Plant Maintenance Advice

[darkdep]

Rather than jack a similar thread, I'll start a new one.

In my 90gal I have Amazon Swords, Giant Hygro, and Red Hygro.  It's a 24" tall tank, but has 192watts of T8 Fluorescent lighting.  Substrate is a mix of black sand and very fine black gravel (Geosystems stuff).

I'd like to make these plants fluorish.  I've managed to keep plants alive in my other tanks but nothing is truly blowing my mind.  I do not really know how to take care of plants properly.  I've made the effort to at least get the light situation correct on this tank, now I'm hoping to get some advice to handle the rest.  

I'm a complete n0rb when it comes to ferts, please help!

[kennyman]

I'm an aquarium plant noob too, but my land plant self says you might want to mix in somthing like  Eco-complete into the substrate. I think some of those plants will benifit form a substrate that has some cation extange capacity.

[darkdep]

...cation exchange capacity...yeah...ok...feel free to tell me what that is.

[BigDaddy]

CEC is a substrates ability to retain nutrients for later plant use.

Flourite has a very high CEC value.  Kitty litter (don't laugh, people use it) does not.

Simply put, unless you have HUGE light (which you don't) then I recommend the bottled liquid ferts at recommended dosages.  Excel is a nice CO2 substitute, but in a 90 gallon, would be very costly.

Your sword plants are root feeders.  I can't hurt to put a root tab under them.  The nice thing about root tabs is that you can't "over fert" and get nutrients leeching into the water column.  Algae doesn't have roots, so only the swords will benefit from them.

Your stem plants will do fine on a regular routine of a liquid fert like Flourish or Kent products...

Hope this helps.

[kennyman]

its the abillity of a substrate to collect and then exchange cations with the plant. Cations are + charged elements that the plant will want to absorb. As for how much role the substrate plays in the supply of cations (nutrients) vs the water itself to varrius types of plants. Im in over my head for that one . . lol over my head . . . its a water joke. I crack me up sometimes.

oops I was posting this at the same time a BD. Its kind of redundant now but I leave it up for the phunny joke  

[repeej]

The question is....how long before those cichlids turn your nicely planted tank into a salad.

On a serious note, i'm interested in this also since my community tank plants aren't doing so well lately.

[darkdep]

repeej: I've found that as long as you pay attention to where they want to dig (generally around / under the rocks), and plant the plants elsewhere, they do fine.  I don't mind them nibbling on the plants, as it is what they would do in the wild.  I have to replant the occasional small plant, but once they're established they aren't a problem.  They mostly dig them up "by accident" while digging for bits of food or nest-building.

You have to accept this behaviour with Africans, or you just can't have plants

[darkdep]

What kind of "root tabs" would you recommend for swords, BD?

Also, will this routine give me acceptable results even without CO2?  (Not that I'm against CO2 in any way, just need to read more about that first?)

[repeej]

Well good cause I added my first africans to the 55g last night and as luck has it.....it's got plants in it also.

[darkdep]

It's like working with your water...don't fight them with the plant thing, work with them

[gvv]

The problem is not in digging out the plants (but eventually you will not be able to regulate this untill yuo put some heavy stones around the plants), but this is perfct salad-bar for rift lake cichlids.
I know one thing - my africans ate every plant I put into tank, even anubias and val. And hygro is perfect, as it has very delicious leaves...
Only sword survived (!), but they regularly cut the new fresh leaves from it.

[Mettle]

They ate anubias? That's just wacky!

[kennyman]

My vallis is really really short, But there is about 20 young plants in there from the original 6 I started with six months ago. I think it might be the low fish poulation of my tank that is allowing algea and plants to survive. My fish pick off the substrate all day but they dont seem to dig much except under rocks.

A note if interest is my P.elongatus are labled  "herbivores" as opposed to omnivores like most of them.

[gvv]

kennyman, you are right! Sorry, had to specify: mbuna. Peacocks are not interested in plants

[darkdep]

So far my mbuna haven't done more than very occasionally nibble on the val and hygro...but you know what?  I don't mind.  The plants are part of their environment and they can nibble if they want.

[gvv]

The plants are part of their environment and they can nibble if they want.

This is really interesting question: what plants are native and part of the Malawi/Tang/Victoria environment? Any ideas?

Regards

[darkdep]

I know Val is native to Malawi; dunno what else.

[darkdep]

A question about CO2...I'm thinking of trying a little CO2 in the tank to experiment.  I was just going to go cheap with a DIY job, and I notice that Big Als sells these little CO2 kits that seem to work on the same fermentation principle and are fairly cheap ($39).

Just wondering if there is any actual advantage to a unit such as this over say, a DIY pop-bottle approach?

[Flawed_Artist]

I've had really good luck with plants. I've read a lot on them (I own a few aquatic plant books, too), and almost every tank I've had gravel in, I've kept plants. So, this being something that I've both read and experienced, I believe this;

Mbuna are more likely to be OK with plants if they're introduced after the plants are, if they're full (especially if their flakes/pellets/frozen has a high veg. content), and if they're not getting a good taste of something like lettuce, to ween them onto it.

Bog plants, Draconia, Trapa, Vallisneria, Anubias, Microsorium and Java moss, as well as even the Madagascar Lace (trust me, I've tried it with two species of Mbuna to win an argument) have worked for me. Apparently, water sprite has a bad taste, as well as a few other types of plants. I've seen hornwort take some bad damage, too.

As for darkdep's question, for swords, I've had good luck heating the substrate just a few degrees, below the base of the sword, and adding a substrate fertilizer. Even with the fert., the heating worked wonders. I highly recommend it - it was a tip I picked up from a Baensch Atlas 'Bible.'

Edit - To clarify, I used a ballast (that hooked into striplights) to heat the substrate.

[Flawed_Artist]

What about a DIY CO2, but with one of the bubble counter ladders to lengthen the time that the CO2's in the water?