Why So Little Pearling..i Miss My Bubbles!

[katana750]

Ok here is a quick overview
120 gallon tank
4" of flourite substrate
6' long tank over the 4' portion 260 watts compact flourescent 80 watts t12
other 2' 30 watts t10??? all new bulbs 2-3 months old
80 percent planted mostly stem plants
less than 1" per gallon fish rule, but still quite a few fish
dosing with EI method Traces, npk no potassium sulfide, 50% water changes
bulk of lights on 10 hours a day
hard water but with co2 at 30ppm(4dkh solution) ph is about 6.8 leave co2 on 24h

In the beginning the plants pearled like crazy...now 2 months later the only pearling I really see is when I trim the top off a plant.

The plants look ok but in the beginning you could almost watch them grow. Now they grow much slower, and I have more algae

I must be lacking something, but what?

Its kind of like I had a car running with 4 hundred horse power now it has 2....still pretty cool but the wow fact is gone.

Where have I gone wrong

 

[Themuleous]

Humm tricky one, it all sounds very good, but as you say there must be something wrong.

The lighting does sound a bit strange, could you expand on it a bit, I dont quite understand what you have and where it is at the mo. Also, T12 and T10 lighting is hugely inefficient and will produce a lot less light per watt than T8's and far less than T5's.

Do you have much surface water agitation? Are the plants still healthy? No signs of a deficiency or leaf loss/damage?

Sam

 

[SuperColey1]

In the beginning the plants pearled like crazy...now 2 months later the only pearling I really see is when I trim the top off a plant.

The plants look ok but in the beginning you could almost watch them grow. Now they grow much slower, and I have more algae

I must be lacking something, but what?

Can you clarify what you mean by in the beginning? If it is when you first started EI then I am a little lost. If you mean when you first put the plants in then I think they may have been running on their reserves and have now run out!! which would mean you are not putting enough ferts in.

Can you tell us how much you dose?

Andy

 

[katana750]

Humm tricky one, it all sounds very good, but as you say there must be something wrong.

The lighting does sound a bit strange, could you expand on it a bit, I dont quite understand what you have and where it is at the mo. Also, T12 and T10 lighting is hugely inefficient and will produce a lot less light per watt than T8's and far less than T5's.

Do you have much surface water agitation? Are the plants still healthy? No signs of a deficiency or leaf loss/damage?

Sam

I will try to explain the lighting...The bulk of it is a coralife fixture 4' long with 4 21" compact flourescent bulbs (6500K) Where there was space I used my old t12 (4' long) screwed to the wooden canopy just kind of a bonus light. The tank is six feet long, so in the two foot section left over I have two 15watt bulbs that are on a timer that come on before and go off after the bigger lighting. Thought the fish might enjoy that better than instantaneous light changes. The crypts seem happier under the two foot bulbs too. I would think under the 4' section I would have tons of lighting.

So 4' of the aquarium has in theory 340 watts of light (roughly) and under 2' of the aquarium I have 30 watts

I do have a fair bit of surface agitation I have the largest hang on the back filter that Hagen (a 100 I think) makes, I also have a fluval 404 canister, but it outputs near the middle of the tank, but I keep the CO2 at 30ppm (4dkh solution in drop checker)

Over all the plants look pretty good some pin holes on the leaves, but the majority of the leaves look nice and green without pinholes, The Amazon sword has never done well, yellow not very healthy looking, but hangs in there. My thought is that I have read they are heavy root feeders and the substrate is only three months old, so I imagine the substrate is probably a bit lacking in food...I will try root tabs when the lfs gets them in.

The stem plants look quite good, but just don't pearl and grow like they use too.

Thanks for the help. The plants look ok, but you hear stories about massive bubbling and super growth and I was wondering if I could repeat that, or maybe three watts per gallon isn't enough and I should just settle for lightly bubbling and slower growing.

 

[katana750]

In the beginning the plants pearled like crazy...now 2 months later the only pearling I really see is when I trim the top off a plant.

The plants look ok but in the beginning you could almost watch them grow. Now they grow much slower, and I have more algae

I must be lacking something, but what?

Can you clarify what you mean by in the beginning? If it is when you first started EI then I am a little lost. If you mean when you first put the plants in then I think they may have been running on their reserves and have now run out!! which would mean you are not putting enough ferts in.

Can you tell us how much you dose?

Andy

Ok I will try
In the begining means I had the tank before with 4 /40watt t12. I found tropical fish forums and did a ton of reading and drooled over the tanks. I decided I want to try that so I bought new stuff and redid the tank. When I had all the stuff I bought plants and started ei dosing right away...that would be three months ago. I haven't changed the dousing stratagy. I thought of it...50 gallons every week is a bit of a waste of water....maybe I will store the water and use it on the grass.

I fert potassium nitrate 1 1/2 tea spoons 3x week

potassium phoshphate 1/2 tea spoon 3x week (when ever I measure phosphate it is about 5ppm the fish seem ok, but it seems a bit excessive, but like I said I am new at this and I do as I am told. I use to be really good at killing plants, now they live and just want them to live faster now)

traces 1/2 tea spoon 3 x week

Hope it makes sense

 

[SuperColey1]

350W over a 120 gallons tank is a lot. You can ignore the WPG rule for your size tank but if you are not fighting algae then I shouldn't worry too much.

pinholes in the leaves suggests potassium defficiency so you could try adding potassium Sulphate which you should be able to get cheap at any garden centre (harmless to fishies but jut add the same as the Potassium nitrate)

5ppm phosphate sounds quite high to me. I suspect either you have a high fish load or dosing too much or more likely using a poor test kit.

Test kits until you get to lab quality are highly inaccurate and I dont bother testing at all for anything. If fish go to the top theres something wrong, if they start flicking theres something wrong etc.....

I am thinking to myself why is there so much phosphate, the plants should be bringing it down. Maybe they aren't using it because they aren't getting enough of something else so in essence 1 link of the chain runs out and they stop taking the rest. This could be due to the high light but I would suggest try adding a little more pot sulphate first. Give it a week or 2 and see if things improve. If they dont start to improve then you can rule that out and explore another avenue

By 1" fishload are they big fish small fish etc? i.e. 6" of plec is a lot more than 6" of tetra in regards feeding and waste etc.

Can you also test for Nitrate? This could be what is stopping the plants taking the phosphate.

Andy

 

[Themuleous]

Yeh give the extra K a try for a few months (tip - get a power form such liek the one from AE it dissolves better, the granular form is a pig to dissolve) 5ppm PO4 isn't really anything to worry about, unless there is minimal NO4, I.e. if NO3 is around 20-30ppm then I would leave the dosing as it is. But it doesn't sound like you have a deficiency of N.

Lighting sounds fine as well. My only thought would be the type of bulb you are using, do you know the make and type? Although you sound like you did plenty of reading so I wouldn't think the bulbs are incorrect.

Stick with it we'll get there in the end and if you've not got algae then OK the plants dont pearl but I would give my left arm for just an algae free tank sometimes, worry about pearling later!

Sam

 

[katana750]

350W over a 120 gallons tank is a lot. You can ignore the WPG rule for your size tank but if you are not fighting algae then I shouldn't worry too much.

pinholes in the leaves suggests potassium defficiency so you could try adding potassium Sulphate which you should be able to get cheap at any garden centre (harmless to fishies but jut add the same as the Potassium nitrate)

5ppm phosphate sounds quite high to me. I suspect either you have a high fish load or dosing too much or more likely using a poor test kit.

Test kits until you get to lab quality are highly inaccurate and I dont bother testing at all for anything. If fish go to the top theres something wrong, if they start flicking theres something wrong etc.....

I am thinking to myself why is there so much phosphate, the plants should be bringing it down. Maybe they aren't using it because they aren't getting enough of something else so in essence 1 link of the chain runs out and they stop taking the rest. This could be due to the high light but I would suggest try adding a little more pot sulphate first. Give it a week or 2 and see if things improve. If they dont start to improve then you can rule that out and explore another avenue

By 1" fishload are they big fish small fish etc? i.e. 6" of plec is a lot more than 6" of tetra in regards feeding and waste etc.

Can you also test for Nitrate? This could be what is stopping the plants taking the phosphate.

Andy

Nitrates are usually about 30ppm or higher (according to the kit)
Phosphates are always high (thought it might be the kit, but my tap water measured 0
The biggest fish are 2 /4" loaches. The rest are tetras and barbs...although I did have a ton of messy snails in the tank until the loaches cleaned them up a week ago

I like the potassium sulfate idea I will give it a try and see what happens

The fish do flick sometimes.....what does it mean? It's not constant but they are itchy sometimes, but the breathing seems normal

Thanks for the info it sure is nice to have someone to ask


Mod Edit: removed the double post.

 

[SuperColey1]

Some fish (like danios) flick all the time for some reason. I was just meaning that I watch the fish and plants or signs of problems rather than using test kits. If their breathing is healthy and it is only occasional then I shouldn't worry. If they flicjk to the point their gills get red or they start to injure their skin with the flicking then you need to address a problem.

If your nitrates are always around 30ppm and your phosphate is alway 5ppm I would suggest that something is stopping your plants using nitrate and phosphate. If K is defficient then the plants will stop using the N and P therefore giving you high readings.

This could explain both your phosphate and nitrate readings being higher than expected, although for most people there is enough K in KNO3 and KH2PO4 it is not always the case and K2SO4 addition won't hurt.

Andy

 

[Themuleous]

Thanks for the info it sure is nice to have someone to ask

Thats what we are hear for

 

[katana750]

Yeh give the extra K a try for a few months (tip - get a power form such liek the one from AE it dissolves better, the granular form is a pig to dissolve) 5ppm PO4 isn't really anything to worry about, unless there is minimal NO4, I.e. if NO3 is around 20-30ppm then I would leave the dosing as it is. But it doesn't sound like you have a deficiency of N.

Lighting sounds fine as well. My only thought would be the type of bulb you are using, do you know the make and type? Although you sound like you did plenty of reading so I wouldn't think the bulbs are incorrect.

Stick with it we'll get there in the end and if you've not got algae then OK the plants dont pearl but I would give my left arm for just an algae free tank sometimes, worry about pearling later!

Sam

The lights are coralife 6500k 4 months old, the other are just powerglo (or something)flourescent. I am just just doing a water change and I tested (Hagen test kit) the water NO3 is over 30ppm and phosphates over 5. Like you guys say the kits could be wrong, but the most be sort of close....I have also noiticed the the leaves on the hygophilla are starting to go pail with dark green veins...I read what that was a sign of but I will have to go look it up...There seems to be a bit more algae each day.

Thanks

 

[katana750]

Some fish (like danios) flick all the time for some reason. I was just meaning that I watch the fish and plants or signs of problems rather than using test kits. If their breathing is healthy and it is only occasional then I shouldn't worry. If they flicjk to the point their gills get red or they start to injure their skin with the flicking then you need to address a problem.

If your nitrates are always around 30ppm and your phosphate is alway 5ppm I would suggest that something is stopping your plants using nitrate and phosphate. If K is defficient then the plants will stop using the N and P therefore giving you high readings.

This could explain both your phosphate and nitrate readings being higher than expected, although for most people there is enough K in KNO3 and KH2PO4 it is not always the case and K2SO4 addition won't hurt.

Andy

Certainly sounds very logical. I will get some right away. Also I have just noiticed the leaves getting lighter, with dark veins, and there are a few more dead leaves bobbing around in the tank...

crossing my fingers

Thanks

 

[katana750]

Some fish (like danios) flick all the time for some reason. I was just meaning that I watch the fish and plants or signs of problems rather than using test kits. If their breathing is healthy and it is only occasional then I shouldn't worry. If they flicjk to the point their gills get red or they start to injure their skin with the flicking then you need to address a problem.

If your nitrates are always around 30ppm and your phosphate is alway 5ppm I would suggest that something is stopping your plants using nitrate and phosphate. If K is defficient then the plants will stop using the N and P therefore giving you high readings.

This could explain both your phosphate and nitrate readings being higher than expected, although for most people there is enough K in KNO3 and KH2PO4 it is not always the case and K2SO4 addition won't hurt.

Andy

Is all K2SO4 created equal? I was going to order some from Greg Watson, but the takes awhile as earlier suggested I might be able to buy some at the plant shop, but I am a bit afraid that something else might be add that isn't mentioned on the box.....Possible or not really a founded worry.

 

[katana750]

Some fish (like danios) flick all the time for some reason. I was just meaning that I watch the fish and plants or signs of problems rather than using test kits. If their breathing is healthy and it is only occasional then I shouldn't worry. If they flicjk to the point their gills get red or they start to injure their skin with the flicking then you need to address a problem.

If your nitrates are always around 30ppm and your phosphate is alway 5ppm I would suggest that something is stopping your plants using nitrate and phosphate. If K is defficient then the plants will stop using the N and P therefore giving you high readings.

This could explain both your phosphate and nitrate readings being higher than expected, although for most people there is enough K in KNO3 and KH2PO4 it is not always the case and K2SO4 addition won't hurt.

Andy

Certainly sounds very logical. I will get some right away. Also I have just noiticed the leaves getting lighter, with dark veins, and there are a few more dead leaves bobbing around in the tank...

crossing my fingers

Thanks

Should I use 1/2 tsp of K2SO4 3x a week as suggested in the pinned article on ei dosing or should I be adding more?

 

[SuperColey1]

Just add what it says in the EI article because there is some K in both Pot Nitrate and Pot Phosphate which you are already adding.

The stuff from the plant shop should be as pure as the stuff from aquatics shops. The difference will be that the plant shop will sell it in granular form so you will have to crush it up with a spoon in a bowl or pommel and granite it etc.

You say using EI traces. What trace are you using?

Your defficiency suddenly sounds from your description like it may be magnesium!!! Try dosing epsom salts at an equal measure to the pot sulphate.

Andy