Problems with Vals ???

[daveedka]

O.K., I have many plants doing well, but cannot get vals to grow for me. I have Crypts, annubias, j-fern, J-moss, red melon sword, Micro sword, red temple, anachris, and vals.
Everything grows and reproduces except my vals.
When I first started, I bought jungle val, and corkscrew val put them in all three tanks. The jungle died off quickly, the corkscrew val died off slowly. I then bought italian val, and contortionist val after learning that they would be more like what I really wanted. I planted the majority of these in the big tank (2.4 wpg tall tank) and a few in my smaller higher light tanks. In the big tank, I get some short healthy growth, and a lot of spreading, but literally have had these plants since December and my tallest plant is probably only 7 inches. All of the original leaves which were tall died off. In the small tank, I had a few new shoots, but they grew in transparent. I upped my Nitrate dosing, I have upped my Kh to 5-6 dkh, I have dose traces fairly heavy, and suplement Magnesium and am now supplementing calcium. In the high light tank, I have one very beautiful Italian val which is growing O.K. and looks nice, but has not sent out any runners. All previuos runners died off. In the big tank, I still have some runners, but no nice growth. just short little plants that don't hide the filter like I wanted them too.

I spoke to one of the plant Guru's at my LFs yeasterday, and he said he has had the same trouble. Vals won't grow well in our water. He didn' know why though. Any ideas would be appreciated. Below is a list of tank fert levels.

Kh= 5-6 dkh Supplemented to that level with CaCo3

Gh = 120 ppm from tap, supplemented with calcium and magnesium to 180-220 ppm

Nitrate is kept at about 20 ppm sometimes a little higher via KNo3

Phosphate is kept at 1-2 ppm

Potassium I dose a total of 20-30 ppm weekly (had to raise this to get my annubias to stay healthy)

I have switched from Flourish to CSM+B+Fe I was dosing florish equivalent to label instructions, plus a half dose of Flourish Iron per label. I am now dosing the calculated equivalent in CSM+B+Fe. I have been warned by thelocal LFS that iron dosing is necessary in our area, and definately saw improvement when I started supplementing extra Fe.

All tanks are running Pressurised Co2,
The 115g has just over 2 wpg, and is kept at abut 19-22 ppm co2
the two smaller tanks have been at just over 3 wpg, and are running close to 30 ppm co2
alll tanks get weekly, and sometimes bi-weekly water 40% + water changes.

Dave

Let me know if you have any thoughts

 

[reiverix]

Well this is wierd. I'm not joking but last night I removed all but 3 of my jungle val because I can't keep up with them. They needed constant trimming plus the runners were taking over and getting in the way of other plants. I replaced them with a small red rubin so the back right of my tank is pretty bare now. My corkscrews are also doing fine.

The thing is my dosing regime looks pretty close to yours. My KH is at 3, although I just added coral to my filter a few days ago. On traces I dose 5ml on one day along with macros, and 10ml with a half cap of Flourish Iron every other day.

I guess another puzzle is the microsword you gave me did not fare well in my 75g. It stared going brown and I had to remove what I could to my 10g growout.

Anyway the val is still in a bucket from last night. You're welcome to it.

 

[daveedka]

Thanks John, the jungle is thicker leaf than I want and the corkscrew doesn't get tall enough. But I really apreciate the offer. My replanted dwarf swords are coming along nicely, but not as rapidly as before (My No3 has been lowered from 40 ppm to 20-30) I'm now really curious about what your substrate provides for the vals that mine of course doesn't. The only real difference in our set-ups is that mine are RFUG with no enriched substrate (or should I say naturally enriched) and yours is eco-complete (I think). I guess I'll be looking at what eco-complete provides today. I should have a bunch more of the dwarf sword to give away in about 3 weeks. I will probably sell some also, and stock up on store credits for the future. If you want more, let me know.
dave

 

[Kissofthegorami]

This is very common with vals. They hate to be transplanted. Its common for them to die down, them reemerge. Just be patient. When they come back, they wil be one of your hardiest plants.

 

[reiverix]

Dave, my substrate is 70% eco and 30% plain black gravel. When I was in Byerlys last week they had eco for $12. I had to look twice to see if that was actually correct.

 

[daveedka]

This is very common with vals. They hate to be transplanted. Its common for them to die down, them reemerge. Just be patient. When they come back, they wil be one of your hardiest plants.

Wouldn't 11 months be long enough. my crypts all melted, and re emerged long ago. My vals , even the new growth never grow out. I can see about 10 new plants in my 115 that are the same size they were 8 weeks ago. My bolbitus is outgrowing my vals 10 to 1. Not to mention that all of the original planting of vals is gone, and the only remaining plants are dwindling and they have been there un disturbed since the beggining of december.


John, how fine is Eco. I didn't consider any enriched substrate to be an option on my RFUG, besause of the constant waterflow through the entire substrate. I really doubt I'll try it, but am curious nevertheless.
dave

 

[reiverix]

Eco really varies in grain size. I'd say most of it is the same as regular gravel, around 3-5mm. Some of it is particle size and tends to sink to the bottom layer, and I even have some large 2-3cm sized 'rocks'. I'm not sure how it would do with rfug because there is a lot of small grains that I only see if I stir it up with the gravel vacuum.

 

[ergo sum]

Having just read all this I would bet it is the filter. You might try a seachem flourish tab below the plants. Something to enrich the substrate, or something to block the flow under those particular plants. Just a guess.

 

[RTR]

My water is a bit harder than yours, GH ~9, KH ~7. My substrates vary from Flourite, to 50:50 Flourite:Estes Bits of Walnut, to Estes Natural with laterite, to plain Estes Natural in the OE-RFUGs. I also did away with Vals due to their being the closest rooted rosette plant to stem plants - i.e., I was too lazy to keep up with it. But I missed its effect in the tanks and started it back up in the first planted RFUG. The transplants from the LFS to me died back a bit, but came back strongly. Transpants from that tank to other substrates in my other tanks do not die back. That 30XH has since provided enough Val to stock quite a number of the other tanks and I am back to being Mr. Val again. It is all V. spiralis, as in the tanks w/enriched substrates and Tritons it blooms routinely, characteristic form. It does not in the RFUGs but that is lower nutrient.

It is not rare for Val to be a bit Crypt-like after a radical change in water conditions (grower to LFS to you), but it is odd for it not to grow at all. It is not the RFUG - I have never had it grow that fast in my life. Nitrate a bit lower, 10-15ppm, K added, Flousih irregularly, Fe occaccionally. Started w/Excel, but dropped that. No CO2. Started with 2.7W/gal, cut back to 2W/gal to slow things down a tad. 1/3 partials weekly. Plenty of currrent, no surface disruption at all.

????

 

[daveedka]

Man, I was hoping you'd have the answer RTR

I'm running a natural red flint substrate, but do not vaccum at all as I've found much better growth with some build-up in the gravel. the color of my substrate hides the mulm well if I leave thing relatively undisturbed, and the clean-up crew keeps things from settling on the plants.

My crypts have faired a bit better than the vals, and with the heavy calcium dosing in the last two weeks, they have literally gone nuts. I have seen more crypt growth in the past two weeks than I did in the entire 10 months before that. but the vals haven't changed. I am going to give it a couple more weeks, before I adjust anything else, and see if they wake up. There has to be something missing, and I really wish I could find it. Right now, I'm using anachris in the big tank to hide things and reduce algea. I am beginning to really hate anachris and the weekly pull-up, cut down, replant routine. I would much prefer vals to fill that niche for me. It's rather frustrating how fast Anachris grows, and how uncontrollable it seems to be.
Dave