substrate and plant growth

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rhinod56

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 2, 2006
618
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Illinois
I have been working on my first planted tank now for several months, and everything seems to be doing fine, but doesn't seem to be growing either, water parameters are all in check, and I occasionally use some liquid fert. I am now gonna try some flourite and see what this will do with it. My main question though is this...
Can I just add the flourite on top, and use it as a top layer, or do I really have to mix itup, or what. Will it do anything on the top? I figure being at the bottom is best, but would like to see results and save time and effort at the same time. What do you think?
 
Adding some Florite couldn't hurt anything but my guess is that you don't have enough light. Are you using the standard light that came with the tank? If so you probably need to upgrade. Give us some more info and we can better help you. Tank size, Lighting, Ferts, C02, etc...?
 
I have added flourite to a running tank and it was big mistake. I tryed top rinse it well also but the the fine dust stuck to all my plants leaves and destroyed them. All the plants lived but it took a few months for them all to recover.

Oh yeah, carrib sea makes an eco-complete plant substrate and that one you could dump right in no problem.
 
thanks for the replies so far.
It is a 29gallon tank, and I have recently switched to Aqua Glo light. no co2, and liquid ferts vary. Sometimes I use leaf zone from api, and othertimes that new fert from tetra...
 
koliveira;481070; said:
I have added flourite to a running tank and it was big mistake. I tryed top rinse it well also but the the fine dust stuck to all my plants leaves and destroyed them. All the plants lived but it took a few months for them all to recover.

Oh yeah, carrib sea makes an eco-complete plant substrate and that one you could dump right in no problem.
Click to expand...

Not anymore the new eco complete blend is black powder sand, it's a mess and my
plants hate it. The stuff compacts and builds up air gas in it.

Flourite is the way to go it's like a fine gravel that can be cleaned with a colander.
No dust at all after a good wash and it wont get sucked into your filter.
 
Right now the first thing I would do is upgrade the standard light strip you have. I know you said that you put an aqua glo bulb in it but that doesn't help if you don't have the intensity that you need. That light is probably a standard T12 or T8 that is in the ballpark of 20 watts. I would suggest that you upgrade to an ahsuppy.com 1x55 kit or maybe a coralife or orbit PC fixture or a coralife T5 fixture. Right now you only have enough light to grow maybe some java moss, anibus, and java fern and at that it will be SLOW! If you are a DIY kind of guy you could add another standard light strip and then get an electronic ballast that is made to run 4 48" T8 bulbs (4f32t8) and rewire the two standard lights in series and over drive the bulbs. If this is something you would want more info on then let me know. No matter what you end up doing a couple 2L bottles of DIY Co2 started about 2 weeks apart would halp out alot.
 
I forget what the average recommended standard for planted tanks is.. isn't it 2watts/gallon?
 
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rhinod56;487667;487667 said:
I forget what the average recommended standard for planted tanks is.. isn't it 2watts/gallon?
Click to expand...
Depends on the plants you keep. 1.5-2.0W/G is good for anubias java fern, java moss etc. 2.5-3.0W/G is good for medium light intensity, but for many plants it is good to have 3.5-4.5 W/G. My tank is in at around 3.0W/G, and my plants still would like more.

To get plants growing well, and fast there are 3 key elements to get this to happen. 1 is lighting, 2 is CO2, 3 is nutrients. In order for the plants to properly photosynthesize they need all three parts to be present in the right amounts. CO2 injection really is very necessary in order for good growth, as well as correct wattage. Nutrients from liquid ferts are often to weak to help. Most of them in my 135 can be dumped in, in one day, and still not provide enough nutrients. I would switch to dry ferts. I use this www.gregwatson.com.
 
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