Re: NANFA-L-- plants and soil


Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- plants and soil
From: James Smith (jim at vtwebware.com)
Date: Wed Sep 29 2004 - 16:10:33 CDT


>What I do know at this time is... Holey moley, does val dig it! It was
>growing immediately, only pausing a couple days before sending off the
>rhizomes. Usually, when having been ripped from its substrate in my
>experience, it takes a month or so to stabilize and grow 100% of the
>transplants (like 5% start colonization immediately, but the rest resume
>under a gradient from that point in time). Not so in this situation...
>I'd say 40% sent off rhizomes the first week. I'm already ripping out the
>hornwort, and I had a lot of surface area to cover! :)

I had a val that the tops had rotted off from due to lack of light, threw
it in a tank for snail food, and a couple weeks later there's now a good
sized, healthy looking val growing. The plant is actually off from a runner
that shot out from the root ball and not the roots themselves.

>The problem I need to solve is tannins. The tank gets mightily yellow
>after about a month. After an 80% waterchange (which will be explained
>later in this email) I could see end to end without any
>"yellowing". Within a week, it's "yellowed" to about 3', in the following
>week, it's "yellowed" at about 1". I have yet to determine if the source
>is from the soil or a very large piece of driftwood. I'm 80% sure it's
>the driftwood, and hope that biofilms will begin to lock up the wood, but
>I can't say that for certain. I'll get to this later once I've ironed out
>my environmental issues.

This is my actual reason for replying to this since I've had this problem a
couple of times myself. If your driftwood is new, that's definitely it. If
there's nothing living on it such as moss, take it out and boil it in a big
pot (or cut off barrel if it's too big for a pot) and change the water
until it stays clear after a few minutes at a rolling boil. You'll never
have tea water again. If you can't find a way to boil it, get a wash tub or
even a large (clean or new) storage tote, fill it full of hot water, let
the driftwood soak, drain out the water, replace with new hot water, repeat
until the water stays clear. Some people say to use a bath tub, but the
possibility of soap getting into the tank bothers me..

Jim

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: Fri Dec 31 2004 - 11:27:23 CST