Help 90g, Dutch style, first try

[BranchScape]

CO2 is best kept at 30-40ppm, IMO, regardless of light! CO2 is often the bottleneck for our plant health in many cases (not all, just many).

A tank with high nutrients/aquasoil, medium light, and high CO2 is almost always a guaranteed success. Even low light + CO2 is excellent for our tanks.

I messed this up for a year, inconsistent or low C02 and not enough nutrients. Your journals really helped me, so I want to say thank you.

 

[riioKen]

Hey guys few weeks since I post last update.
But here we are...


Yesterday I've made a trimming session and I have something juicy to show you...


The xyris red gave me 5 baby plantlets (1 is off camera)
Funny thing is, the mother plant is the one with holes in the middle. The bigger ones behind was the first child of her LooL.

You can easily see that a new plantlet is growing again and the one behind has another one growing too...

I don't know if this is a good sign ahaha.

The quinquangulare in the right is the plantlet of this girl here:

Which looks a bit unhappy, probably it didn't like been separated from its child.

But now I would like you to ask for an help:
Some plants have pinholes, at the beginning I thought it was due to a massive snails infestation I had. Now I still have snails, but its number is very very small (~30 at max)






This symptoms, is lack of K?

I'm dosing 12-3-18 weekly, should I push K to 20?

The Ammannia pedicellata golden seems very unhappy and it almost can't grow properly

Mgso4 and CaSo4 is around the 5 1:4 ratio for caso4.

Any help?

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

I could be wrong but I don’t think those holes are nutrient related, I think that’s from your snails snacking.

 

[Beza]

But there seem to be only bladder snails, where just about anyone swears that those won't attack plants unless they are melting already. Any other snails or potential plant eaters present?
And just a thought from a newbie - if that is indeed lack of K, that would start pinholes around which the plant leaves are dying, so the snails just clean it up. I'd go and test the K before jumping to conclusions.

 

[riioKen]

around 7 gigaAmano (2 are males and small, while the females are all eggnants)

Amano are known for snacking on plants, especially althernathera. But the ones affected are:

• 2 althernathera (kleines papageinblatt and lilacina)
• acmella repens is highly affected
• nymphea red lotus
• xyris red

 

[riioKen]

Let's see if my math is working.

The tank Is 330L (110x50x60hcm). Inside the tank, there is around 10cm substrate, so ~50L removed from the full volume.

If the tank is ~280L that I supposed it is, I do a wc change of ~145L.

My ro system is arka myaqua1900 and produce 10l of waters in 10 minutes. (1:1 efficiency).

145 litres produced in 2 h and 20m.

I add 11.6g MgSo4 and 18.9g of CaSo4. This should give me a GH of 5 (or 6?) at ratio 4:1 for Ca:Mg.

The Ro water tds is 20ppm, after I add mg and ca the tds jumps to ~130ppm

Is alright?

 

[bizo]

What is your light intensity? And which light? I have a Juwel Rio 300 tank (similar to yours).

Do you have a skimmer? For gas exchange? Enough flow? 1,4 ph drop should be enough.

I also would add more fast growing plants. WC at least 50% a week.

How old is your tank?

Your numbers on GH, Mg and Ca seem ok. I add like 18 CaSo4 and 12 MgSo4 to a 170l of RO water.

 

[riioKen]

What is your light intensity? And which light? I have a Juwel Rio 300 tank (similar to yours).

Do you have a skimmer? For gas exchange? Enough flow? 1,4 ph drop should be enough.

I also would add more fast growing plants. WC at least 50% a week.

How old is your tank?

Your numbers on GH, Mg and Ca seem ok. I add like 18 CaSo4 and 12 MgSo4 to a 170l of RO water.

Week Aqua P1200 Gen 2 (180w 10800lm) at 80%, it's a new addition, I'm increasing 10% weekly. I plan to go at 100% in the next 3 weeks.

I have a skimmer and enough surface agitation. About flow, 2 oase biomaster thermo 600 are inside the cabinet with 1 CO2 reactor.

About adding more fast growing plants, with a setup like this, trimming session must be done 2 times per week probably. So it's a no go to me.

Wc Is already 50% weekly, with my ferts routine is almost mandatory.

About the tank age, it's almost 3 years old, this is my journal, if you go to the first page, you'll see everything you need.

Right now in the middle, I've made something very similar to a grow out room hahaha, very unaesthetic but necessarily.

I need to find a better position for this macrandra variegated...

 

[bizo]

About adding more fast growing plants, with a setup like this, trimming session must be done 2 times per week probably. So it's a no go to me.

Isn't that a part of such tank style? In my experience tanks with lots of plant mass tend to be "more stable and healthier". It's a deep tank ... I don't even know if it's possible to have an EI tanks with high light with only a few plants... Fast-growing plants create oxygen and take a surplus of nutrients.

Don't take that as an insult but in some video Josh Sim said the space above your plants and tank top is a "noobie space". Also said soil shouldn't be visible.

Why the holes in leaves ... don't know ... some might say K and be laughed at with the Dennis Wong's meme. It could be everything and nothing.

It's complicated. Obviously.

On paper and in math everything looks perfect. But plants still have holes ...

I think with long-term stability everything comes into its place.

But I'm no expert ... so ...

 

[riioKen]

Isn't that a part of such tank style? In my experience tanks with lots of plant mass tend to be "more stable and healthier"

Yep, it's true but in my tank as fast growers are:

• Rotala macrandra
• acmella repens
• althernathera reineicki lilacina
• lindernia india
• Java Moss
• althernathera kleines papageinblatt
• hygrophila pinnatifida
• nymphea red lotus
• Ludwigia meta
• hygrophila repens purple
• Ammannia pedicellata golden

Which can be considered at least medium-fast If not, few, very fast growers.

You're right, fast growers help to stabilize the tank, but i don't have algae problems, only little dust on the glass and few gsa on the lower end of the glass that I scrape off 1-2 times per month.

Don't take that as an insult but in some video Josh Sim said the space above your plants and tank top is a "noobie space"

I'm just an hobbyist like most of you all (more experienced than few, waaaay less than others). But isn't that easy fill a tank that it's height is 60cm and honestly, I don't even like having plants that are 50+ cm

Also said soil shouldn't be visible.

That's what I aim in the future, but as I said, this is now in a grown phase with lots of species rare and delicate:

• Eriocaulon ratnagiricum
• Eriocaulon quinquangulare
• xyris difformis
• hygrophila chai
• rotala ramosior florida
• cuphea anagalloidea
• Ludwigia verticellata White
• micranthemoides white

I think with long-term stability everything comes into its place.

Probably one of the things that are "general consensus"