Palmfiber Peat soaked in Chemicult as a substrate.

Hi G

I am going to PTA this weekend to meet my wife there and pick up a tank from Slagter.. She is going back to Potch on Sunday. We can pick it up for you and she can take it to potch if that helps?

 

IT would help alot will let you know but in the mean time if some one can buy 2 bricks and post it up to me because there is no one in the potch Klerksdorp or Orkney area that has this stuff not even the Senwes..... I will pat for the bricks and the postage and a bit extra for the trouble you has to go through to post it. please pm me. really need this stuff as soon as possible.

 

Just an update, I visited Prof in his lab two weeks ago, and he told me to check this thread out. So I decided to try it out. I only keep a 50l AquaH2O tank, so I redid it. Previously it was silica sand capped with flourite and I had a major cyno problem after getting back from my 2 and half month holiday. The combination of DSD and the substrate change has made a markable difference already. This is my second week with the substrate, and half a week with DSD, the results are phenomenal. My HC which was almost dead because of cyno is growing rapidly, my rotala too. The crypts are shooting up new leaves almost daily. And the rest of my plants are all growing luxuriously. I might add I dont use co2. In this case there would be way too much pruning.
Thank you Prof!

 

Q: I want to use Java moss as a ground cover for my whole tank. Would it be benificial at all to use this method or is it more for plants with roots?

P.S Gareth my LPS/Nursery sell the palm fibre for R22. Would only be able to get it to you by Sunday and not mail, very limited time. Let me know if you do not get it in the meantime.

 

Thanks Vis I really appreciate it I will let you know later tonight

 

hi vis I might be going up to jhb on friday so i will see if i can go and pick it up but if I don't I will let you know on friday afternoon early so that you can send me 3 brick.

 

I have just done my mixture of peat now so it will be ready for plantation tomorrow!

 

I have one question to ask, anyone that has done this notice the water changed colour? Will i come right over time? Mine looks like someone took a big wee in my tank.

 

Hi Freaksta,

I haven't tried this, but I would believe that this might possibly be because you haven't capped it enough??? OR it might just be the peat leaching a bit into the water. Purigen should remove it.

I know purigen can be "damaged" by certain chemicals, so I don't know if it could be re-generated after it has cleared the tank. You might need some further information from other people. I know a lot of people don't come online over the weekend, so you might only get an in depth answer on Monday.

 

Thanks i will try cap it a bit more in places were it a bit thinner, it wont kill the few fix i have in the water at the moment? Will look into the purigen.

Thanks
Freaksta

 

you need to put a 1.5 to 2 cm thick sand layer ontop... i dont have any issues with water colour at the moment

 

Thanks, i didnt make to peat layer very thick so have space to add sand, will add some later this afternoon and try get somethign to clear out the water too.

Thanks
Freaksta

 

Forget about capping more. You would expect a certain amount of the substances in the PFP to leak out into the water. It is impossible for them not to do so.

The substances that are leaching out are humic acids, these are not harmful, as a matter of fact they are hugely advantageous for your fish and they have an anti-algal effect which is very valuable when you start a new aquarium.

Also forget about the Purigen, (unless you of course love spending money and have a huge budget, I can't stop you!) it would remove the humic acids, but you need to do water changes in any case if you are using plant fertilizers and then you simply dilute out the humic acids, they only leach out for a short while and then they are no longer able to leach out any more.

So no need to worry about the faint yellow coloration, it has no agricultural origins, but is perfectly normal.

You now need to use plant ferts in the water and if you need some of my Dirk's secret drops ferts, drop me a PM.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hello Dirk

Where on earth can i find palm fibre peat blocks ? local nurseries only get some "plooie" on there faces when i ask them. And also can you send me some info how to get some of those magic drops from you. I was never able to grow proper aqua plants before, I seeing forward to a nice green planted tank.

Regards
ADW

 

builderwarehouse builders express stock both the chemicult and the peat. my builders had them without the plactic on them(must been bulk buy or something) but it had a sign showing what it was.

 

i was at zambesi builders warehouse just now. they stock the chemicult in 5kg blue tubs R220 I think, 1kg white bags R80 and 500g blue bags R40. They also stock the palm fiber bricks R24. We also stock the bricks at the nursery i work at. Both products are from starke ayres. Even hyperama has they stuff. Also /dolphin/ the composition is in percentage - 6.5N / 2.7P / 13K / 7Ca / 2.2Mg / 7.5S / 0.15Fe / 0.024Mn / 0.024B / 0.005Zn / 0.002Cu / 0.001Mo. . . . Now a quick question prof. Could i use effecto's ferrofood for the iron content? Its mostly (95 percent) iron filings instead of iron nails. Terrestrial use - it rusts fast and makes iron available to plant roots

 

gravel filter

hi
is there a way i can do the palmfibre trick with undergravel filtration?

to my mind the water flow through the gravel will leach it all out or is there a way?

thanks

riaan

 

Under gravel filters are no such a good idea any more due to the fact that they store all the muck under the gravel and if I have it correct the muck starts to posion the water.... I might be wrong but someone here will correct me. as for putting palm peat on top of it I think that is just a recipe for one dirty tank but I have put palm peat in my tank now and if you have a good filter the water stays crystal clear there is really no need for the under gravel filters any more.

 

Under gravel filters need to be removed from petstores, and disregarded. They belong in the museum.

Undergravel filters need to be cleaned out once in a while... this will create a problem.. becuase you are obviously using this undergravel ferts for good plant growth, BUT you can't grow plants with an undergravel filter. The roots get entangled in it, and you have to uproot everything, and remover everything to clean the filter.

Toss it out and get a hang on, or internal.

 

Hi Guys,

A few comments:

Ferryman, I would be careful with the ferrofood. I think that it might release the iron too fast, nails will rust more slowly. The idea with the nails is that this is a slow release type of iron feeding. You must also remember that you must also feed the plants via the water, this chemicult in the PFP does not replace this, the plants simply need too much food than can be supplied by the medium.

On the undergravel filter, I agree that an undregravel filter as used just for filtration purposes belongs into the museum. If you use it for fishes that produce a lot of droppings this type of filtration is a time bomb waiting to happen because you accumulate a massive amount of waste in such a filter and it does not get out of the tank unless you clean it completely.

However, plants do need oxygen for good root growth. If you install the undergravel plates in an aquarium and you actually cause very, very slow water flow INTO the filter plates (reverse flow), in other words from the pipe into the filter, you do get much better plant growth. This needs to be set up very carefully though because you cannot just use a powerhead to pump water into the undergravel filter, the flow is far too fast. You literally need a sort of drip feed. However, if you do this you will flush out the chemicult quite quickly I mean that all of it will be gone by two weeks.

If you use normal undergravel filtration with PFP on it I would think that the chemicult would be out of the medium and into the water in about two days. I have mentioned this before and I want to emphasize this VERY STRONGLY here, Chemicult contains high levels of nitrogen and ammonia and this ammonia is fine if it is in the medium and comes out very slowly, but if it gets into the water quickly is highly toxic to your fishes. Anyone using this system with undergravel filtration WILL KILL THEIR FISHES in this way as far as I am concerned. Don't hold me responsible if you do this and have a whole lot of dead fishes in your aquarium.

Kind regards,

Dirk