how's the re-build going farm?

[aspen]

i guess we haven't heard from you on this topic for about 2 weeks and i hope the plants are doing fine.

 

[farm41]

The plants are doing okay, not spectacular, just okay, I think the 4 days out of water was a little hard on them. I ordered some KH2PO4 a couple of weeks age and quickly found out how much is an overdose. I dumped a 1/4tsp in my 60 and now I have a bad greenwater problem. 1st time for that kind of algae, and why not get it, I've dealt with every other kind, might as well have the GW too. I've heard that daphnia will clean it up and I'm trying to get some, my regular supplier was bought out last week before I got in there, friday he should have some more and I'm going to get a couple of bags of them. They should do quite well in the tank, I only have 2 bristlenose and 10 oto's in right now. As soon as the daphnia get the water cleared the apistos will go in and they will have an all you can eat buffet of daphnia for a while.

I don't know how the plants got so dense in the tank before, I couldn't even fit everything that came out of there back in, and it looks like a jungle instead of a fish tank. When all of the plants have recovered the replant, I will definately have to clear out the tank, it's just so hard to throw them out, well, I don't really throw them out, I take them to the lfs, and usually come home with fish and whatever else I need without spending any money.

 

[aspen]

that's funny, i've left plants in a bucket for a week, and re-planted them, and they've come back very quickly. i wonder what you are missing? your co2 system should have gotten them perky in no time.

maybe you overdosed the roots with pp? roots are a little sensitive to pp, some say not to dose the roots, but i always do, and have always seen them come back. i like to trim at least a quarter off of the roots before re-planting, or cut the roots right off of the stem plants, but you may have some root damage that will take some time to recover from. i don't use very much fert at all in the first few weeks, i like to see the signs of starvation before i feed them with macros. this gets them fighting and eating very well ime.

rick

 

[farm41]

Maybe my 'okay' is a little different than others 'okay', my plants are even pearling, but they aren't what they were just yet. There's a few spots on them that are damaged and the crypt's are melting. There's only one crypt in the whole bunch that I am concerned about. the rest are duplicated in other tanks. The thing I am most dissapointed in is the GW algae. I know I can get rid of it, I can switch my magnum 350 from the 38g and use the paper filter to get most of it. I just wasn't ready to do it yet.

 

[farm41]

Just talking about it got me up and I switched the filters, the magnum has already made a difference.

 

[farm41]

I have been fighting the GW for a couple of weeks and it's finally gone, it's clear and I can see all my fish. I tried dapnia, I think they went through the filter and prefilter, I tried a 4 day blackout that didn't work. The thing that did work was 2 75% water changes in the same day and then a blackout with 75% water changes for 4 days. I am going to slowly work my way back to the fertilizer doses that I was at.

 

[farm41]

I'm happy to say, I have been algae free for over a week now. yippee! I am back to full doses of fert. now we'll see what happens.



And I have eggs

 

[aspen]

life is good again! nice to hear.

rick