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Thread: Cement Tank??? - Expert Please Help!

  1. #1
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    Cement Tank??? - Expert Please Help!

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    Went to Teos Farm recently and a very interesting queation was pop by my CO,
    wife - "Why your tank is like a patient in ICU?"
    me - "Huh?"
    wife - "they got mud in the cement tank thats all, your fish tank(to my wife is still a fish tank) go so many equipment."
    I tiam tiam, because no answer.

    All the expert pls help me on this,

    I or most of us in this forum, have an efficient filter, chiller or fan, co2 injection system, dam powderful lights, tons of "medicine"(my wife calls it that), super expersive substrate (compare to mud), and we most of us still struggle (at the beginning for me) to keep the plants alive.

    Our aquatic plant farmers here, which "farms" the plant - meaning they grow plants dam well and fast enough to sell them, just grow them in cement tanks - no filter, no chiller, no fan, definitely no co2 injection, no 8k/10k lights, using mud as substrate

    my question is what gives? do Teo and the rest of them give their plants super fert to make them grow well, i do not think so, as a matter of fact i think most of them don't even do dosing of fert at all, the cost will be too high.

    so if you are still with me, how do they do it?

    PS My wife actually quite nice and very supportive, hate the sun but went to the farm with me.

  2. #2
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    Are you growing plants or scaping plants?? Thats the first question..

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    The real answer is in your last sentence......sun.

    Cheers,

    p.s. They do use fertilizers.
    I have dwarf cichlids in my tanks! Do you?

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    Add the fact that most of the plants are grown emersed. Emersed plants grow faster, easier, and do not have to deal with the possibility of algae infecting the leaves.

    In our tanks, putting the plants in water already introduces the problem of algae and CO2 supply.

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    Mr Ranmasatome - I want the plants to grow well

    Benny - does it mean that if i put my tank out in the sun and take away my filter, chiller, co2 and just throw in mud and my plants will do well?

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    Mr Squee - does it mean that if i have some new plants and i slowly acclimatise them from emerse to submerse they will do better? and i do not need to have co2 injection anymore?

    Also then what about the temperature? Anyone can answer the temperature issue?

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    It's just like the pond. The mud provides the nutrients (which the substrate is for in most of our tanks). The sun provides the (strong) light, which is substituted by our tank lights. The stuff that drops into the water acts like the ferts we dose. However, we can't view the cement ponds from the sides. Thus, no or not much scaping. The plants will do well, even in the full sun. This is mainly because of the flowing and the larger volume of water, which keeps the temperature lower than expected.
    Last edited by Justikanz; 21st Feb 2006 at 13:47.
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    err...dont think you're catching the drift here...
    Are you growing plants or scaping a tank?? perhaps this is more precise...
    and since you are answering in a question format let me try also...

    If you want to grow plants well..that is very simple..

    Have you seen the colour of the water in the farm??
    want your tank water to be that colour??
    Does your tank hold as much water as the cement compartments??
    How do you inject CO2 into emersed culture??
    Have you ever injected co2 into the air around your emersed plants? or the soil that they grow in??
    What about temperature??
    Have you seen what particular specific type of plants they grow emersed??
    And which they choose to grow submersed??

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    You need to grow plants well in order to scape a tank well.

    Light is the major factor in determining the growth rate of plants. The sun intensity is much higher than any lights that we can use on a tank but then again, alot of factors comes into play with the sun as well. (Clouds, wind, weather and etc. You don't get full intensity all day long. Sort of like a short burst of high intensity light like in a forest environment.).

    Regards
    Peter Gwee

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    yes peter..but i meant it as a more extreme case mah..
    we not growing plants to sell...we growing plants to scape tank... so different purpose..but same process of growing plants. There is no esthetics involved in JUST growing plants..or rather..there need not be any..

    besides.. i actually do planted tank for fishes..hahaha..

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    IIOOII, emergent growth is the fastest way you can get numbers out of aquatic plants since the light and CO2 are both non-limiting (Sunlight...no light we can use on a tank can much that in terms of intensity. Atmospheric CO2 is non-limiting as well...no dip in supply unlike a CO2 system.). The other issue about emergent growth is that it travels better during shipment as compared to submersed ones.

    Regards
    Peter Gwee

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    I believe he simply wants to know why our "high tech" stuff is no match for Teos' cement ponds and mud.

    Here's a few reasons:
    1) the sun! 10000000000000000 watts of power!
    2) mud is extremely nutrient rich, like ADA powersand on steroids
    3) cement ponds actually have all kinds of little critters burrowing around in the soil.
    4) chicken shit. Yup, teo actually uses chicken shit as fertiliser, didn't you smell it?

    And here's why our tanks can't compare:
    1) no sun! and the spectrum of our lights isn't as wide as that of the sun
    2) Mud clouds the water REALLY quickly. which is why you pay so much for powersand.
    3) most people don't have anything to move the substrate in their tanks
    4) i doubt you want to carry bags of chicken shit home...
    5) no one cares when algae builds up on the cement. but we all hate it on our glass

    But hey, alot of the more high maint tanks have growth rates far higher than the farms. I'm sure teo can't harvest his plants every week

    And if you're looking to go natural... there're tanks like my 6ft that are just
    Light + substrate + water + fish + plants. No filter, no CO2 and the lights are just 100watt FLs. Thing about setups like this are the plants that forever to grow. My blyxa auberti grew from 20cm to 35cm in 2months. Which is nowhere near it's max height of 100cm...

    As for your tank looking like an ICU... just hide the wires lor...

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    Quote Originally Posted by IIOOII
    Mr Squee - does it mean that if i have some new plants and i slowly acclimatise them from emerse to submerse they will do better? and i do not need to have co2 injection anymore?

    Also then what about the temperature? Anyone can answer the temperature issue?
    Well, that's a contradictory thing to do because in a tank plants can only grow submersed.

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    Quote Originally Posted by XnSdVd
    I believe he simply wants to know why our "high tech" stuff is no match for Teos' cement ponds and mud.

    Here's a few reasons:
    1) the sun! 10000000000000000 watts of power!
    2) mud is extremely nutrient rich, like ADA powersand on steroids
    3) cement ponds actually have all kinds of little critters burrowing around in the soil.
    4) chicken shit. Yup, teo actually uses chicken shit as fertiliser, didn't you smell it?

    And here's why our tanks can't compare:
    1) no sun! and the spectrum of our lights isn't as wide as that of the sun
    2) Mud clouds the water REALLY quickly. which is why you pay so much for powersand.
    3) most people don't have anything to move the substrate in their tanks
    4) i doubt you want to carry bags of chicken shit home...
    5) no one cares when algae builds up on the cement. but we all hate it on our glass

    But hey, alot of the more high maint tanks have growth rates far higher than the farms. I'm sure teo can't harvest his plants every week

    And if you're looking to go natural... there're tanks like my 6ft that are just
    Light + substrate + water + fish + plants. No filter, no CO2 and the lights are just 100watt FLs. Thing about setups like this are the plants that forever to grow. My blyxa auberti grew from 20cm to 35cm in 2months. Which is nowhere near it's max height of 100cm...

    As for your tank looking like an ICU... just hide the wires lor...
    And lastly, none of his cemented tank can win a place in ADA competitions....
    Cheers and Regards,
    Billy Cheong

    I'm not always dumb,
    Just most of the time...

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    Thanks everyone for helping to answer my question, especially to XnSdVd who really put my question in proper (sorry for my poor comms skill).

    XnSdVd can you sent me a pic of your 6ft low maint tank? Very interested in setting up something like that.

    Squee, i was thinking more like slowly raising the water level of a newly set up tank over a few weeks so that the plants will slowly grow from emersed to submerse form for it to adapt well, I was thinking of putting in the fore ground plant, then raise the water level up slowly, then the middle ground plant and then the back ground plant as the water level rise a bit daily.

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    Joe has a gd journal on his 5ft low maintenance tank also. Maybe u can get a few pointers there.

    Cheers
    JC

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    Just to add my comments on the Teo brothers farm (my gd friends ),

    1)They actually grow lots of the rarer plants (like some Crypts) for about 6-8 mths b4 they harvest. Talk about patience.

    2) The avg temp there is about 29-32 dgrees C. Sometimes even higher. Shade loving plants (Ferns, Anubias) are grown....... under shade lah!
    Sprinklers working on auto mode.

    3) And yes, plants grow a lot faster emersed. So you can actually put some Downoi in your flower pot and grow them like that!
    I just saw about a thousand of those just now, when I was there.
    Click here to help me make my Fish Room Project a reality!

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    Hi Weirong

    when i check, most books recommend the temp of between 22-28C for growing Anubias, with the temp at Teos hovering between 29-32C, sprinkler can only lower the temp a 2-3 degree.

    Am i right to say that if you are growing a plant emersed and under the sun, most plants can tolerate a higher temp?

    Thanks

  19. #19
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    no. the book can also be wrong..which is rare..but it does happen..

    but on a side note.. evaporation cools the surface of the leaf more than you think...its more like micro climates..not just the surrounding temperature.
    Last edited by ranmasatome; 21st Feb 2006 at 23:00.

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    Alas my tank just got Hiroshima-ed by crypt melt. So there's nothing left by a few strands of hairgrass and the small blyxa. Wait till my stuff grows back

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