Re: [APD] Althernantera troubles

["Vahe Ganapetyan" <vahegan at gmail_com>]

Thank you for your comments, Robert
>Alternanthera reineckii is really the only Alternanthera specie
suitable for the aquarium:
>suitable for submersed growth. Every other specie is really a
terrestrial/bog type of plant
Well, I have 2-3 types presently, one of them, I suspect, is a
terrestrial form as it grew terribly slow under the water but as soon
as it reached the surface it started to grow much better and took a
descent appearance. I am presently in the process of building a
fitofilter/paludarium above my main tank and I plan moving this plant
there, I hope it'll do much better over there. As for the others - one
of them certainly came from a planted tank where it grew under water.
My althernanteras are just under an 150W MH bulb, so the light is
strong enough and I do inject pressurized CO2. The color of my
althernanteras is great, what worries me is their extremely slow
growth and as a result their leaves tend to become covered with algae.
Just checked the NO3 level and it was close to zero while phosphates
were close to 2ppm. I add nitrates and phosphates daily but it seems
my plants are using more nitrogen now so I probably need to start
dosing increased amounts of KNO3.

Jerry, what concerns glutaraldehyde - yes, I was dosing the 2.5%
solution (Cidex), a total of about 30ml. daily in a 60g tank
(actually, something between 220-230l). This would yield in about 3ppm
I think. I was adding half of the daily dose with my daily water
change in the morning and the rest throughouth the day via dripper,
mixed with ferrous gluconate and Na-EDTA chelator. The effect was
dropping of my nitrate level in the tank from 25-30ppm to virtually
zero. I think the plants started eating the nitrogen up quikcly.
Before adding glute I was adding phosphate only hoping to reduce the
nitrates, then I started to add a mixture of nitrates and phosphates
(about 10:1), now I think I will need to add even more nitrates.
Another effect was a strong reduction of algae in the tank and a very
fast growth of some long-stems. What concerns althernanteras I did not
notice any change in their growth since I started adding glute. I am
now reducing the dose of glute by half, to only 15ml. daily as I'll be
bringing pelia to the tank and I am afraid that relatively hi dose of
glutaraldehyde would kill it. Otherwise I did not have any negative
effects from adding glute - fish and snails are all OK

Thanks and regards,
Vahe
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