Substrate Experiment

The Rotala Macrandra took a huge knock with the 4-day blackout to remove the green water algae... but the rest looks fine...

No significant difference, however.... the Octopus plant in Tank 2 does seems a lot bigger compared to the rest...

The staurogyne repens seems to have more roots in tank 3 and 4 compared to that of tank 1 and 2... will do a proper closeup shoot this weekend...

H

 

Hi Chicken, can u tell us how u made the HPV mixes??

 

Good evening peeps!!

So... tIt is time for yet another update!!

As you can see from the photos... my experiments are really doing well! There is a difference between each tank that is starting to show....


I added 4 white clouds to each tank and after 8 hours they are still doing fine... all of them ate and keeps on exploring the tanks... I also added some vallis I got from the University... proudly South African and origionated from Pretoria.

Tank 1: ADA Amazonia


Tank 2: DIY garden soil



Tank 3: HPV-NP



Tank 4: HPV-Pure



All the plants are happy! Except for the macrandras that didn't make it during the last blackout....

Now to monitor the fish and see any side effects.... and also see whether the presence of fish and food will increase the growth...

Till later....

 

So they are educated Vallis? :amuse:

 

@ DaChicken Thanks for the update. Keep us posted.

 

@Good_Times: LOL!!!! Well... didn't think of that... YES!! :nuts: He he...

@Riaan8: Thanks a lot! I will do so...

H

 

Very interesting, and well done. Spare me some time to look at all these different kind of experiments than by doing them myself.

 

Good morning my fellow green fingers!!

So the substrate experiment has come to the end. I believe after just over 2 months that the results will give us all a fair explanation on what the effects each substrate has and what the benifits are.....

so, the final picture that was taken of all the tanks is:



As you can see, there is a significant difference between each tank w.r.t. the plant growth....

Also... unfortunately the algae had overtaken this experiment in just over a week...

Here are some close up pics of each tank:

Tank 1: ADA Amazonia


Tank 2: DIY Garden soil


Tank 3: HPV-NP


Tank 4: HPV-Pure


AS you can see, the DIY garden soil substrate proved to be more favorable for the plant growth. The only downfall on this is that the water kept on having a yellowish colour. No matter how many times you do WC.

Surprisingly the ADA amazonia didn't do that great for me... I believe that this product is developed to work with a CO2 system... any suggestions there? what do you think? The water was clear for this tank, but the plants did not do that great.

And the best part.... the fish were OK during this experiment. I believe the couple of fish that died at the beginning was due to lack of nutrients or something because when I bought the fish there were a couple that was looking a bit too thin....

Ok, so now for the most important part: What is HPV-NP and HP-Pure?
Ok, time for some explaining:

HPV-NP
This is a product I made myself consisting out of the following:
10% NO3 Slow release clay. (clay consists of only Mg and Al - synthesized myself at work)
10% PO4 Slow release clay. (clay consists of only Mg and Al - synthesized myself at work)
10% CO3 Slow release clay. (clay consists of only Mg and Al - synthesized myself at work)
60% Zeolite
5% Perlite
5% Fe3O4 (Magnetite)

Unfortunately I can not yet tell you how I synthesizeed that clay because we are writing a paper on this which needs to be published. We are also waiting for the patent to be finalised.

HPV-Pure
This product I also made myself and it consists out of the following:
90% Zeolite
5% Perlite
5% Fe3O4

I used a granulator to make the granules for easy applications.

As you can see from the pictures, I was impressed with the results in tank 4: HPV-Pure.
The plant growth was not that bad, but mostly, none of the plants had died.

I will post some pics later when I clean the tanks to indicate the root system for each plant, therefore, we can see what the substrates did w.r.t. the root development for each plant.

Although this experiment wasn't very professionally, I do hope that this helped in giving an idea what the different substrates do.....

No for the cleaning part.....