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New Tank Going South
I set up a new plant tank 1 month ago. The tank is a 30 gallon with 90
watts, laterite substrate, and a yeast reactor. The tank was planted
with Hygrophilia polysperma, Hygrophilia difformis, and Saggitaria
subulata.
Initially growth was very rapid. After about three weeks growth abruptly
stopped. Currently my plants are showing a number of symptoms. Generally
the leaves turn yellow, some turn brown, then transparent then
disintegrate. This appears to affect older leaves at the moment. I have
seen some brown spots on the leaves of the polysperma. The runners on
the polysperma have gone from white to brown or black. The difformis
have lost their bright green color and look faded but not yellow. Most
of the leaves looked wilted like those gourmet salads.
At about the same time problems developed with the plants, a severe
bacterial bloom occurred. I initially attributed this to the usual new
tank syndrome. The tank became extremely opaque to the point where I
felt there was a signifiant light loss. I used a flocculant, Crystal
Clear, and the tank almost cleared in about 1 hour. After I got home
from work today the bacteria had started to build again. I did another
treatment with Crystal Clear and once again the tank is almost clear.
I looked for dead bodies and found none. The fish are fine and behaving
normally. Ammonia and nitrites are zero.
Other readings using Lamotte kits are:
Phosphates 0
Nitrates 0
Iron .4 ppm after dosing with fertilizer. It was at .2ppm before.
Carbonate Hardness 2.7 dkh
General hardness is 10 ppm using a hobbyist kit. Ph varies from 6.2 to
7.0. I tried talking to my plants, but they swore at me :(
I would appreciate any suggestions members of the list might have. At
the present rate, I expect to have a compost pile in about 2 weeks.
--
Henry Hatch
hhatch at sprynet_com