EDGE

used to see quite a few barclaya at riverfront. gorgeous plant and easy to keep in a wide range of water. They form a lot of bulblet around the main bulb once the plant matured. Don't have this plant anymore.

I can grow a variety of high light plants using 3x 48" HO T5 over a 75gal. They don't grow exceedingly fast like they used to in 4x 55 watt PC, but they grow and at a speed I prefer with a busy schedule.

That being said. If you are staying with T8. Get at least 2 bulbs over the tank.

1x T8 doesn't give a lot of light for growth over a 20 gallon. my java fern leaves reached around 3" long and cryptocoryne wendtii was about 2" tall when I ran the standard 1x 15 watt bulb over the 20 gallon. root system was quite small as well.

This windelov java fern was grown under 2x HO T5 over 10 gallon without CO2. leaves are roughly 5" long.

The needle leaf was grown under 3x HO T5 over 75g at 2 bubble per sec CO2. The leaves are 12-14" long.

I have the needle leaf growing in 2x HO T5 over 10 gallon without CO2. The leaves are around 5" long.

All the bulbs are approx 3-4" away from the top of the tank.

The lower you go in Kelvin, 3000k, the more red spectrum the bulb produce. You can go with Philips T8 bulbs from Home depot. Look for a bulb close to 5000k. Anything from 4100k and down will throw off the color in the tank. The tank will look orange. If you do go with 1 - 3000k to 4100k bulb, add 1 to 2 6500k (daylight bulb) to balance out the color.

Echinodorus Parviflorus 'Tropica' is low to medium light and is one of the dwarf sword variety.

There are numerous of reasons to growing emersed over submersed.

To name a few,

Lower cost of production,

hardier in shipping

easier to adapt to new tank environment

Can cram more in tighter space.

less prone to water pest.

Easier to sanitized the environment.

Plant idenfication. flowering can help with plant identification a bit easier.

Reasons do overlap.

Reason why some people don't go with submersed.

A lot of plants do favor and are grown in soft water. By getting plants from outside the city or tanks with a different water chemistry, one will not know how well the plants will do in much harder water (Calgary) without trying.

Misconception plants died in their tank because it was emersed growth and not submersed.

Emersed growth has less tendency to melt when moving from a different water source say, from Sinagpore, or Vancouver to Calgary.

Plant can easily go from emersed to submersed, but not visa versa. If a plant is not transitioning into the submersed form,

A. the plant is dead

B. the environment (water, light, CO2,etc) is not suitable for the plant

C. Not a true aquatic plant

Growing emersed takes a different approach than aquarium planted tank. If you want to grow emersed, follow the hydroponic approach.

With aquarium, we have fish waste to give the plant some nutrients. In emersed culture, the plants don't have that luxury and soil is a terrible growing media for emersed culture.

Not all of them are dying just the one. The others I have been trimming off the dead leaves and they actually have new ones growing. I will give it some time to re-coup.

Do you know what kind of sword this is? cultivar or sp? A lot of swords need more than 18 watt compact over 20 gallon.

You should keep the yellowing leaf on the plant. A lot of time, the plant will used the old leaf to give them the energy they need to get established. If you pluck the leaves away and you don't add nutrients to the water column in good quantity, where is the plant going to get the nutrients from? fish waste is not enough to give the plant the kick start they need to get established. Ideally you want a consistent 8 ppm NO3 1 ppm PO4 and 6 ppm K in the water column.

Emersed plant and large plant adapt to change in environment a lot better than submersed or small plant. They can survive better during the transition period.

This does not mean that a small plant can't do just as well at establishing either. As long as the growing requirement is met, the plant will take off, small or large.

You are right, that is a water sprite. Ceratoperis thalictroides is just the scientific name for the plant. When you say where they stand, what do you mean?

Normally, when they start breaking apart, the leaves will develop small plantlet like a java fern. They do a lot better as floating plant.

I find they need a lot more light to grow them as a stem plant planted in the substrate. When the plant itself start overshadowing the base of the plant, the plant will turn brown where it is shaded and break apart.

The other plants you listed don't need as much light as water sprite. This is assuming you are talking about amazon sword and not hybrid swords.

You will have a better chance at rooting them if you let them float on the surface. Plant only the root into the substrate. With 1.5 wpg, they probably wouldn't last long before breaking apart again.

fishclubgirl is right, if you like the way the tank is with all the plant, don't start tinkering with fertilizer because you will throw the natural equilibrium off. If you decide to stop fertilizing, the tnak will take a while to revert back to the natural cycle.

That being said. a very small amount of K usually help the plants chug along provided that you have a decent amount of N and P in the water column already.

For your tank

All you need to do is add 5 gram of K2SO4 Potassium Sulphate in 500 ml of water. add 30 ml once a week and you should notice the plant growth speed up a bit. This is a very weak dosage roughly 1.5 ppm of K.

Or you can just get Seachem potassium. Follow recommanded dosage for low light setup. Potassium in the aquarium control the speed of growth for plant.

The faster they grow, the more nutrients and carbon they will need.

Plants need a balance of N-P-K-Ca-Mg-Trace (micro).

Even though your water is high in N right now, it might be low in P and or K. Your plants are growing at the rate of the nutrients are available to them.

What is your Phosphate level at?

The plants you are growing don't require a high tech setup.

How long have you had the Echindorus 'Rose'?

Most stem plants would do well as background. With that much lighting, you wouldn't have to worry too much about what you can't grow. Something similar to cabomba is limnophila sessilifolia very easy to find.

Ok, so the cabomba is off the list. Other than vals, what would be some good options for taller, background plants?

I was looking at some coral life 24 inch fixtures, 2x65 watts. Maybe the 20" 96 watt light would be a better fit?

I was thinking of rigging up a powerhead to diffuse the CO2 like I did in my old planted tank. As for the wood, I have a bunch of driftwood kicking around to anchor the anubias. Sorry for the ignorance, but is it really hard to effectively anchor riccia which is why it is a pain?

Thanks for all of the help.

This is how I grow mine emersed for the plants with bigger roots. namely crypts and swords.

I used to grow foreground plant in terrestrial seeding trays with perlite and a DIY pre-mixed fertilizer formula.

Cyperus helferi growing emersed in a 3.5" pot with plain gravel This was taken over 3 years ago

The key thing to remember is the humidity. If you can get your plant adjusted to 70-80% humidity they can stand up straight. high humid environment tend cause the plant to grow horizontal.

Outdoor setup

interesting... I wonder how this would do with HC

Really well. I don't have any HC left to restart the culture. Use perlite or plain gravel in those seedling tray you can get from nurseries

The left tray in the photo is HC

fyi: immersed is underwater

emersed is out of water.

This is how I grow mine emersed for the plants with bigger roots. namely crypts and swords.

I used to grow foreground plant in terrestrial seeding trays with perlite and a DIY pre-mixed fertilizer formula.

Cyperus helferi growing emersed in a 3.5" pot with plain gravel This was taken over 3 years ago

The key thing to remember is the humidity. If you can get your plant adjusted to 70-80% humidity they can stand up straight. high humid environment tend cause the plant to grow horizontal.

Outdoor setup

Algae is all relative to the type of excess nutrients in the water. This include organic and inorganic form of the elements. If there is a high bio-load, there is a much higher chance of algae because there is way more organic nutrients in the water column which plants can't use. The smaller the bio-load and or feeding relative to plant, the better the algae control.

Plants that works really well for 10 gallon without a lot of light and stay relatively small are:

Anubias nana 'petite', fissiden fontanus, mosses, Utricularia graminifolia, saggitaria subulata, Echinodorus parviflorus 'Tropica', Crypt parva, Crypt wendtii varieties.

Amano shrimp (Japonica shrimp) are good at controlling black brush algae.

My one 10g has two 25watt bulbs and gets 2-3 hours of indirect sunlight, and about 1 hour of direct sunlight. I don't have too much problem with algae, but I do have a dozen spixi snails to help on that score. I had quite a few plants and they quickly out battled the algae. It has been in that location for 5 yrs.

Just my experience, as I know some people who have less sun and get pea soup...

Daphna is a good biological way to remove green water

UV's are the best way to get rid of algaes in the aquarium, especially green dust algae and green water. I would have never thought of using excel to get rid of green water either.

There are a few plants that work quite well without CO2 in a 72 gallon.

Java fern (all varieties) Narrow leaf and Windelov would look really nice in large portion tied onto drift wood.

Anubias 'nana' works really well for 72g. they don't get huge like the other varieties and can tolerate lower amount of light.

Cryptocoryne balansae and retrospirilis are really good for background and wendtii varieties are good for mid ground. The other crypts tend to send out extremely long runners so you will have crypt popping up all over the tank.

If you want a foreground, Saggitaria subulata, but I would just leave the front empty so the discus has a easier time to eat.

The 82f temperature isn't a factor for most if not all plant. 3x T8 will be plenty for these plant. You can probably get away 2x T8 with a really good reflector.