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plant food | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: There are a couple of Plant Gro fertilizers. (none / 0) (#2)
by wraith on Fri Mar 17, 2006 at 11:10:25 AM PST

Ok, where to start....ha! The plant-gro I bought is the kind that says iron enriched by nutrafin. Ingredients are Nitrogen, Iron, Manganese, Zinc, Boron, Copper, Molybdate. All say chelated except for the Boron and Zinc. Dosage is 5ml per 10US gallons. 4oz(118ml) bottle says it will treat 235G. This is a liquid form food.

I have a small amount of algae in one tank due to a beam of late afternoon sun, but will be getting a pleco soon to help with that.

Up until a week ago all 3 of my tanks read 0 ammonia and nitrites. Then 2 of them showed .5 ammonia. After a water change and a filter change, one tank is now fine, the other is now at 1. I have added ammo-lock, but it still reads 1.
I am not sure what is going on in that tank.

I have 3 tanks. Started with 2 10 gallon. In Nov. I had an outbreak of camallanus. I transferred some of the fish to a 20G tank that had been cycling for a month, the rest of my fish into the other 10G tank, washed out the second, and set it up as a quarantine tank. Both the 20G and the 10G were treated for camallanus with jungle parasite clear. Seemed to work, but no. At the beginning of Feb. I treated all 3 tanked with levemisol fro Inkmaker. I now think it is gone.
So I have 1 10G that has been running about a year, a 10G and a 20G that have been running about 4 months.

In the meantime, my fish count has changed. I lost a few guppies and my frog during the levemisol treatment. I have given all but one of my apple snails to a lfs as I didn't want to watch them slowly die from the treatment.
So now my tanks are:

10G - quarantine tank - 4 female guppies, and about 20 1 week old fry
3 potted and lots of free floating water sprite.

10G - 5 male guppies, 4 black stripe tetra, 1 Cory.
4 potted and some free floating water sprite, large rock covered with Java moss.

20G - 3 male guppies, about 25 baby fry 3-4 weeks old, and 2 yoyo loaches.
5 potted and lots of free floating water sprite, med rock covered with Java moss.

The worst hit with this last camallanus outbreak was my 20G. That's where I had the largest death toll. I have been doing water changes every 4/5 days with seasoned/treated water since treatment.

So....... After all that. I am wondering why my 20G is so high in ammonia? there is little waste in the tank, I only feed them a little bit twice a day - due to fry, there is only enough gravel on the bottom to cover glass, and I vacuum with each water change every 4-5 days. Is it possible that dead fish that I didn't find for a day or two, or the frog that I couldn't find for a week contributed to it?

And you asked, "Remember Robert's observation about liquid fertilizers in the water, though I think Ed is also correct that some plants absorb a certain amount of the liquid ferts through their leaves. Is your tank ready for that?" Well, I'm not sure as I don't know what his observations were! ha! Can you point me to a web page or somewhere with that info?

And as for the drams........if I have to measure in drams, I'm buying something else! ha! ;)

Thanks for the help!

Cheers!

[ Parent ]

LOL! Probably the bottle is set up for 1 drop per (none / 0) (#3)
by unclescott on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 08:51:29 AM PST

gallon. If you get algae or cloudy water, do a partial water change and try 1 drop per 2 or 3 gallons.

For Robert's comments, look at the top of the main GL pages for the thread on Nuggets from a Plant Talk. That is about 2% my info and about 98% Bob's info. That is why it is so useful. ;)

Don't know about your 20-gal and the ammonia. How heavily planted is the water sprite in that tank? If the ammonia cycle and plants can't take care of the ammonia from that (relatively) few fish, you certainly do not want to add ammonia to that tank! Leave the light(s) on a couple hours longer and see if the ammonia is used up.

Most aquarium plants (but not all) will use ammonia before the other nitrogenous wastes. While that may slow down the spread of "good-guy" bacteria, it will stabilize the aquarium.

Glad to hear that you have some water sprite. If the bottom gets a lot of light, in a part of that 10, gently plant a water sprite there. (You know this but...) dig out a hole with your fingers, hold the plant in there and gently roll the gravel around the roots. You will find that the leaves are different. Lights, water depth and all will cause them to vary a lot. (And when it grows out of the water, the leaves look a little bit like carrot leaves.)

A guy visited my fishroom and swore that I had different species of water sprite in adjacent aquariums (five side-by-side 10s under a shop light, on a rack and with windows on two sides). While there are indeed at least two, maybe three species of water sprite, those were all the same species and from the same starting stock. The difference in light and substrate caused the plants in each tank to develop a little differently.

The remaining nitrogenous wastes (because I can't spell nitrites and nitrates) may be used up if you run your lights longer. (I know that is expensive, which is why I switched to mostly 4 foot bulbs in shop lights and am now moving over to the more powerful, but more efficient T-8 fixtures and bulbs.) Maybe 16 hours is about max. There is some resting and some growth and maintenance functions, which most plants do best in 5-6 hours of darkness.

I have a real gripe about some of the commercial aquarium hoods. "They" too often only put 1 15-watt bulb in there. Those 15 watt bulbs often cost as much as a 30 or 40 watt bulb to replace. At the 2 watts per gallon rule, those bulbs usually are really inadequate for aquariums. There are several companies with kits, other hoods and retrofit kits for hoods. Some of them can be found on-line. Go to http://fins.actwin.com/ and search for those topics, if you want specific recommendations from plant aquarium people.

All the best!
unc

[ Parent ]

Re: LOL! Probably the bottle is set up (none / 0) (#4)
by wraith on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 05:19:26 PM PST

Ok, feeling a little sheepish as Nuggets on plants is one of the top posts on the front page.... I read it when it was posted, and it was a few days later that my aquarium spiked and I bought the plant food. I had totally forgotten where I had just read about feeding them! ha! Must be tired these days, I will lay that at the feet of my little girl who is almost running now, far to early just like her brother, so I am on the go more than usual! But my apologies, I had read that article and found it very interesting.
I am going to repot my plants using the soil from my garden, we have great soil I've been told by my Irish potato farmer grandpa. Perhaps that will feed them enough and I won't even have to worry about the liquid food. Now, should I choose to use this plant-gro again, I understand the dosage, that is clear enough, but I don't know how often? Once a month? With every water change?

As for my ammonia problem, ammo-lock says that even after the ammonia is changed to it's non-toxic form it will show on a test. It will take time for it to break down and clear out of my tank. The fish look fine, eating well, active. And it is now reading at .50. So I am not to worried right now. For the amount of fish I have, I think I change the water enough and have more that enough plants in the tank. I was worried however that my plants were maybe not as healthy as they had been, which is why I bought the food, and I think I had left the carbon out of my filter to long while dealing with the whole camallanus issue.... it's a never ending business these tanks!
I will take your advice and leave the lights on a little extra for a while and see if that helps the problem resolve a little quicker. And I do have the standard store bought hood. When I got it the fellow said that the flourecent tubes are better for live plants than the bulbs so I went with that. And I got the tubes that are apparently better for plants. I'm hoping it's all helping! ;)

Thanks for your help!

Cheers

[ Parent ]

plant food | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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