Water lettuce and lighting question
- Thread starter jaws7777
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I'm a huge believer in plant filtration. I have aquaponics growbeds that zero out my nitrates often and I will actually have to supplement fertilizer or plants will yellow. Its just a question of grow bed vs. fish tank space. Granted Im in a region with plenty of strong sunlight. When you start relying on artificial light you are seeing less of a return. I think with your set up you will see a reduction in nitrates, it will just take some time and tweaking of your system but once you get it down; its pretty easy and your fish will live in a lower nitrate environment. Even when the plants are sickly, the roots due provide surface area for bacterial filtration also. I personally rely heavily on plant filtration for my tanks.
Thx for educating me on this amd letting me pick your brains. I also just put in a purigen reactor and may play around with a denitrate filter. Think it would have a huge negative impact on the plants ? Im assuming there will be some drop off in growth
Not too sure how the plants will react but you should be happy with purigen reactor. I used to run one on my loach tank. I'm actually moving to a new house right now but once settled, I may hook up a reactor to a display tank.
I'm not sure if it applies but I can't see why it wouldn't. In an algae scrubber you want green algae growth. Yellow, Dark or brown algae usually has to do with the amount of light they receive.
Dark growth usually means they aren't receiving enough light while Yellow usually means they are receiving too much. That's assuming everything else is inline then you'd just have to decrease the time your lights are on to stop the Yellow growth.
I can't see why the same can't be said for your Water Lettuce. Usually it's recommended to try decreasing the duration by an hour and then check weekly to see if there's been any change.
Another quick bit of info. that maybe comparable in it's application and effect on your lettuce is intensity. To get the most out of your bulbs life increasing wattage/lumens while decreasing duration of the on period can extend the life of the light source saving some money.
I think the purigen reactor should be okay, it's effects on trace elements is supposed to be negligible. Where were you a couple of years ago? When I was trying to get anyone to talk about alternative filtration. lol I wanted to talk Algae Scrubbers, Floating Plants, Reactors/Fluidized Beds and recently for the last year or so I've been into Matten.
Dark growth usually means they aren't receiving enough light while Yellow usually means they are receiving too much. That's assuming everything else is inline then you'd just have to decrease the time your lights are on to stop the Yellow growth.
I can't see why the same can't be said for your Water Lettuce. Usually it's recommended to try decreasing the duration by an hour and then check weekly to see if there's been any change.
Another quick bit of info. that maybe comparable in it's application and effect on your lettuce is intensity. To get the most out of your bulbs life increasing wattage/lumens while decreasing duration of the on period can extend the life of the light source saving some money.
I think the purigen reactor should be okay, it's effects on trace elements is supposed to be negligible. Where were you a couple of years ago? When I was trying to get anyone to talk about alternative filtration. lol I wanted to talk Algae Scrubbers, Floating Plants, Reactors/Fluidized Beds and recently for the last year or so I've been into Matten.
Thx bro. I'll monitor the plants ad adjust the lighting as needed. Last night i raised them will see how it goes this week then adjust the duration. Im guessing based off what yur saying that i woumd need to decrease the time since they are yellowing.
Lol yeah im evolving as a hobbyist lol. The past year or so ive been spending much more time in the filtration section.
We have a thread going that initially started mainly on algea scrubbers but evolved to denitrate filters and reactors, a few of use are tinkering with different applications just tagged you to it. Gotta admit the algae scrubber is proving to be quite elusive hahah. On hold for now
Yeah in order to get rid of the yellow growth you'd have to decrease the lights on time duration. At least that's what you'd do for an algae scrubber for proper algae growth. Since they're both plants I figure the same could be said for the water lettuce.
There's so many aspects of the hobby to love, I personally am always all over the place. lol Rare species catch my eye, Collection point color variations, temperament variations, aquascaping, lighting and filtration. So I'm with you on evolving.
I'll make my way over there and read what you guys have been up to and be ready to contribute or ask questions and learn something new.
