[APD] RE: Rift lake refugium- Tom Barr

["Jerry Smith" <jerrytheplater at hotmail_com>]

Tom

You helped me out about a year ago as I was setting up a tank in my bosses 
office for African Cichlids. I set up a 75 gal with a refugium in the 
stand(20L&10 gal plastic tank in series), 55w PC for lighting, Duckweed, 
Hygro, and Crypts for plants. I also made two boxes out of Polypropylene and 
PVC to act as hydroponic cells for Peace Lilies. One is your plastic tube 
design and the other is a box filled with constantly flooded gravel media 
with the tank water circulating through it. Twice now the Peace lilies have 
died in these tanks. The roots rot. I relied on the office room lighting 
because you said these plants would grow as long as you could read. This 
still seems correct to me as these plants are found in Malls, Betta bowls 
and other low light areas. Do you have any comments as to why the plants 
die?

Thinking the death of the plants was due to insufficient light(in spite of 
what I just said above), I ordered a 48 inch 4x55w bright kit from AH 
Supply. It should arrive Thursday. I plan to suspend it above the plant 
stand from the ceiling. I spoke to our electrician today and he is going to 
wire me an outlet to plug in the timer. If the Peace lilies die again I plan 
to purchase a 110 gallon tank to replace the plant stand and plumb it in 
with the Mbuna tank. The 48 inch Bright kit will then be used for this tank.

I would plant the 110 with Crypts and only use various Tanganykians as I am 
doing in my home and office.

Thanks

Jerry Smith
Bloomingdale, NJ

> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 10:16:59 -0700
> From: "Thomas Barr" <tcbiii at earthlink_net>
> Subject: [APD] RE: Rift lake refugium
> To: aquatic-plants at actwin_com
>
> > Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 10:41:54 -0700
> > From: jvision at telus_net
> > Subject: [APD] Re: Planted Tank as Rift Lake Refugium
> > To: aquatic-plants at actwin_com
> >
> > I'm planning on buffering the Rift Lake tank with CaCO3 - gonna have a
> lot of
> > oyster/clam shells in there - so, will I need to add CO2 to the 
> refugium?
> I
> > was thinking that if the C was too limited, it'd probably be better to 
> go
> with
> > the SeaChem product instead.
> > We've got a long weekend coming up in Canada, so I'm probably going to
> set most
> > of it up then... tho, I want to rework my 35 gal planted tank, too...
> >
> > So much to do, so little time!
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
>
> Err why use submersed plants when good old emergent plants work better,
> need less light and are easier to prune?
> Simply use hydroponics, place the plants in the sump in Hydroponics media,
> (rock wool/clay balls are better though), use ABS or PVC 3" tubes and add a
> test cap to the bottom and drill a few small holes in the bottom. Splice
> off some of the inflow or use a small powerhead to trickle the sump water
> over the media for several of these 3" tubes (pots) and the water flows
> over the roots and the filtered water flows out the bottom of the tubes and
> back into the sump.
>
> You can make the Tubes 6" 12" 18" etc, whatever range of levels you might
> have in your sump.


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