Zoom's plant propagation set up

So I purchased a few (Extremely hard to source) plants from Altum. Altum took the time to share some of his principles with me and he explained the difference between planting for visual effect, and planting for "save the species". Basically what Altum explained to me was to plant out the plants as I want them in the tank, but keep back a few "plantlets" in a seperate tank to propagate for future use (and also in case they die in my tank).

Not being quite ready to start planting in my Nano, I decided to take Altum's advice to heart, and I have now set up a small 1foot tank with the idea of keeping extra plants in it for future use. (Or resale, should I feel the need to get rid of excess.)

So without going into too much information, here is the set up.

Tank: Standard 1 foot
Substrate: Fine black gravel
Lighting: 11W Phillips Tornado CFL, 6,500k.
Photo Period: 4 hours AM, 5 hours PM
Filtration: Old fashioned filter where air forces water through filter floss and charcoal. (Charcoal is depleated at this stage. This filter is simply in use to create a slight movement of water, and prevent stagnation)
Heating: None

Plants:
Glosso (From Altum)
HC (From Altum)
Annubia (floating) (Old stock)
1 Amazon sword (From Shihr)
Hairgrass (Old stock)
2 x cryps (Old stock)
and something else that I don't know the name to. (Old stock, but from Linxie)

Fish
NONE

Fertz:
Here I am trying something a little different. I.E. Chemicult straight in the water column!
Flourish Excel dosed at 1ml every 2 days

Approx 3 litres of water. I.E about 1/3rd of the total tank's height. This results in light not having to penetrate so deep, giving optimum light, and allowing plants to stay in the immersed state.

Would appreciate a comment/recommendations from members, (but in particular @Altum @Dirk Bellstedt and @Rudi )

 

That's alot more care and attention than my own HC and Glosso have at the moment..but it looks like it could work.
Proportionally you have plenty of light..keep that in mind!
... and I can tell you my Glosso has sprouted new leaves..mine was planted Saturday verrrry late.

I just need to keep my HC moist while I adapt it to reroot and grow again

Somehow it looks like you have PLENTY of plant material, in your "backup" tank

Keep me posted.I'll let you know how my own li'l patches fare.

PS After the initial . single, higher Excel dose, you should, ideally get a nice, small syringe and measure out the amount needed..
I think 1ml may be too much(?), every other day is fine...

 

Wow, sounds nice.......mmmm, please let me know once yout hair grass starts to grow, as i would love to buy a bit from you?

but i like the idea to start a PST (Planted Spare Tank)

 

Ag no man Ashley,

How can you feed Chemicult straight into the water column? It is fine as a depot fertilizer in the Chemicult, but for water column feeding no. The iron is not stabilized, so you will have iron shortages, and there is ammonia in there which is going to fuel algal growth more than anything else. Also the Calcium and Magnesium balance in not correct. Use the DSD for water column feeding and use some NK-P and NPK and watch the plants take off.

Oh, and throw away the charcoal, use that only when wanting to remove meds, for the rest it is pretty useless.

I grow a variety of crypts in plastic containers above water in PFP, you should watch that lot grow!

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

@Dirk Bellstedt

Easily remedied! Remove water and start with new water!! Simple.

DSD is readily available in my cupboard. Just don't have the NK-P and NPK mix. (Just the Low tech trace, K+ and gH+)

Most people opt for a "Dry start" method... I'm going for fully immersed system, but low water level to keep in immersed state. Also, gonna be trying out different plants, and I know some don't like emmersed.

Can't remove the carbon... it's in one of those cheap and nasty sealed things...(look at the back of the picture). Only purpose is to create movement of water. My other option was a small external canister... basically suck the water out from the one corner, and pump back into the tank like a water fountain down the glass on the opposite side. HOWEVER, this failed because the "sucker thingys" that hold the pipes to the glass are not submerged, and hence pop off the glass easily... last thing i needed was a filter sucking in air whilst I'm at work.

Keep the options coming. Very interested to see how this takes off.

Oh, and how the blazers do you plant HC??? That plant is MINUTE!!!

 

its small but its pretty easy to plant in fine substrate.. just cut into small blocks, even if u want, little plantlets, take tweezers, slide roots into substrate, makesure there isnt too much water flow and it should stick.. first few days i dont think u will see much growth as i read they put down roots first then start lateral growth

 

Very nice thread... im certainly interested in how it progresses... let us know once you've finalised your fert regime..

 

nice stuff Ashley, i have a spare 1 foot tank lying in the garage and want to do the same thing with the glosso cuttings from my nano

 

Got something up my sleeve for this evening. Will post after it's done.

 

Looking forward to it

 

Restart

OK, so you need to first take a step back with me and re-look at the purpose of this tank! This is NOT a Dry start method. Dry start means you grow the plants in minimal water, and then flood the tank later and add your fish. The problem with this is that by growing the plants emmersed, and then changing to immersed, the plants sometimes loose their leaves and take strain. The PURPOSE of this set up was to propagate plants for myself on a continual basis... but focus on the plants that are actually very difficult to get. Like HC and Glosso. If I can have a steady supply of healthy, strong, and IMMERSED plants, I will be saving some serious cazash! On the plus side, if I land up with extra... and don't need it... I am sure I will be able to sell the excess to you guys to help pay for this set up.

So after discussions with @Altum, and hearing @Dirk Bellstedt I have changed things slightly. First of all... I didn't like the "filter" I had in there. Remember I don't need to actually FILTER the water, because their's no fish in there. I just need to create water movement to help prevent stagnation. So I purchased a small submersible pump.




Placed this on the one side of the tank, ran some clear tubing from the outlet, and connected this to a spray bar on the other end of the tank.




You will see that the pump is so small that I can actually drop my water level to about 50mm over coverage on the plants... meaning MORE light can get to the plants!!!




Next came the new Fert strategy. I chucked out the water with the chemicult. Whilst shopping around for the small pump, I found my LPS has stock of the Flourish range of products at decent prices, so I invested in the Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K)... as well as Iron (Fe). I should shoot myself now, because I actually have K at home from the Prof! (DOPE!) Oh, and I also had excel at home too!




Now the instructions on dosing this stuff is rather challenging... especially when you dealing with only 2-3 litres of water... and the dosage for some of the stuff is like 2.5ml per 200litres!

So I set up a 10litre bucket... worked out the dosage according to the bottle instructions, and dose the 10litres!




Even this was challenging. For example Nitrogen is 0.15ml per 10litres of water!!


Anyway... now I have 10litres of water stored containing DSD Trace elements, DSD GH+, and Flourish N, P, K, Fe, and excel. (Professor, does your Trace contain Fe... can one overdose on Fe?)

The Flourish stuff says that I need to replace the N, P, and K twice weekly... and the easiest way for me to do this... remove the spraybar from the tank, pump out the water using the submersible pump, and replace the water with the water stored in my 10litre bucket. If my calculations are correct, I will have enough water stored in the 10litres to see me through 2 weeks at a time... and enough flourish product to last me close on 12 months!

This is where I had a small giggle to myself... my Propagation tank (which is not a show tank by any measure) is HIGH TECH. (High light, CO2 through Excel, normal fertz through DSD, and extra macro nutrients through NPK and Fe.), my Nano is medium tech, which is also not really in show piece condition at the moment, and my main display tank is LOW TECH. Shouldn't it be the other way around??

Comments and idea's welcome.

(Orders for HC, Glosso and Hairgrass preferred! )

 

WOW looking good Ashley ... man that HC Cuba is going to look so good.

Question: Is doing a pre-mix of all this stuff not a bad idea? Do they not react with each other over time and become useless to the plants?

Later Ferdie

 

Hey Zoom, just copied that from the info Dirk sent me!

 

looking good Zoom, im first in line for some Hair Grass!!!!!

 

Dunno... DIRK?????

EISH... QUESTIONS...

 

If that plant you offered grows, I'll keep some for you bud!

 

@Zoom,
Doing a stock mix with your NPK is fine,just don't know about adding Fe to that.I add Fe with micros and on differant days than the NPK mix.

 

Two things:

1. Do you guys ever work? Or do you just jump from your aquarium to the computer and back? I just wonder because of the number of posts today, holy Jeronimo!

2. I cannot comment about all of these concoctions. It is quite simple, I do not know what is in the Excel so I do not know if it is compatible with my ferts. I do not know what goes into Excel so I am not even going to guess because this would be totally unscientific.

And yes, you can overdose iron, but my dilution of traces containing iron is far from an iron overdose, yet perfectly adequate, as a matter of fact higher than most commercial iron containing fertilizers.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi @Dirk Bellstedt,

Going from aquarium to computer is about 99% correct. The other 1% is spread out between doing house chores, and work.

Just for information:

Flourish Excel: liquid "organic carbon for the planted tank" Contains polycycloglutaracetal
Flourish Potassium: liquid "Potassium Supplement for the Planted Aquarium 0-0-5.8" Soluble Potash (K2O) 5.8%
Flourish Phosphorus: liquid "Phosphorus Supplement for the Planted Aquarium 0-0.3-0.2" Available Phosphate P2O5 0.3% and soluble Potash K2O 0.2%
Flourish Nitrogen: Liquid "Nitrogen supplement for the Planted Aquarium 1-0-2" 1% soluble Nitrogen. Soluble Potash (K2O) 2% Derived from potassium Nitrate, Urea (iminium salt)
Flourish Iron: Liquid "Iron supplement for the planted aquarium" 1% water soluble Iron derived from Ferrous Gluconate.

I have contacted another member who has extensive knowledge on the Seachem range as to whether I should be mixing a new solution every W/C or whether I can make a 10litre solution and use it over a period of 2 weeks.

 

Yes, the instructions just said add Iron to get 0.10mg/l iron when needed (when plants show iron deficiencies).