air circulation for floating Salvinia...

rhymon78

Hey people,

I just managed to finally find some floating plants in a LFS so I feverishly purchased a couple bags of this stuff that I think they just drag out of one of their show tanks. It turns out it is called Salvinia.

So I was all concerned about it getting stuck in the filter intake as my filter is housed inside the tank completely, and my outflow pointing at the surface was causing it to swirl around like mad, and then get stuck at the intake. A quick chat the the jedi master Byron and now I have my outflow pipe pointing down and to the back and the floating plants just sit nicely on the still surface! job sorted!

So my question tonight, I read in the profile for Salvinia that it says good air circulation is required between the lights and the surface of the water... to avoid burning of the leaves. I have a hood/lid which houses the lights, how does one get good air circulation when the lid is on the tank? I know some tanks have no lids, but this is not an option for me.

Has anyone had this issue, or know if I need to worry. I have 2 18 watt tubes over a 29gallon tank. one is daylight, and one is warm light. it does cook a bit under the hood, if you lift it up just a bit and have your face near it you can feel the trapped heat.

Hope this doesn't have a detrimental effect on the floating plants, I have been searching for ages for something to float.

cheers all

Simon

Hanky

Lower the water level a bit.

Or should I say, Water level lower, it should be.

zof

It depends on what kind of hood you have, the glass hoods are great at keeping the air in but then there is always the heat build up like they are talking about, if you get a plastic hood with a good amount of holes (not so air tight) you should be fine. I would just wait and see if the air circulation is actually needed (plant starts showing burnt leaves) if that is the case I would add an air stone under a gap in the hood if you have two such gaps or on the other side of the tank if you can only find one such gap, this should help move some of the heat out. If not there are some more sever methods we can go after if the problem persists.

Hanky

Extra vent holes on the hood above the light would allow more heat to dissipate

rhymon78

Urrgghh, my Salvinia has started turning brown on some leaves and melting.... This sucks, could it be the heat? Or is it likely my ph? Which is 8.2 the profile says up to 7.5

Hope it doesn't continue!!

zof

pictures would be a big help here, browning/melting could be a number of issues that might be better suited for the people on the plant part of the forum, if it is a heat issue then we can work out a solution. If you want to try and figure out if its a heat issue on your own, leave the hood open for a couple of days and see if you see improvement.

rhymon78

I'll see how it goes, if I notice more yellowing tomorrow then I'll take picture. its very new, only put it in the tank on sunday, and it was sitting in a bag at the shop when I got it. So maybe its just from being out of water, then new water with different parameters etc.

leaving the lid open on the tank is a definite no no, I have 2 cats, and one of them actually jumped into the tank at the weekend when I was acclimating a new fish.. pierced the bag, git its paws wet, luckily I was right there and caught her mid flight. otherwise she would have gone fully in.

see how things go, if it gets worse then I'll have to try something. not all of the leaves are going brown. there are some plants that are absolutely fine, just noticed a few that had melted.
cheers.

rhymon78

Hello, so I think I am probably jumping the gun with the melting leaves, as there seems to be some new growth (daughter plants) already! and the majority of the plants look very healthy, and the roots are growing. ill attach 2 pics i took earlier, you can see some of the browning, melting leaves. but only on a few plants.

cheers

Attached Images

	IMG_0741.jpg (54.5 KB, 16 views)
	IMG_0743.jpg (73.0 KB, 15 views)

Byron

That looks pretty good. You should see a bit darker green, but that may be the camera. If you want to pursue this colour issue, let me know the fertilizers going in the tank and how often. And your GH.

As you surmised, Salvinia like most plants needs a period to adjust to a new environment.

On the pH, I have no direct knowledge of how much this affects most plants. The ranges in the profiles here are the consensus of botanists and acknowledged planted tank sources, not something I dreamed up, so I provide what the experts say is optimal. But some plants may do well beyond those ranges. All one can do is try and see.

There are some plants that are quite finicky. I will usually state this in the parameter section if someone like Kasselmann has noted it.


Byron.

Maxillius

I can notice that the yellowing is all on leaves that are submerged wich is something normal for a floating plant like this, if the leaf cant get air it dies, nothing to worry if most other leafs are out of water! also look for the root tips if you see browning of the tip you may lack nutrients in the water. As you can see in my aquarium profile i have a similar plant called dwarf water lettuce grows similarly just has more fluff and hairs and roots! and i have never seen a plant grow like that -_- hehe.