Quest

2003:
7/13/03
7/08/03
6/21/03
6/13/03
5/19/03
5/06/03
4/20/03
3/25/03
3/23/03
2/18/03
1/5/03

2002:
11/11/02
10/11/02
10/03/02
9/1/02
8/10/02
7/14/02
7/2/02
6/4/02
4/6/02
3/14/02

2001:
6/28/01
5/31/01
4/26/01
3/29/01

2000:
11/30/00
10/24/00
9/28/00
8/21/00
7/27/00
6/22/00
5/25/00
4/20/00
3/10/00
2/24/00

Q U E S T  Newsletter of the Madison Aquatic Gardeners Club, 1/5/03 From: John Glaeser 233-5182

NEXT MEETING:

THURSDAY EVENING, January 23, 03 … 6:30 – 9:00 Science House, 1645 Linden Drive on the UW Campus Convenient parking close at hand.

We’ll be wrapping up the 8Tank Experiment, launched 9/26/02. Some pretty amazing ecosystem changes have been happening. Diagnostic speculators, here’s your chance!

Look forward to a good time during the “Round Table”. What’s been happening with your aquariums? If you have pictures to illustrate your sharing, please bring them along. For one, I know David Watson and son Nathan have a great story about setting up a classroom aquarium.

Tank Pictures: How about posting your images on our club web site? I use (google) to get there: Contact club member and webmaster Victor Marsh at or 277-8090. Let’s give this serious consideration. If you don’t have a camera, let me know. I’ll come over with digital camera in hand.

Bring your suggestions for aquatic plant growing experiments. Anyone have an idea for a small tank CO2 inoculation system? Let’s talk about this challenge.

Eutrophication (Nutrient Pollution). Focusing on the consequences of excess phosphate in small lakes, this information may help us understand planted aquaria dynamic. Check it out.

Our 8TankX developed GREEN WATER! We’ve been adding Kent Iron/Potassium complex and Nitrate occasionally, but no Phosphate. Figuring it needed a least a small amount of Phosphate, I added enough to get a 0.5 ppm reading, theoretically a safe/low level for planted aquaria. Seems the limiting factors in our setups, prevent rapid higher plant growth and they couldn’t use this level of P fast enough. Perhaps 0.1ppm would have been better ? Our tanks have low CO2. They don’t have water circulation to dislodge accumulating metabolic waste on leaves. A lack of current means the boundary layer around plant tissue is not reduced. A thinner layer makes it easier for plants to take in nutrients.

I’ve been doing weekly 50% water changes to get on top of this problem. Light loving Ludwigia plants suffered because green water cut the light intensity. Ludwigia melted in the four soft water tanks. The hard water tanks have reasonable Ludwigia colonies. These had more naturally available trace elements relative to the soft water tanks. Though the soft water tanks did well initially, all plants in this set began to stall as the traces were used up.

Surviving Ludwigia in hard water are doing better under the wide spectrum “plant grow” bulbs compared to those under the standard cool/white lighting. Appears the wide spectrum promotes healthier leaves and more new growth shoots.

Out of 8 tanks, one tank did not break out with green water! Tank (1). Grow bulb. Hard water. Gravel is the clear one. Here there exists several flat, Cyanobacteria slime shapes colonizing on the top of the substrate and apparently removing abundant snail droppings. Early in October something started to change. Soft, fuzzy puffs of grey/green algae appeared and proliferate, expanding throughout the water column and attaching to leaves. Sails went to work. They eliminated the stuff. This resulted in a curious but expectable covering of dark green snail waste on the gravel. Could the Cyanobacteria be processing this waste? The gravel is exceptional clean aside from the few scattered BG slabs. Is there a connection between the Cyanobacteria and clearness of the water? Does BG gives off a toxin that thwarts green water algae?

Variables make life interesting!

And most certainly, our club members make life interesting.

Hope to see many of you, come January 23.

John