[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Cabomba in hardwater




I don't have particularly hard water but my cabomba was dying off. I was 
down to a couple of six inch pieces that were flabby and pale. I was ready 
to toss it when I noticed there was no phosphate in the water. The Cabomba 
and Hydrocotyle leucocephala has come back to life with the addition of 
phosphate to the level of only .5 ppm. It is even putting out flowering 
stems although I haven't seen any flowers.

Other possible reason for its resurgence. Winter. The tank is a lot cooler 
these days, from 78*F down to more like 70*F. I do have the C. caroliniana 
red and green forms which aren't really tropical.

Same old light, same old water, same PMDD.

Check the phosphate and nitrate level.

Kathy in southern California




>I use R/O water, and normally, my tanks would have KH=2 and
GH=3.
>With Onyx they run at KH=6-8 and GH=10+

The tank I used it on in SF has about 4KH(from 2) and a GH of
4(up from 1)
as I recall.
>
>The Onyx is in two tanks and both were set up less than 5
months ago.
>I am a little disappointed in the high numbers since I was
hoping to
>finally grow Cabomba successfully since I added lots more
light, but it
>hates the hardness.  It won't grow, at least not this early in
the
>tanks's development.

The high number do seem to indicate something _less than
desirable_.

But the Cabomba does fine in hard water. Something else is at
work there(not
KH/GH)
My GH is 2.5X higher and the KH is also higher. Cabomba is
growing fine.

>
>Greg Morin, I change water once a week, 30%.  I am sincerely
hoping I
>will not be restricted to hard water plants forever in these
tanks!

What is a hard water plant?
The only plants I've seen that have had trouble in harder water
have been
Rotala wallichii and P stellata. It might be an interaction with
something
else rather than a direct cause but everything else does great.
That's out
of 250+ ssp. I use to blame GH/KH for everything but that's not
the issue.
Regards,
Tom Barr


_________________________________________________________________
Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. 
http://www.hotmail.com