Foreground plant question

[colby]

Ok, so I have my 46 gal bowfront with 150 watts running for a few weeks now. I have recently, thanks to this forum, gotten my CO2 injection running smoothly when the lights are on; about 1 bubble per second. I have been adding Kent Micronutrients once per week and have not added any substrate fertilization. I currently have a layer of Fluorite with some 3 quartz gravel on top of it. Here is my question: Most of the plants are growing well (Anubias, Vals, Java fern, wisteria, hornwort, diandra, lillies) but the glossostigma, hairgrass and the microswords are pretty much doing nothing but collecting some hair algae. What should I do? Is it as simple as fertilizing the substrate?

 

[Draal5]

hairgrass and the microswords are both growing plants. I am not sure about glossostigma hopefully some one with experience will answer that one.

if you have hair algae, your co2 is low bump it up some.

 

[Bk718]

make sure you have good water movement in the tank. Dense bushy plants need alot of water movement to move the wastes around so they dont collect for algae

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You need macronutirents- NPK.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

are they getting light? i agree with tta your adding trace but your missing pnk.

 

[colby]

Can you guys translate this into newguy language for me. I believe you mean phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium. Thanks.

 

[jmhart]

Can you guys translate this into newguy language for me. I believe you mean phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium. Thanks.

That's what they mean. Flourite is a good substrate for plants which pull most of their nutrients through their roots, but it only leeches a minimal amount into the water for plants that require NPK from the water column.


Check out www.rexgrigg.com and read his section regarding nutrients/fertilizers. This will discuss what nutrients plants need and ways of adding them.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

also Flourite just has traces. no pnk in it. root tabs are still a option to help root feeders.

 

[nickmcmechan]

am i right in saying that if you dose npk in the water column fluorite or eco-complete will absorb some of that which can then be transferred to roots?

 

[Yoemen]

yeah I agree if you are getting hair algae bump up the CO2. I dropped my CO2 in my 75 to 1 per second and had a hair algae bloom on my driftwood. Got it back up to 2.5 a second and no problems. More ferts might help as well.