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You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2008.
<rant>
Spending time in aquatic plant forums, and watching people continuously ask “how much” with regard to macro dosing for a particular tank drives me nuts! People want to know the quantity of a fert that they should dose their tank. It doesn’t make me nuts so much because it is a bad question, but because so often it is the wrong question. And a very clear tradition exists in this hobby to answer all dosing questions by describing how much to dose. Problem is - of course - that it is usually a meaningless answer.
When someone describes a quantity of a macro fertilizer to dose, it ignores plant uptake rates and water replenishment rates. To say that your tank needs X grams (or teaspoons, or what ever measure you feel happy with) of KNO3 every other day completely ignores water change intervals. I’ve got discus, so I change water more frequently than is normal in the hobby. So while X grams may be enough for the average hobbyiest for a tank with size, plants and lights like mine, I’m going to need something more than X, because I’m flushing so much down the drain so frequently. Likewise, the same recommendation of X grams KNO3 completely ignores plant uptake rates. Some plants have dormancy periods, recent trimmings or placement in a tank will be a factor, as will the general health of the plants, not to mention light, CO2 or other limiting factors. Different tanks of the same exact size with identical lighting can absorb any given nutrient at wildly differing rates.
So to reccommend X amount of any nutrient does a disservice to someone needing to know how much to fertilize their tank. But there are important exceptions to this.
If you are dosing Tom Barr’s Estimative Index (EI), or any other method that ignores day-to-day nutrient levels within a tank, please ignore every thing I’ve said. EI is founded on the idea that you establish an amount - “X” if you will - of every needed nutrient that will be at least enough, if not more than enough, for the plants. Then you dose that amount regularly - knowing that your plants will alway have enough - though not knowing if they might have too much. Frequent and regular water changes insures that any nutrient buildups do not become extreme.
So if you are not dosing EI or a similar method, what should we ask with regard to dosing, if not “how much”?
We should ask “what’s my target level“!
Concentrations of nutrients in the water column - expressed in some meaningful way like Parts Per Million (ppm) - is the ideal way to communicate dosing requirements. And I say target level, because short of some form of perfect constant dosing mechanism, soon after you dose anything, some of it may already be consumed by your plants. You could have a ppm target, and even if you dose perfectly, that level is going to change soon. Let’s say you target 14 ppm for Nitrogen. Depending on your plants’ uptake rate the nitrates in your tank may fall to 12, 10, or even 0 (that would be hard though) by the end of the day. So if you knew that your tank’s uptake rate for nitrates was 4 ppm per day, you might target 14 ppm by dosing enough to make the tank 16 ppm. So the tank starts the day at 16 ppm but falls to 12 ppm over the course of the day. Your average worked out to 14 ppm - the level you were targeting.
Dosing to target levels requires a good understanding of your plants’ uptake rates. And that requires test kits. If you don’t want to deal with test kits, then you need an “ignore the level” method like EI. Go take a look at Tom Barr’s website and read all about it. Otherwise testing is required. And good record keeping too if you are ever going to understand your plants’ uptake rate. And it’s easy to understand those rates. Test after dosing, but before the lights come on, and test when the lights go off. The second test should show lower ppm’s. The difference is your daily uptake rate. If nitrates started the day at 16 ppm, and ended the day at 12 ppm, then 4 ppm is indeed your tank’s daily uptake rate for nitrates.
Once you know your uptake rates, and you know what level you want to target (do you want 14 ppm for nitrates?), then you can go figure out how much to dose. There are great websites out there that can help you with that. Fertilator on Aquatic Plant Central is one, and Chuck Gadd’s website is another. If you know what level (in ppm) a nutrient is in your tank, and you know what level you want it to be, these sites will calculate the “how much” question for you.
At this point some of you may be asking “But how do I find out what my target levels should be?” Well, that’s the 64 thousand dollar question, and I’ll not try to answer that here. But what I do hope, is when you get onto a forum or go to a web site to find out, please don’t ask “How much of X nutrient do I put in my tank?”
Ask “What should my target level for X nutrient be?” That will get you the answers that you really need.
And some of you might be thinking… “That’s fine for Nitrates and Phosphate, it’s easy to get cheap test kits for those. But not Potassium.” That’s true. Potassium kits are rather expensive. But once you know your uptake rate for Nitrates, you can assume that Potassium will be consumed at roughly the same rate. If it turns out to be more, and you aren’t dosing enough, you’ll see pin holes in the leaves of your plants. And if you are actually dosing a little too much, that’s fine for potassium - assuming you are doing regular water changes to keep the excess from getting out of control.
And some of you might also be thinking… “But why should I care about this?” Easy. I’ve already shown that asking “How much” leads to not really understanding the macro concentrations in your tank. And too little will starve your plants and algae will soon follow. And dosing too much will likewise lead to algae. Yes - I know many will say “EI” provides too much, and that doesn’t lead to algae. True. For some people in some tanks it doesn’t. But it does not work for everyone. I’m not sure why. I believe Tom Barr’s position on that is that if excess is leading to algae then something else is wrong, like not enough CO2. But I don’t believe that is always the case when EI does not work for someone. There are a whole lot of experienced, clever people out there that EI has not worked for. So I’m gonna stick with my belief that unless EI does work for you (and it just might), then too may nitrates or phosphates may lead to algae trouble in your planted tank.
On a final note… please notice that this entire rant is about not asking “how much” for macros. Not micros. Micro-nutrients are not easily managed by testing your water (yes - I’m including iron in that statement). For micros you have to ask “How much”, because you cannot reliably know concentrations or ppms.
</rant>
Two days after this picture was taken my tank will have been up for one year. And that pic was taken two days ago. So today makes 1 year! Yippee!!!
But this isn’t the anniversary photo. Maybe I’ll take that tonight. There have definitely been changes in the last two days.
It’s been a stable year for the tank. But a disappointing year in some ways too. And a year of learning.
The fish have been healthy. I did have one case of bloat in one of my discus. And I thought that I had lost most of my Ottocinclus catfish until I tried to put some Rotalla wallichii in the tank, and I caught them eating the tips. So I guess they are just hiding in the plants unless there is something really tasty to come out for. Same with my amano shrimp (cardinia japonica). I thought they were gone too, but when I did a big trim a couple of weeks ago, I found dozens of them. Hiding too I suppose.
I’ve struggled with algae in this tank. None of the bad varieties. Just green spot (GSA) on the plants and green dust algae (GDA) on the tank walls. Lots of “experts” will tell you that GDA in particular just means you have a healthy tank. But lots of people don’t have it at all. I don’t mind a little. A minor wall cleaning every week or two is fine. But in a 180 gallon tank, any more than that is work. And I’ve been working.
I’ve flirted with a number of fertilization dosing regimens, and have settled back on the one I started with: letting the N an P in my tap water supply those macros, coupled with that being produced by plants, excess food, and biological breakdown of plant matter, supplemented with daily potassium and limited daily micros. That seems to both keep my plants healthy, and keep away the thread algae that wants to appear in any of my tanks that have sand substrates coupled with Phosphates over 1.4 ppm.
Ultimately I think the reason why dosing normal levels of N & P did not work for me in this tank was that my plant mass to animal mass ratio could not sustain it. The ammonia excreted by the discus was not being utilized by the plants fast enough. The plants were being dosed good levels of nitrogen in my dosing regimen, and the ammonia (NH4) was not being used fast enough and was triggering algae growth. Not that you could measure any ammonia in my tank. But it doesn’t take much to encourage algae.
For the sake of my plant health - which keeps the algae at bay -I’ve had to make a compromise that really hurts. I’m adding small daily doses of baking soda (NaHCO3), Epsom Salts (MgSO4), and Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) to raise my KH and GH. I’ve gone to great lengths to make this tank as low maintenance as possible, with a reasonable degree of success. One major goal has to been to be free of daily maintenance - with the exception of fish feeding. But if I’m away, anyone can do that for me.
To accomplish that my ferts are injected automatically, and my water changes are done in small, daily, completely automated cycles. To that end I’ve tried to let my plants adjust to the extremely low KH and GH of my tap water, and it just hasn’t worked. They don’t thrive without more calcium and magnesium than my tap provides. And the baking soda helps keep the pH stable. So I’m stuck adding this stuff daily. So much for no daily maintenance. I’ll just have to figure out a suitable way to automate this too.
And finally, I’ve finally finished all of the technical changes to the equipment that supports the tank. I’ve not posted info on it yet, but a pretty elaborate setup support the tank. A year ago I still had an additional pump and filter to install, a few improvements to make to the plumbing, and I needed to move the “water depth sensor” tube to a different bulkhead opening in the bottom of the tank. With that last labor intensive item done this weekend, there are no more planned changes to the equipment under the tank.
So I find myself at the end of a moderately successful first year of this tank. The hardware supporting it is finished. I’ve got the algae under control. And have finally found plants that work well with these lights, at these fertilization levels, at the warm temperatures discus require.
On the down side, I’ve got to figure out a way to automate my daily GH/KH boosting. And I’m not happy with the aquascape. That will - no doubt - be the focus of my efforts this coming year.
PS - If you see the dark discus that appear to be sulking in the right corner, they aren’t sulking. They’re OK. They are just tending their eggs.
Ecology of the Planted Aquarium: A Practical Manual and Scientific Treatise for the Home Aquarist
by Diana Walstad
ISBN 13:978-0-9673773-1-5
Wow! Now here’s a book I’ll never understand. The subtitle kinda says it all. It is indeed a “Scientific Treatise”, and I’ll wager that only a biochemist can ever really understand the entire book. So was it of any value to me, a your average aquarist without a degree in biology or chemistry? Yes. But if you are a biochemist that has planted aquariums for a hobby, then this is the book to die for!
Just a listing of chapters can give you a good idea of the contents of the book:
- Introduction
- Plants as Water Purifiers
- Allelopathy
- Bacteria
- Sources of Plant Nutrients
- Carbon
- Plant Nutrition and Ecology
- Substrate
- The Aerial Advantage
- Algae Control
- Practical Aquarium Setup and Maintenance
To give you a better idea of the nature of this book, let’s just list the topics discussed in a sample chapter. I’ll use topics from the Substrate chapter, because as a planted tank hobbyist, it’s a subject I would hope to know a little about. The topics in the chapter are”
Components of Soils and Sediments
- Mineral Particles
- Organic Matter
- Precipitated Inorganic Matter
- Microorganisms
Characteristics of Soil and Sediments
- Nutrient Binding
- Anaerobic Nature of Substrates
- Oxidized Microzone Keeps Nutrients and Toxins in Sediments
- Stability of Sediments and Submerged Soils
Chaos in Freshly Submerged Terrestrial Soils
Terrestrial Soils and Sediments for Growing Aquatic Plants
Problems of Sediments and Submerged Soils
- Metal Toxicity
- Hydrogen Sulfide Toxicity
- Organic Matter
- Low Redox
- Acid Sulfate Soils
- Turbidity
Effect of Aquatic Plants on Substrates
Substrates in Aquariums
- Selecting Soils
- Setting Up Tanks with Soils
- Fertilization
- Gravel Additives
- Substrate Degradation over Time?
Hmmm… maybe I didn’t know as much about substrate as I though. Most of that is a bit more advanced than the typical “Is flourite really not as good as AGA Aquasoil?” conversations I have. It’s WAY deeper than that, and will be outstanding information for many people. And in fact, I could actually almost follow most of it. But it is non-trivial stuff. Planted Tanks for Dummies this book is not. But enough of the “Scientific Treatise”, what about the “Practical Manual” part? Well, it is that. But only within some clear boundaries.
The author limits practical discussion to tanks wiht low light, soil for substrate, densely planted, no CO2 injection, and lots of surface plants. I’ve never done a “low tech” tank myself. But if I ever do, this book will be indispensable. And even though I do prefer “high tech” tanks, there is still value here for me. The algae control discussion is very good and the aquarium setup and maintenance information would be beneficial to newbies.
Throughout the book the author spent a number of years as the Technical Adviser to the Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA). She uses questions posed by hobbyist during that time, a long with her responses, as examples to demonstrate concepts explained in the text.
The book is all black and white, though later versions include 4 color photographs of the author’s tanks. Then again a lot of peer reviewed scientific publications don’t have a lot color either. They are just jam packed with great technical info. Same here. Thought it is richly illustrated with technical diagrams, charts and tables. In the 194 page book, I count 78 such technical illustrations. And the material is clearly very well researched. Each chapter has a truly extensive bibliography. And though the book was published first in 1999, it does not suffer much from obsolescence. While there is some different new thinking around some of her material, I believe most of the basic biochemistry she references is still unchanged.
I wish I was qualified to review the technical discussions in this book, but I’m not. But some very well covered subjects should be fascinating to those more academically advanced than I - allelopathic competition between plants and algae, bicarbonate uptake in alkaline water, the economies of CO2 use for aerial growth, the persistance of biofilms, and much, much more.
For me this book left me with a very deep respect for the extraordinary complexity of the chemistry and biology that drives the ecosystems in our planted aquariums. It’s a good thing that Mother Nature does such a good job of taking care of herself, because ‘cuz most of it is clearly too complicated for me. Though after reading this book, and getting a glimpse of just how much more complex things are than they appear, I’m feeling absolultely a lot less the idiot for having troble with algae in my tank.
I cannot easily recommend this book to someone without a biochemistry inclination, if not a formal background. Though I believe it is a MUST BUY for any hobbyists that does have that understanding. It should provide enough info about the complex processes that keep our planted aquariums humming along. Or not. Your increased understanding will help you discern the difference, with the added benefit knowing why.
To the best of my knowledge, Diana Walstad has produced one of the few truely technical, English language, works available to the advanced planted aquarist. And we all owe her a dept of thanks for doing so. Even if you have to go onto a forum and ask someone to explain it to you. Really.
In my last journal post I said that I’d keep my hands out of the tank until the end of the month, when I passed the one-year mark for the tank. Well, those intentions were great… but I could not help myself.
Most of the stem plants were at the water’s surface, and I don’t want them to get too “leggy”. I’m not a good aquascaper, but if I have to hang on to stem plants to keep this tank healthy, I’d at least like them to be bushy and thick. So they were getting a bit too tall and I cut them.
Because I’ve been fighting excessive Green Dust Algae (GDA) on the tank walls for a number of months, and because it has been MUCH better in the last month or so, I’m worried about pulling too much plant mass out of the tank. So I took metal weights and wrapped them around the tops of the stems I trimmed, and sunk them back into the tank. So hopefully they’ll keep growing and plant mass will not be too adversely impacted by the trimming.
In the pic you can see that the Ludwigia repens to the left is not doing well at all. When I let it grow to the surface it is thrilled. But even nine inches lower than the surface and it starts to really suffer. Now, where I have it growing is not directly under the metal halides. This plant needs high light to thrive. But I’m hard pressed to believe that being 18″ from a 150 watt HQI lamp is not enough light to thrive. I just don’t buy it. Instead I think that when it gets really, really close to the light that the photosynthetic rate that results somehow gets beyond what ever else is holding it back.
I can’t be sure, but I suspect the problem is temperature. My temps fluctuate from about 81.5 to 83.5 during the day. And Ludwidgia - a native of North America - is a cool water plant. But supposedly it can tolerate warmer water. This is kind of my test.
Anyway… the some of the other stem plants I inserted to help with the GDA - Wisteria (Hygrophila difformis) and Green Temple (Hygrophilia corymbosa) - seem to be dealing with heat just fine. Since I’m personally fond of Ludwigia’s, I’d be really tickled if this gets healthy too.
The Inspired Aquarium: Ideas and Instruction for Living with Aquariums
book by Jeff and Mike Senske
ISBN 1-59253-195-4
An excellent book for practical information applied to aquarium aesthetics.
The Inspired Aquarium by Jeff and Mike Senske is outstanding IMO. It has a vertical focus - aesthetics blended with practical advice in creating a visually appealing aquarium, broadly applied to every major type of tank. This book is not an “in the frame” aquarium picture book like Amano’s, where you get a view of a tank with equipment ripped out, fans across the top to create ripples, and everything but the interior of the tank blacked out. Instead this book is filled with photos showing how lovely an aquarium can be, not just within the confines of the tank, but beautifully incorporated into your home. And it provides lots of practical information on how to make your vision a reality.
It covers both fresh and saltwater fish-only tanks, along with planted FW and SW reef tanks. It is not a detail technical treatise on any of those types of tank. So a beginner would have to supplement their information to get started in any of these areas, though they would have more than enough information to decide what type of aquarium they want to tackle. While it is not strictly a “how-to” book, it is filled with useful advice that seems to be lacking in so many books other dealing with aquarium aesthetics. It is particularly useful for guidance in the areas of aquarium (and equipment!) placement, plumbing, selection of aquarium and fish, filtration and lighting.
If you want an aquarium, and have set yourself a $175 budget, this is not the book you need. But if you are someone that is interested in getting into the hobby, and are willing to invest a little money and time in creating a piece of living art in your home, then this is the book you’ve been waiting for! Or if you are trying to figure out what type of tank you want - freshwater with fish? Freshwater planted? Salt? Reef? This provides great detail around the differences and relative difficulty of owning those types of tanks. And for people like myself, already in the hobby, but can’t quite afford some of the truly magnificent tanks showcased in this book, it is still extraordinarily helpful for both the practical advice and truly inspirational examples and case studies it provides.
Books like Takashi Amano’s Nature Aquarium World only show you beautiful interior pictures of planted tanks, and Cristell Kasselmann’s Aquarium Plants only provide scientific information on FW aquarium plants. That is more than enough to justify the purchase of either IMO. But the Senske’s The Inspired Aquarium provides both tons of practical advice and inspiring examples of creating aquariums as living works of art in your home. For me, that was enough reason to run, not walk, to go get the book.
And once in my hand, I could not make myself put it down until I had read it cover-to-cover. Actually the first night I had it, I fell asleep with it in my hands…
As far as I can tell, this type of book is unique within the hobby, and long overdue.
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