Good growth on all plants
Light intensity is cranked up on the second week in order to determine which plants require high light and which ones doesn't.
L. guinea, R. macrandra, and P. palustris grew very fast. Their colors are still far from what i expect them to be but that's fine for now. I will deal with quality once everything in the tank is established, hopefully soon. L. guinea and P. palustris are quite leggy, L. Guinea the most. Perhaps these two are best placed in area where there's less light.
Limnophila H. and L. Curly growth is slower than the other three but they look healthy and lush. I guess they belong to high light category and will take note of that when plants are reorganized.
All carpet plants are growing fast. Monte carlo has mostly covered the area it was planted. hairgrass is being hairgrass. I cannot believe I ignored hairgrass for a long time! It seems to be the easiest carpet plant out there to grow.
Light source to be set to low/medium and will use T5HO
I want slow growth. This helps me control the tank much easier. I will also use T5HO because it has the best spread and lower PAR than most LED's. I can also easily choose bulbs with specific wavelength with ease. That's impossible with LED's unless i invest in an expensive one with programmable spectrum, but that's not going to happen.
Ludwigia Guinea on "Leggy" stems
EVO LED is placed on stem plant side while T5x4 is on the carpet side. I noticed L. guinea is growing with long stem length between leaf nodes, "Leggy". This is a sign that it's getting too much light and is stressed.
So there's two ways I can go from here.
1. Increase CO2 injection.
2. Decrease light intensity on stem plants.
Increase CO2 injection
I'm not sure if injecting more CO2 will make it grow more compact. I don't see trapped bubbles on its leaves during photosynthesis but pearling is not really a good reference to check if a plant is getting enough CO2 or not, I think.
It's placed side by side with Rotala Macrandra and the R. Macranda seems to be doing fine, more compact, and produces a lot of bubbles from pearling so it's hard to say that L. Guinea is not getting enough. Maybe L. Guinea just need a lot more CO2? Do various plant species have different CO2 uptake? It probably depends on their typical growth rate?
My CO2 injection is pretty high already, about 5 bubbles per second. However, how much is actually dissolved and staying long enough in the water for plants to take is unknown. I just "eyeball" the plants right now to see if they are getting enough. Drop checker is green but it's placed below the output lily pipe where CO2 is coming out (I'm using reactor). that I assume is the spot with the least CO2 concentration. Should I even increase CO2 injection for the checker to hit close to yellow and observe L. Guinea's response? It's easy to do now since there's no fish yet but then again, long term, how?
Decrease light intensity on stem plants
I would expect L. Guinea to calm down on growth and be more compact. What about R. Macranda? It seems so happy with the high light. And the Limnophila as well, growing slow and compact with the high light. Will they suffer? I would assume no, but I will definitely observe their reaction. I think the CO2 they are getting is more than enough as they seem to be quite happy right now.
I find lowering light intensity is the better option right now. I don't want the stem plants to be growing too quickly anyway as they will be hard to maintain. Also, fluctuations in other areas will be much harder to handle.
Plan to transfer hairgrass and Araguaia
Tank needs more space for the stem plants to grow so decided to move these two plants out. I reset the "Metaphor" tank for rescape and will move it there.
To install the second canister filter (Eheim 2213) next week
This is the plan from the beginning, to run two canister filters. I will install Seachem Purigen in this filter. It was supposed to be last weekend but had problems with coarse mesh so postponed.
CO2 injection and Fertilization
nutrient dosing has been high from the beginning but this does not show any problems at all. If any, the plants grow very fast with the least amount of melting from transition. CO2 has been fluctuating and is my fault. I have been fiddling around with the controller in finding the most efficient amount to inject. drop checker is always close to dark green so I thought I'm not injecting enough. However, plants are growing and pearling is a lot. I guess if i stick to low/medium light this will not be an issue.
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