Plant's Reduced sensitivity to light

[GaspingGurami]

Since my dosing disaster with KH2PO4, I decided to do a little experimenting. No loss, I thought, so I upped my dosing (more like OD) of KNO3, and Potassium to try to balance out the excess PO4. I also increased my CO2 rate and irradiated the 20 litres with 72 watts of PL, 1.5 inches from the water surface To keep things cool, a 6" fan is blowing onto the surface 24/7. Evaporation is an understatement but like I said, I wanted to experiment.

My last test says the water contains:
NO3: 40ppm
PO4: beyond 40ppm, (still beyond test range after 4 water changes of 50% or more)
pH: 6.5
kH: 5 degrees
CO2: 40 over ppm
Fe: 0.25ppm

Observations:
1) The tank was not only bubbling, it looked more like a soda drink with all those bubbles floating all over the shop. IMO, it looks "dirty" like too much suspension of particles in the water. Pearling is nice, but with too much bubbles, not nice. I'm learning about too much of a good thing is not good.

2) Fishes (tetras) become very timid, hiding away in the foilage. They use to come up front to "greet" me before this experiment. Even feeding time, they are timid and will only make a fast grab at the floating pellets before going back to hide.

3) Khuli loaches conversely have become bold, even rising to the surface to pick the food.

4) Banana plant puts out more surface leaves than underwater leaves.

5) E. tennelus colour turns bronze.

6) Cabomba and Egeria looks terrible growing skinny and long, and growing too fast. but the tiny bubbles on the delicate leaves make it look like it's sprinkled with fairy dust very nice.

7) Pink leaves of E. oriental turn green very fast would prefer them to stay rosy pink with green veins forever

8 ) Riccia stays attached to the bogwood and grows very long fronds, almost antler like. if only they can stay this way and not float to the surface.

9) Alga: ahem... dun talk about it lah. All types also have. I'm becoming to like some of them frankly (those long green filament types and the cladophora types are rather nice on the bogwood)

10) Which brings me to the subject of plant sensitivity to light. Last night, I raised the lamp up on their 3 inch legs so that I can do some tidying of the water surface scum, etc.

After 30 minutes of doing this, I noticed the bubbling rate had reduced by a noticable amount. And when I returned the lamp down to 1.5 inches above the water surface, my "soda factory" resumed production within 5 minutes.

So does that mean that my plants have gotten used to the extra-high light intensity? I've heard of anti-biotic resistance in bacteria, so is it possible that plants get numb to lights?

Any thoughts?

[Plantbrain]

L-
You will want to clean the tank out and trim up the plants and remove sections with algae. Then lightly vacuum the the surface only of the gravel. Do 50% water change. Check other PO4 thread for fert routine.

If you want to slow growth down and place less demand on dosing but still have nice growth, shoot for about 2-3 w gal. There is nothing you cannot grow nicely with that much light.

I have a 13w over a 4 gal cube @ 8cm, that's more than enough light.


Regards,
Tom Barr

[GaspingGurami]

[quote:df436a9f56="Plantbrain"]L-
You will want to clean the tank out and trim up the plants and remove sections with algae. Then lightly vacuum the the surface only of the gravel. Do 50% water change. Check other PO4 thread for fert routine.

If you want to slow growth down and place less demand on dosing but still have nice growth, shoot for about 2-3 w gal. There is nothing you cannot grow nicely with that much light.

I have a 13w over a 4 gal cube @ 8cm, that's more than enough light.


Regards,
Tom Barr[/quote:df436a9f56]

Hi Tom,

It is rather difficult to trim the plants (moss and all the leaves of A. nana and E. oriental are grown over with all sorts of green algae). If I were to effectively trim away all infected foilage, I'd be left with stumps Moreover, the carpet of tennelus makes gravel vacuuming a thing of the past can't reach the gravel without upsetting a lot of things.

Currently, I do not have an algae crew to help with my housekeeping, they regretably departed from me during the OD episode.

My plan is this: Seeing that I have an infestation of mainly "green" forms of algae, and these types do better with light, I'll blackout the tank for 4 days, (hoping that'll do em in) while I do daily water changes till the PO4 reads somewhere around 1ppm. Then, I'll resume the fertilization regime, but keeping light at as low a level as I can -- meaning, I'll raise my 36watt lamp higher above the water.

Then I'll reintroduce a new crew of Yamatos, Otos and SAEs for the coup de grace of the algae.

Do you think this will work? My other option is to change the tank and replant, seeing that my orientals have grown too tall for my present tank. I'm however hoping this can be deferred till later next year.

[Plantbrain]

You can go in with your fingers and rub alot of the algae off some of the plants.

Vacuuming the tennellus is not any issue, you vacuum and fluff the detritus caught under the leaves, I do the same with Blyxa and Hairgrass.
Just gently press the vac on top of the plants till they push down. You should be able to get an inch or so away.

Sometimes it's good to prune a ratty looking thicket, pick off what you can, then replant that section and then do a water change. Re set your tank, and start trying to stick with the CO2/NO3 etc.

You don't have to trim all the algae off, just some of it.
While algae eaters may help, a good method will take care of the algae issues on it's own without the need for the algae crew. Algae eaters will help, but they are not required to grow plants or grow algae free plants.

Your plan sounds good. Just keep filters clean, good CO2 and dosing.
Prune any dead leaves but leave most of the young tender leaves. Stumps are no good
The blackout will help, some plants may be leggy after.

Good luck.
Regards,
Tom Barr

[GaspingGurami]

[quote:616531f0a1="Plantbrain"]You don't have to trim all the algae off, just some of it.
While algae eaters may help, a good method will take care of the algae issues on it's own without the need for the algae crew. Algae eaters will help, but they are not required to grow plants or grow algae free plants.

Your plan sounds good. Just keep filters clean, good CO2 and dosing.
Prune any dead leaves but leave most of the young tender leaves. Stumps are no good
The blackout will help, some plants may be leggy after.

Good luck.
Regards,
Tom Barr[/quote:616531f0a1]

Thanks Tom, this time I'll try to be good with my sums. Hopefully no more overdosing of anything else, knock on wood

I'm into day 3 of the blackout and I've got a question on restarting.

Since the fauna have been living in relatively nutrient-free water for the past 2 days (daily 70% water change, no CO2 injection, I believe my pH before enrichment usually is around 7 to 7.5), how should I dose when the lights restart?

I mean should I dump in the necessary NPK + TE + kH to the 10:1:10 ratio, pump up the CO2 to 30ppm in time for the light to come on?

Or should I go easy and put in a half dose of everything, allowing the Tetras to acclimatise back to a fertilised water column before slowly bringing the level up to par?