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re:Aquatic Plants Digest V1 #244



In message "Aquatic Plants Digest V1 #244", you write:

>From: "Carol Darnell" <carol at jupiter_biochem.missouri.edu>
>Date: Mon, 14 Aug 1995 16:37:50 -0500
>Subject: Cleaning Plant Tanks
>
>Hello Everyone,
>
>Now I would like to ask the plant Gurus if when you are doing maintenance, do
>you take the plants out of the tank; uproot them, to prune, clean algae off
>etc.? Do you clean up dead leaves and stuff or let it form a natural
>fertilizer? I don't mean a lot of leaf debris, but some? Do you stick the
>vacuum nozel (sp?) into the substrate at all?

My big tank is set up the heavy-intervention (aka Dupla) way, so I
vacuum the gravel, get rid of the dead leaves, add fertilizer and CO2,
and so on.  I don't clean algae off the leaves, though I do remove
leaves if they become unsightly.

My low-tech setup is left pretty much alone, except for an occasional
water change.  No vacuuming is done, and the setup has been running
without a tear-down for at several years.  It has gone through several
stages, including one period last winter when it was indoors and I was
trying to grow Crypts emersed.

>:-) So, would you uproot and rearrange? It doesn't really displease me
>actually, and especially if stuff ever really started to grow, it 
>wouldn't look bad.

If the plants aren't growing (you seem to imply this in your paragraph
above) you may be better off concentrating on getting good growth
rates first.  If the plants are barely hanging in there, you might
over-stress them by uprooting them.

-Shaji
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Shaji Bhaskar,                                             bhaskar at bnr_ca
 BNR, 35 Davis Dr., RTP, NC 27709, USA                      (919) 991 7125