Tonina species and their needs

[baruch mor]

hi, could someone give a full detail on the family eriocaulaceae and specialy on the toninas species please?
temp
ph
kh
gh
no3
po4
botom ferts - yes or no
conductivity - is it metters?

[lorba]

Hi Mor,

keep temperature at about 26-28 is good enough.
pH will be 6 - 6.5. If you have ADA soil, then no worries about it.

Do not add too much stuff that increases the hardness, as in hardness or magnesium. I never dose No3 or po4, cant comment on it.

Eriocaulon requires base fert while tonina does not really matters.

[Plantbrain]

I've not found it to be particularly picky, this is true for all the varieties, stuff grows fast for me(easily 2-3 inches a week).

I add about 20ppm NO3/1-2ppm PO4, GH about 5, KH about 3, Temp, does not matter if above 20C.

If it does not like hardness, you might want to tell my plants, they grow well in Onyx sand, which is calcite and Fe.

Regards,
Tom Barr


3rd annual Plant Fest July 8-14th 2005!
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[lorba]

Hi Tom, have you tried the fussy eriocaulon species such as mato grosso etc? They melt on you with hard water (or stunned), very risky as they are not cheap plants.

Some of the sensitive toninas such as Tonina sp Rio Uaupes doesnt it take it well too.

[baruch mor]

had same problem here, harder water then kh3 or gh 3 - browning of the leaves and stunt growth, as soon as i moved them to ADA aquasoil base - they looked better.
what about let them float near the surface in pots with rock-wool ? will it be better ?

[lorba]

you can try it on the tonina as they takes in nutrients from the water column more readily. But you will not get fantastic growth form. Those planted in the soil will be fuller and nicer.

For eriocaulons, don't try it. They requires the base fertilizers.

[congshao88]

IMO, tonina will be easy if grown on ADA soil. Used to plant it on normal lapis with JBL base fert but all my Toninas failed.. Now on ADA soil, all my different Toninas grow quite well.

[Plantbrain]

Hi Tom, have you tried the fussy eriocaulon species such as mato grosso etc? They melt on you with hard water (or stunned), very risky as they are not cheap plants.

Some of the sensitive toninas such as Tonina sp Rio Uaupes doesnt it take it well too.

I honesdtly have never had any issues with any of the Tonia species, I've had 3 varieties thus far and 2 Eriocaulon species did well also.

You folks get new plants and have trouble with them and blame it on hardwater and that's not the case. KH's over 6-10 etc perhaps, but I've found no evidence with any plant that they need a KH of under 3-4 in every and any case. GH can be high, 5-10 etc without issue.

I know this because I have grown every sort of plant out there, I may not have grown the mato grosso variety, but I have grown and do grow the Tonia with ease............


Listen, I've heard this baloney before at least 1000's times on the web for well over a decade. Any new plant that comes down the pipeline that's hard for some folks to grow has these supposed needs.

"Such and such plant need soft water or acidic pH's, peat, substrate fertilizers etc etc etc".

Like miracle algae cures, I get a little mythed at folks when they fall back on this excuse.

Every single time I grow the plant just fine at medium KH's/ and higher GH's.

...........Now if it's supposely required for growth, why are my plants growing? I am trying to think of plant metabolism pathway that supports this claim, there are none in the literature, just a few observations for natural ecosystems, actually the reverse is true in the lab....nature is the aquarium, assuming it is, is a poor assumption and has led to many myths, the soft water requirement for plants being one of them.

I've gone through and hounded people to explain why my hardwater tanks grow these plants.

It's like saying adding excess PO4 causes algae, if it does, why don't I have algae? Why does my Tonia grow 2-3 inches a week? Why do the "soft water" plants grow like weeds at KH's 3-5, GH's 5-10?

There is no plant I know of that does not thrive at those ranges.
One plants does better at these ranges than say a KH of 10 and Gh of 15, Rotala macarandra, Eustralis to some degree, R wallichii, these plants grow at harder water, but do better in the 3-5KH/5-10GH range.

If you have substrate belief's that means folks have less in their water column.

I've heard this many many times for the last few decades also, that such and such plant is required to have substrate ferts.

Somehow I struggle along
ADA soil has NH4, after about a month or so, that's all converted to NO3 by bacteria. Beside traces, PO4/K+ and GH, what's left?
NO3 really.

Why would a plant that lives in water transport nutrients out of the substrate when the nutrient is already there near the new growth?

If you limit the water column, then the plant has no choice.
If the water column has ample supply and a stable supply(not that hard to accomplish), then ADA substrates, Flourite, soil etc play a much reduced role.

This has been shown in aquariums and in the field and in lab test.

I started in this hobby when there was roughly 30-40 plants available, now there are close to 300 species/varieties.

Each new plant that has appeared on the scene has supposely all these certain requirements.

Now out of 250 species, I've found they all have the same similar requirements, some are more tolerant of poor CO2, NO3, light, etc, but if you add enough nutrients and CO2, they all seem to grow just fine.

After hearing this over and over for a decade(and the same things to boot), I really have serious doubts.

Every new plant I do very well with, while I do not discount to possibility, you will realize I am very skeptical since I have yet to be proven wrong to date.

I did conceed 2-3 plant species do better than at hard water, but moderate hardness works fine for them, so there is still no soft water plant I know of yet.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[baruch mor]

Why do the "soft water" plants grow like weeds at KH's 3-5, GH's 5-10?

There is no plant I know of that does not thrive at those ranges.
One plants does better at these ranges than say a KH of 10 and Gh of 15, Rotala macarandra, Eustralis to some degree, R wallichii, these plants grow at harder water, but do better in the 3-5KH/5-10GH range.

Regards,
Tom Barr

tom, you just solved my dilema - when we (here in israel )talking about hard water we are talking about gh 25-40 and kh why above 10...

[Plantbrain]

Well, therer are a few, and very few, like 1-2% of all the plant species, sayt 300 species that are available that do equally as well in either hard or soft water, my old tap water was like yours, GH's 25, KH's 11 or so.
Many places in the Midwestern US are sky high, due to limestone like where you live, Florida has awesome aquatic plant growth where water comes out of the ground, so do some parts of SA where there is limestone.

These are some of the nicest exmaples of natural submersed growth anywhere in the world. New Zeland has perhaps the most awesome spring with plants.

These springs and rivers are full of plants, extremely stable and have had plants for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.


Regards,
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com

[Garen_koh]

actually most impotant is the KH u must take note.. i use to have a tank wif a KH of 3 to 4, and my toninas turn yellowish and some even melt off..
so i try to use ADA soil to bring the kh to 1 and ph to 5.5 .. and the result turns out very well.

[Plantbrain]

My plants do quite well at a KH of 3-5. Every plant, every species I've ever tried does well, not just some, and this included all the Tonia's.

My plants grow and branch, about 2-3 inches a week.
Hard to grow if they are yellow

But it's not the KH that's causing the issue for you nor pH.
I would not be able to grow the plant well other wise if that were really the case.

I'm not saying what issue you had is, I am saying what it is not.

Regards,
Tom Barr