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oops! Ignore my last post....
My last post had moments of poor clarity and typos.
This is the revised one. Sorry for the double.
My tap water is extremely high in phosphates and
nitrates. Must be some farm runoff or something. I
can't use it without getting lots of hair algae. I
could invest in a ton of phosphate absorber
orreconstitute...
I've been using those calcium carbonate diet
suppliment pills. You're right, they don't dissolve
very easily. But, I've noticed that soon after I add
it, the hardness registers higher than it eventually
will. That is, the hardness has tended to decline,not
rise.
I guess what I'd rather do is switch to something more
reliable for reconstitution. So far, I have been
unable to find an exact water change size
recipe to leave me with exactly the same water
parameters before and after a change. Now that
Seachem's Equilibrium is reformulated, I may give that
a try. From what little experience I have, I think
that the ratios of calcium and magnesium are
important, though I can't say why. You may remember
my tiny leaf problem from a while back. While
somewhat unreliable, my current formulation has solved
that problem. From here, I move on to what is
described in the second sentence of this paragraph.
I would like to shoot for a hardness of 6-7 dGH. I
have found that my wallichii tends to better when 1)
the hardness is 8 or below, even when there has been
no imput of calcium for a long time, 2) when my co2
level is adequate (rare), and 3) when micronutrient
levels are raised a bit over normal. My tank
conditions are unstable now, but I can definitely see
it grow better when all those conditions exist
together.
Letting it grow long before trimming also helps. I'll
bet that if I can keep the hardness where I want it,
set up my high pressure system, and keep up with the
nutrients, my wallichii will do well. I don't think
there's any magic bullet for keeping this plant. A
few factors play a part. Thoughts?
I also have some rams in the tank, and some Eusteralis
stellata on the way. The one true soft water plant?
6-7 seems to be a good hardness to satisfy one and
all, does it not?
Speaking of hardness, I was looking through Nature
Aquarium World today. Almost all the tanks have a
hardness of 2 dGH. 2! Why so low?
Look at the wallichii on pages 11 and 67. It's alive
and growing, but could look better. Now look at the
stuff on pages 124-125 in the top center. THAT'S what
it should look like.
Thanks so much, Cavan
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