I am going to be out of the office until April 7, but I will be reading my email on a daily basis, and I'll try to get back to you. Thanks, Eric Schoville eschovil at us_oracle.com Technical Recruiter voice # 972.401.5767 Oracle Resource Services fax # 972.401.5658 [
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- To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
- Subject: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #613
- From: "Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com (Aquatic Plants Digest)" <owner-aquatic-plants at actwin_com>
- Date: 28 Mar 97 15:39:04
Aquatic Plants Digest Friday, March 28 1997 Volume 02 : Number 613 In this issue: Osmocote The algae farmer Nice Post Dan Magazine writers Some CO2 Figuring See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the Aquatic Plants mailing list and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 10:22:40 -0500 From: Greg Letiecq <GLETIECQ at fcc_gov> Subject: Osmocote I have recently conducted a test with Osmocote on dwarf sag, and with the debate currently going on, I thought you might like my results. Non-osmocote: 55 gal w/various plants & community fish, standard aquarium gravel, lit with 2 x 24" gro-lux fluoro bulbs on timer with 12 hrs of light/day. Osmocote: 10 gal w/warious plants & fry from the community tank, standard aquarium gravel, lit with 1 x 18" gro-lux fluoro bulb on timer for 12 hrs of light per day. Dwarf sag was removed from the 55 and planted in the 10 gal, and several pellets of osmocote were embedded in the gravel with the replantings. The test was condicted for 5 weeks. Observations: some very minor algae growth occurred in the osmocote tank, but the dwarf sag showed twice as much new growth. IMO Osmocote is a winner. Thanks to Dan Quackenbush for his excellent work! Greg. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 11:12:39 -0500 (EST) From: Miles Morrissey <mmorriss at sophia_smith.edu> Subject: The algae farmer Thom, We are all algae farmers to one extent or another, eradicating it is not the goal, controlling it is. It is not at all unusual to have the tank "cycle" through different stages during the first six months or so where different forms of algae seem to be present and then decline. I set up a tank recently with similar spec's as yours although with somewhat less light. (i.e. 100watts of T-8 fluorescent in a 50 gal compared to your 160 watts of T-12 florescent in a 70 gal) Here are my thoughts: 1) find the Sae's if you can, put 4 - 7 Otto's in even if they're small. Also I have had very positive experience with Red Ramshorn snails as detrivors and hervivors. 2) don't feed the fish at all for a week or so and then very sparingly. I don't know what other fish you have in there but most fish are herbivors to some extent and will graze on algae esp. when they are hungry. We'd all eat more spinach and cabbage if that was all we could find. 3) I would nip the green water in the bud by 20 - 30% daily water changes with no light and a shrouded tank for a day or two. This will bother the plants some, but you said they were doing well and two days of dark is going to bother the green water algae much more than the plants. The daily water changes (with water sans nitrate and phosphate of course) will dilute the green unicellular organisms and reduce the liklihood that their massive die off from lack of light won't cause O2 depletion. 4) I would consider turning off one of the tubes for a month or so for the following reason: I am assuming that you are somewhat of a newbie and your learning curve at present is very steep, you are learning a lot as you go. This is my situation as well. The more light you use, the more energy you put in the system the better you need to be about keeping the system in balance. Your range of acceptable water parameters (i.e. nutrients like ammonia, phosphate, nitrate, iron) balanced with other micro nutrients is more exacting the more light you use. Being conservative to start, I think gives you more room to screw up and recover. Once the plants are growing and better established, and you have a experience and understanding of your particular system you can add more light. 120 watts on a 70 gal is still a good deal of light and the only difference you would see for all but the most demanding high light plants is reduced rate of growth. 4) lastly, I would set up a Co2 infusion system. Algae can take C02 out of the water better than some of the plants you mentioned thus giving them the edge currently with the amount of light and lack of Co2. These are my thoughts. These are not truths. Use them or discard them as you see fit. Miles Morrissey Easthampton, MA - USA mmorriss at sophia_smith.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 09:19:02 -0500 (EST) From: STDIXON <stdixon at bechtel_com> Subject: Nice Post Dan >It's DQ again. Some may take issue with that and find it even harder >to believe it's me, because I'm going to apologize. :-) Before I do, I >would like to suggest a few things so I can avoid having to ever do this >again. I also promise to use the most delicate words I know. Very nice post Dan. This is how we will all get better at growing aquatic plants. But don't just lurk. Keep telling us about your experiences and views and let us take it all in. The more (I think) I know, the happier I am. (I made the same comment to Craig Bingham. Now what was the color of that water? ... uhh ohhh!). Steve Dixon ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Mar 97 12:49:41 cst From: mark.fisher at tpwd_state.tx.us Subject: Magazine writers I've noticed that two individuals who were subject to a lot of controversy on this list are both magazine writers. DQ mentioned an article he wrote in FAMA, while Craig Bingman is science editor of Aquarium Frontiers magazine. Do writers use this forum as a means of garnering ideas for articles, or do they participate like the rest of us--to gain knowledge? I am not comfortable with the notion that some of my postings may end up in an article somewhere, without my permission. What are the rules on this topic? I am guessing the various internet discussion groups are extremely fertile for a writer looking for ideas. I am not being judgemental; I am merely curious. If I were a writer I would probably surf for materiel. Any other magazine writers out there? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:29:32 -0500 (EST) From: Tim Mullins <tmullins at telerama_lm.com> Subject: Some CO2 Figuring I constantly bubble CO2 at 62 bubbles/minute into my aquarium filter. I measure about 26 bubbles/cc so that's around 2.4cc/minute or 3.46 ltr/day of CO2. Surprise#1: Those little pockets of undissolved gas under my filter/diffuser foam pad are no big deal considering I'm delivering liters of CO2 each day! I have a 90 gallon tank with a 300 ltr water column. CO2's density at 75F is about 1.817 G/ltr. Making two simplifying arguable assumptions: 1) 100% delivery, 2) no depletion in darkness; Surprise#2: In 12 hours of darkness at my injection rate into my 90 gallon, I ought to elevate CO2 levels by about 10.5mG/ltr (3.46ltr/day/2*1817mG/ltr/300ltr). That's close to being consistent with what I measure after a night of "stoking" CO2 into a fairly CO2 depleted tank at day's end! I have a 5 lb cylinder of CO2. So, at 1.817 G/ltr that's about 1147 liters or 41ft3 of CO2.. Surprise#3: At my bubble rate, that cylinder ought to last about 332 days. That's about right! (Irrelevant factoid; compressed liquid CO2 density at 80F is about 42.2lbs/ft3) Tim - Pittsburgh P.S. Please post corrections ------------------------------ End of Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #613 ************************************ To unsubscribe to aquatic-plants, send the command: unsubscribe aquatic-plants in the body of a message to "Majordomo at ActWin_com". Archives are available on the web at http://www.actwin.com/fish/aquatic-plants or via FTP to ftp.actwin.com in /pub/aquaria/aquatic-plants.
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