it said something like 12-18 months. I don't see how the plant can survive being covered with this black stuff. What do you guys think? Also will mts climb up the plant and eat it off?

 

[Poncho.tinoco]

Okay so I bought two pots of dwarf baby tears and the guy was nice enough to send an extra pot. They were actually very bright green and the stems were quite long. I don't really have the time right now to plant them stem by stem with tweezers and my Corys will probably uproot them anyway. I read that hc was a stem plant which from my understanding means that it will grow roots even if it's just a couple leaves on a stem right? So what I did was take all of the cotton off the roots (or wool or whatever they come in) and I cut portions of it about an inch or more in diameter. Then I pushed most of it under the sand/gravel and "brushed" some spans/gravel off a small portion of the little mats I made. I'd say about 70% of the mat is buried and the rest is above the substrate. Do you think that will eventually grow into a carpet? I read that it would take longer but since the tank is already established it would be more of a hassle to try and grow the carpet first.

 

[aqua_chem]

My problem with those bubble ladders is that A) they are just so ugly and B) they aren't that great at diffusing CO2. In addition, I'm noticing that you have two HOB filters raised above the water line such that they're causing significant surface agitation. This means that you might not be maintaining high enough CO2 levels to accommodate your light levels. CO2 and ferts are going to make/break your HC carpet, so they should be addressed as soon as possible.

How many bubbles/second do you having going into your tank right now?


Also, I would like to reemphasize how big of an impact dry ferts will have once your tank gets rolling with CO2 and high light. Liquid ferts and stock won't be able to keep up with the demands of your plants.


PS: Is that mondo grass you've got in there?

 

[Poncho.tinoco]

My problem with those bubble ladders is that A) they are just so ugly and B) they aren't that great at diffusing CO2. In addition, I'm noticing that you have two HOB filters raised above the water line such that they're causing significant surface agitation. This means that you might not be maintaining high enough CO2 levels to accommodate your light levels. CO2 and ferts are going to make/break your HC carpet, so they should be addressed as soon as possible. How many bubbles/second do you having going into your tank right now? Also, I would like to reemphasize how big of an impact dry ferts will have once your tank gets rolling with CO2 and high light. Liquid ferts and stock won't be able to keep up with the demands of your plants. PS: Is that mondo grass you've got in there?

- The bubble ladders I really don't mind. I set them up on the side of the tank so that I don't really notice them from a front view. When it comes to diffusing co2 I'd say they're doing a pretty decent job. The bubbles are not even a fourth of the size they were when they first come into the ladder so it seems to me that it's doing a fine job.

The filters don't usually make any bubbles. The reason they are agitating the water so much right now is because today was supposed to be my water change but I got called into work and I'll just have to wait till Wednesday. I just topped it off tho but I do use an air pump with a bubble strip for when the lights are off. I don't know how much co2 exactly is being pumped into the water and i don't want to risk my fish's health.

I just counted 6 bubbles in about 16 seconds and it's been going steady like that for a few days now. So it's about 1 bubble every 2.6 seconds.

When you say dry ferts, what exactly do you mean? I use flourish root tabs so would that be a dry fert? Also I didn't take note when I bought the plants so I'm not sure exactly what they are. Not that it would be much help since my LFS labels them as "assorted plants" and when I asked about one of the plants no one could tell me what it was. I just did a search on mondo grass and some of the images on google are very similar to what I have. Especially the root system. So thank you for pointing me in that direction, after all this thread is titled help with plant Id lol

 

[Jkeating8]

- The bubble ladders I really don't mind. I set them up on the side of the tank so that I don't really notice them from a front view. When it comes to diffusing co2 I'd say they're doing a pretty decent job. The bubbles are not even a fourth of the size they were when they first come into the ladder so it seems to me that it's doing a fine job. The filters don't usually make any bubbles. The reason they are agitating the water so much right now is because today was supposed to be my water change but I got called into work and I'll just have to wait till Wednesday. I just topped it off tho but I do use an air pump with a bubble strip for when the lights are off. I don't know how much co2 exactly is being pumped into the water and i don't want to risk my fish's health. I just counted 6 bubbles in about 16 seconds and it's been going steady like that for a few days now. So it's about 1 bubble every 2.6 seconds. When you say dry ferts, what exactly do you mean? I use flourish root tabs so would that be a dry fert? Also I didn't take note when I bought the plants so I'm not sure exactly what they are. Not that it would be much help since my LFS labels them as "assorted plants" and when I asked about one of the plants no one could tell me what it was. I just did a search on mondo grass and some of the images on google are very similar to what I have. Especially the root system. So thank you for pointing me in that direction, after all this thread is titled help with plant Id lol

I can't remember if you're using DIY co2 or pressurized? Between two HOBs and a bubble ladder, I think you're grossly under the level of co2 you need. In my 60P, I can't even count the bubbles. Probably 3-4 bps. I turned up the co2 until I saw stress in the fish and then I dialed it back till it was just on the line before they stress. Dosing Glut 1ml per gallon is going to be needed as others have noted if you want to keep that same co2 level. I wouldn't stress about killing fish. With DIY, it's nearly impossible.

 

[aqua_chem]

Arg, you beat me to it.


I agree with Jkeating's post. You're at about .4 bps per reactor, so .8 bps in total. I would say with a tank that size, 2 bps would be a reasonable estimate to how much CO2 you would want to be putting into the tank. The BBA you've got growing after adding light also suggests this is the case. The HOBs are definitely playing into the problem as well. Being as that current amount of agitation is temporary, can you please put up a pick when you get it filled to a point that is more normal for you? It's very possible to use HOBs with CO2, but often certain precautions need to be taken to preserve your CO2 levels. If we know how much agitation the HOBs are creating, we can develop a plan to reduce it (if it's going to be a problem). In the meantime, I would strongly advice getting a drop checker to measure your CO2 levels more empirically.

Rivercats mentioned dry ferts earlier here. I think this will be good advice for you long term. If you have any questions about the content of that post, definitely ask.

Regarding the plant ID... Mondo grass in non-aquatic, which will cause problems for you down the road as the plant deteriorates. That being said, it also looks a bit like cyperus helferi, an aquatic plant, but I'm not confident enough to say for sure. Both can be found in LFS these days, which makes ID difficult.

 

[Jkeating8]

Another thing with HOBs- They don't creat much current, but rather a cascading motion so there's more agitation without good current to distribute the co2 evenly throughout the tank.

 

[Poncho.tinoco]

Wow it sounds like I have a lot of work to do! I think I'm just going to remove the aqueon ten gallon filter. I see now how all the agitation coming from the inside of it could be getting rid of some of the co2 although I don't see nor hear any bubbles in there. When I looked for the bubble checker I see a lot of prices online, some of them quite pricey. Is there a cheaper one that you would say is reliable.?

I looked for cyperus images this time and I would say what is in my tank is mondo grass when I compare the roots to the images. I'm just going to take it out once I learn how to properly care for it.

The co2 I'm running is diy kit from nutrafin. Is there a way to increase the bps on these? Like a special recipe? Keep in mind that the containers are about the sise of a 20oz bottle so i assume i would need a bigger bottle? Or maybe a more efficient but economical pressurized co2 system. I will also look up more on the glute solution if you guys think it's absolutely necessary. I want to inject co2 into my shrimp tank since I wanna grow an hc carpet there as well. So if I have to replace the nutrafin system in this big tank I'll move one of them to the 10 gallon tank. But I dont think the light in there is enough and I can't find a single regular 6700k bulb; Only dual t5 long bulbs from topdogsellers and I assume from what I've learned that it's gonna be too much for the small tank since it's only java moss and hc.

 

[Poncho.tinoco]

This is normal water level

 

[Poncho.tinoco]

I had an idea to make the water circulate the tank much faster and set it up for now. I have a 120 gph small pump that I use along with a hose to refill the aquarium during water changes. It doesn't help all that much when filling since I have to elevate the buckets for a decent flow but it's better than dumping the buckets and disturbing all the sand. What do you guys think? At the lowest setting (The wheel is "closed" but it's still flowing.) it clearly has enough flow to circulate the water from one end of the tank to the other and it doesn't bother the plants nor the fish it seems. It's an underwater pump. Will that get rid of the co2 as well?

 

[Poncho.tinoco]

So after some thinking I came to realize that my problem is just "too much light" would I be correct to say that?

I thought of some alternatives and found these lights.. If I were to somehow sell what I have now for a fraction of the price and re-invest in these instead

http://www.amazon.com/Finnex-Ray2-A...ie=UTF8&qid=1386720517&sr=1-1&keywords=finnex

Would I be making a better long term decision?

This is the description just in case I couldn't get the link up

Finnex High Output Unibody Ultra Slim LED, High PAR
Daylight: 7000k Dual LED Strips
20 Watts: 192 HO LEDs


Would this light be less intense? And would it help my plants require less nutrients and less co2 while staying healthy? Or should I just keep what I have and work with it? Basically what I'm looking for is a little less maintenance for the plants if possible.. I'm not sure what my schedule is gonna look like come January and if I can't spend that much time or money on keeping up with the tank I don't want it to be ruined.

 

[aqua_chem]

Well, it depends what your goal is for the tank. The way I see it, you've got two paths. One leads to a more high tech, CO2+fert tank with, while the other goes toward more medium light, but lower maintenance/resource (and probably less headache and $$). It really depends on where you want to go from here.