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[APD] miracle




 
In a message dated 6/25/2012 12:23:52 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
aquatic-plants-request at actwin_com writes:

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Today's Topics:

1.  Re: Miracle (Jamie  Johnson)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message:  1
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 09:17:47 -0400
From: Jamie Johnson  <Jamie_Johnson at gel.com>
Subject: Re: [APD] Miracle
To:  aquatic-plants at actwin_com

so please share with us how this miracle  happens. Sure would save me a 
lot of money on ferts, CO2, etc.

>  
>rich green
>milton ma
>  
>
>
Rich, I  never told him to not to dose his tank. Well, I did say don't 
fertilize in  his initial planting. I think that's a good move and I say 
from  experience. It's best to plant and let everything calm down for a 
week or  two. Dosing then just puts extra "stuff" in the water column and 
if the  plants are trying to reroot rather than producing leaves, 
something has to  consume the extra nutrients (algae). Over the years 
I've been high  maintenance (CO2, PMDD, substrate tabs, high lighting, 
etc.) down to low  tech (1 W/gal, no added ferts, Fluorite only). I've 
come to the conclusion  (my $0.02) from doing this almost 20 years, I 
like the low tech methods  the best, or maybe low tech with a little high 
tech sprinkled in. I don't  have the time, patience, or money for 
maintaining my 4 aquariums as high  tech superworlds. I keep them from 
2.5 W/gal to 1 W/gal and growing crypts  in any of them is easy as pie. 
I've given away (or thrown to the compost  bin) buckets of crypts (all 
varieties, nothing rare) over the years (plus  all types of other common 
aquarium plants). I do have Fluorite in all my  tanks and it the oldest 
tank of Fluorite is going on 15 years old - the  youngest is about 8 
years. One would have to surmise a tank that old has a  lot of nutrients 
in the substrate. From seeing the roots of my plants, I  can tell you 
there is plenty of nutritions to go around. I do 25%-40%  water changes 
about every 3 months. I do wipe the inner glass down once a  month or 6 
weeks. There is little green algae on the glass, but I do like  a 
crystal-clear window into my aquatic worlds, so I'm kind of ADD about  
that. I can honestly say every 3 months I have to trim and cull plants  
to give my fish room to swim. If I go 4-6 months, it's too much. I don't  
keep all those high-light plants like I use to, but I will throw some in  
from time to time. I use city water that is 1 degree hardness and 1  
degree alkalinity. I use calcium chloride, magnesium sulfate, and  
potassium chloride to get my numbers into the 6-10 ppm, 4-6 ppm, and  
25-30 ppm ranges, respectively. I also use a very small pinch of baking  
soda to keep the pH stable (Kh ~ 2). That's it! Over the years I've  
found a formula that works for me. I like my variety of plants. I like  
that they grow moderately and with little intervention. And I like that  
the tanks allow me to perform maintenance on my schedule rather than be  
driven by their needs. I like having/breeding fish and letting the  
plants play second fiddle if I so desire.

BTW, speaking of ADD -  I'm a chemist in a production lab and have been 
my entire professional  life (20+ years). We test everything, so I'm 
given the opportunity to test  every water parameter one would ever want. 
And, I did do this for many  years, to the point of almost making my 
hobby a burden. I had to have the  water column read exactly 0.1 ppm Fe. 
I had to have my minerals within  certain ranges. I have to have my 
nitrate read 5-8 ppm. I had to have my  phosphate right around 0.1 ppm. I 
had to have my CO2 around 25 ppm. This  was a lot of work and while my 
plants did well, they almost did too well.  I began feeling more like a 
plant nursery than an aquarium hobbyist. I  can't tell you the last time 
I checked water parameters, probably 4-5  years. I know if I do my 
quarterly water changes, feed sparingly, don't  vacuum the gravel, and 
let nature work out the issues, everything is going  to look fine. And it 
has. I guess that is miracle enough.

Also, if  there is any need for this, I did some research late 1999 and 
wrote an  article for Dave Gomberg's Planted Aquarium. It was published 
in one of  his magazines. See I told you I had ADD.  ;-)

http://home.infinet.net/teban/jamie.htm




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