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Re:Sword flowers
Ken Guin wrote Monday, March 9:
>I have sword plants (ocelot and ruffled) that are blooming right now.
>Should I leave them alone, or snip the flowers off? If I leave them alone,
>will the flowers drain energy from plant, or will they encourage growth
>somehow?
Leave them alone and you will get little plantlets at the nodes where the
flower buds branch from the main stem. You may get as many as 10 to 20 of
them. They won't drain appreciable energy from the parent plant. Break
them off when they have several leaves and roots, plant them and grow them
until they are about 4 to 6 inches high and take them in to your local fish
store for trade (unless you want to keep them).
-----------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 00:36:19 EST
>From: IDMiamiBob <IDMiamiBob at aol_com>
>Subject: Calcium and hardness
>
>I work hard to get my hardness down to around 30-40 ppm general hardness,
>using either peat or Mardel's TankSoft. I have the same white-shell symptoms
>in my snails as mentioned in APD#129, but I have attributed it to acid water
>conditions.
>
>If indeed it is a calcium issue, can I improve the useable calcium content
>without increasing non-carbonate hardness? Or are my objectives of South
>American water parameters (for my Apistos) and great plants at odds with each
>other?
Thirty to forty ppm GH sounds good enough for snails to get calcium for
their shells. Maybe they are not getting much to eat and are not growing
new shell at any appreciable rate. I have seen where snails that aren't
growing get white, pitted areas on their shells, even when they have a good
supply of calcium in the water.
You can add some lime to the water, and with CO2 enrichment, it will
dissolve slowly over several weeks.
Paul Krombholz, in chilly central Mississippi where we are expecting to
break low temperature records the next three nights.