Last night I stopped by reiverix's (John) house to exchange a couple of things. As always I looked at his tanks and we discussed some differnet issues.
As most of you Who have been around awhile are aware, we have some issue with Calcium and magnesium in our water here in Columbus. One thing that is certain is that reiverix's plants do much better than mine. He has the ability to do daily dosing, I dose once a week so I have always attributed the differences to that. We recently purchased some Rotala Macaranda (sp?) and both put it in our tanks. As usual we both saw growth, but Mine was not as good. As coincidence would have it we both tampered with caclium at about the same time. we both saw our Rotala wilt very quickly. I had had an issue with what I thought was excessive GH and John had issue with what he thought was unnecessary calcium levels. We both immediatly saw adverse rection to lowering levels even slightly. On a whim I asked John what his GH was. He was somewhere between 30-35 dGH. I have been trying to maintain roughly 25dGH , and lowered levels when I discovered it was above that. Since the 30-35 test that John did last night reflected his reduction in calcium. it would stand to reason that he normally runs somewhere above 35 dGH.
By all rights this seems very high to me. but we have both found that any time we reduce either magnesium or caclium dosing we see problems with our plants. when we keep those two components up (assuming proper levels of all other fertilizers) we see excellent growth. I plan to raise GH to 35 dGH with calcium at roughly 120-140 ppm over the next several days and see if my plants recover and or improve drastically. The one factor that has always intriuged me is that bolbitus which supposedly does not grow well in hard water will grow for me at a rapid pace while other plants such as Vals and Sag will not grow at all. John has been successful with both vals and Sag, but he has also been running slightly higher GH than I have. According to my plants, my tank does not have adequate GH. According to my tests and most circulated information I have too much GH. Since this all started with tap water GH of 12 degrees, and I worked up from there I am certain that significant softening is a bad thing for me. I have seen nothing but improvement from the time I started increasing things. I still worry about overkill with tose two elements though.
Any thoughts discussion, or additional information that anyone want to add to this is appreciated. It would be neat to see what what others have to say about Ca and Mg with their plants and also what the common GH levels of successful hobbyists are. My theories and Ideas in this realm come with very little knowledge and experience so all the help I can get would be appreciated.
Dave
As most of you Who have been around awhile are aware, we have some issue with Calcium and magnesium in our water here in Columbus. One thing that is certain is that reiverix's plants do much better than mine. He has the ability to do daily dosing, I dose once a week so I have always attributed the differences to that. We recently purchased some Rotala Macaranda (sp?) and both put it in our tanks. As usual we both saw growth, but Mine was not as good. As coincidence would have it we both tampered with caclium at about the same time. we both saw our Rotala wilt very quickly. I had had an issue with what I thought was excessive GH and John had issue with what he thought was unnecessary calcium levels. We both immediatly saw adverse rection to lowering levels even slightly. On a whim I asked John what his GH was. He was somewhere between 30-35 dGH. I have been trying to maintain roughly 25dGH , and lowered levels when I discovered it was above that. Since the 30-35 test that John did last night reflected his reduction in calcium. it would stand to reason that he normally runs somewhere above 35 dGH.
By all rights this seems very high to me. but we have both found that any time we reduce either magnesium or caclium dosing we see problems with our plants. when we keep those two components up (assuming proper levels of all other fertilizers) we see excellent growth. I plan to raise GH to 35 dGH with calcium at roughly 120-140 ppm over the next several days and see if my plants recover and or improve drastically. The one factor that has always intriuged me is that bolbitus which supposedly does not grow well in hard water will grow for me at a rapid pace while other plants such as Vals and Sag will not grow at all. John has been successful with both vals and Sag, but he has also been running slightly higher GH than I have. According to my plants, my tank does not have adequate GH. According to my tests and most circulated information I have too much GH. Since this all started with tap water GH of 12 degrees, and I worked up from there I am certain that significant softening is a bad thing for me. I have seen nothing but improvement from the time I started increasing things. I still worry about overkill with tose two elements though.
Any thoughts discussion, or additional information that anyone want to add to this is appreciated. It would be neat to see what what others have to say about Ca and Mg with their plants and also what the common GH levels of successful hobbyists are. My theories and Ideas in this realm come with very little knowledge and experience so all the help I can get would be appreciated.
Dave
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