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February 2002
Hello again to all:)
I hope everyone had a great time over the holidays:) Best wishes to all
in this New Year:)
Well another month has gone by and as I left off in last month’s
installment my Heteranthera zosterifolia was giving me a bit of trouble.
If you remember it was breaking apart at the stem in different areas and
was starting to grow sideways on me. Initially I thought that these
problems were due to lighting levels for the plant. I had assumed this
because of the bending and crooked growth and breakage of the stems. After
doing a little more investigation it would seem that this was not the
problem. The breakage of the stems was not only happening at the lower
levels of the stems near the bottom of the plant were one would see this
happening if due to low light levels but also near the top of the plant?
As to the bending and crooked growth this was not happening just at the
top of the plant near the surface, as one would expect if light levels
were to high but also near the bottom of the plant? Both of these factors
led me to believe it was something else, probably a deficiency of some
kind in nutrient levels. After looking at the other plants in the tank for
any signs of deficiencies of any kind and not being able to see any I
decided to run all the tests I could on the tank to see what was up.
Well as with my previous setup it would seem that now my tank was
settled and just sucking up the Nitrates. I was getting readings of zero
even after a little experimentation of not doing a water change for a week
in the tank. So far in any of my planted tanks I had never used PMDD or
any supplementation of any kind of micro nutrients other then to add
“Tropica Master” grow to the tank and the occasional shot of Potassium by
“Sea Chem.”. Well off I went to see about looking up as much as I could
about the addition of Nitrates to a planted tank. The way that a person
can do this is to add Potassium Nitrate. You can buy Potassium Nitrate at
your local Garden Center as “Stump Remover” it is almost pure Potassium
Nitrate. Just to make sure that it is pure ask the vendor to supply you
with a MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for the product, they have to
provide you one by law if asked (at least in Canada they do). This sheet
will give you the chemical breakdown of the substance you will be buying
(also lists fire and material handling data plus preventative and safety
measures for the substance). Off I went and bought my Potassium
Nitrate…Now what? After some more research on the Net and some searches on
the APD (Aquatic Plants Digest) I was led to Chuck Chad’s website, it IMO
has the best comprehensive page on how to mix, measure and add this stuff
to your tank. Here is the web addy for you:
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/index.htm Well I mixed up a batch of
stock solution and started to add it to my tank at 5ml at a time until I
got a reading of 5ppm. After a couple of weeks of adding this solution to
my tank at every water change (15% WC) every other day. I have figured out
that with the new water in I have to add 5ml each time so .25ppm of
Nitrate added. This seems to have corrected my problems with my
Heteranthera zosterifolia:) It is now growing great and have had to prune
it back already once. Not only has it helped this plant, I have noticed a
marked difference in growth to all of my other plants. Pearling also
starts earlier in the day almost an hour after lights come on! Also
noticed a small bit of hair algae starting to grow before the addition of
the Potassium Nitrate and it is no longer in my tank after the addition of
this solution! I keep the solution in a brown plastic bottle I bought at
the local pharmacy and store it under the tank in the cabinet so no light
gets to it.
So with that all figured out for the moment sat back yet again on the
couch and admired my handy work:) As usual something with the tank was
just not right (Or a better description would be that I can’t just sit
back I gotta fiddle hahahahaha). Looking at the tank I noticed again that
I had not done the greatest job in planing my aquascape. Mind you a couple
of the problems I could not have planed for, they only showed up when the
tank had grown in a bit. The E. Tenellus in the shadowy areas of the tank
grow to almost 4” in the bright areas almost right out in the open they
grow only to 1.5” in height. Right beside this my Lileopsis Brasiliensis
was growing to 4” in height beside the 1.5” E. Tenellus. Also as mentioned
in last month’s article I had chance to pick up some E. Quadricostatus.
Where I planted it, it was being hidden by the Lileopsis Brasiliensis.
Also the Heteranthera zosterifolia was burying my happy hitchhiker I got
when I bought the Lileopsis Brasiliensis, the Glossostigma elatinoides.
Well off I went and did a little rearranging. Mmmmmmmmmmmm things seem ok
now let’s see if the Glossostigma takes off now and fills the space
provided it. Also I noticed that one of my swords that I had bought
originally, as Echinodorus Uruguayensis was in fact an Echinodorus Martii.
It actually looks real cool and I prefer it to the regular Amazon sword.
Its leaf stems are a lot longer before the body of the leaf starts and the
leaf itself has wavy edges to it. This plant is also not as dense as the
Amazon sword. One part of the backwall was looking kinda bare and could
see the back glass so out I went and bought another E. Martii and planted
it in this bare spot. You can see my new setup below, I have redone the
drawing and next month will have some more pictures for you. On another
note I had the pleasure this month having my Golden Spotted Bushynosed
Ancistrus breed for me in the tank. Wild to see the eggs of these guys,
they are huge! They are yellow orange in colour and are about .5cm in
diameter. The female laid the eggs and then took off to leave the male to
tend to them never to be seen from again hahahaha. After a couple of days
they hatched out to wigglers and were real cute! They were there for one
day and then could not find any of them at all. Couple of days later was
looking at the male because he was still guarding his crevice in the root
pretty vehemently and noticed a baby fry about 1cm that looked exactly
like the parents swimming around dad! WoooooooooHoooooooooo!!! Well one
more day of watching and I had the pleasure of seeing about 5-6 of the fry
kicking around! Went and looked for then again a couple of days latter and
nothing? Now where did they go…………
Davis 
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