# air circulation for floating Salvinia...



## rhymon78 (Mar 17, 2012)

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


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## Hanky (Feb 1, 2012)

Lower the water level a bit.

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


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## zof (Apr 23, 2010)

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.


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## Hanky (Feb 1, 2012)

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


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## rhymon78 (Mar 17, 2012)

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!!


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## zof (Apr 23, 2010)

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.


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## rhymon78 (Mar 17, 2012)

zof said:


> 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.


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.


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## rhymon78 (Mar 17, 2012)

zof said:


> 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.


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


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## Byron (Mar 7, 2009)

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.


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## Maxillius (Sep 27, 2011)

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.


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## rhymon78 (Mar 17, 2012)

Byron said:


> 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.
> 
> ...


Byron, my GH is around 16 if I remember rightly, so pretty hard. And I have dosed with 2.5 ml of flourish comprehensive 2 times this week, only just started using flourish this week, I also removed my carbon filter pad this week too! So hopefully things will start to improve soon. Got some black beard going on on my java fern and Anubis though, so think I might be leaving lights on too long. Around 12 hours give or take.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## rhymon78 (Mar 17, 2012)

Maxillius said:


> 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.


Hey, funnily enough I have just ordered some dwarf water lettuce from eBay and eagerly await it's arrival, so I'll have a mix of that and salvinia floating love the floating plants!! 

I have noticed that some of the roots are a tad brown, so a lack of nutrients could be a problem, but like I was telling Byron I am now dosing with flourish comprehensive twice a week so I'm guessing this will provide sufficient nutrients? Got quite a high bio load so the plants should use some of the ammonia. But I also have quite a lot of plants too..... 

Is it worth looking into adding CO2? How hard is this and is it dangerous with a high bio load tank? Don't really know much about the CO2 game..


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## Maxillius (Sep 27, 2011)

I would not recoment Co2 with the amount of light you have it would not be very effective, and as for nutrients it could also be in the form of nitrate , doing water change is good but you must keep some nitrate for the plants! and ya as for the dwarf water lettuce get ready hehe i have some that are almost as big as my hand and they are linked to like 4-5 other plants of similar size with alot of smaller ones that those have smaller ones attached hehe its like a big web! and it grows super fast I pick them up each week , put them in the mesuring cup i use for alot of thing in my aquarium , squash them to make more room and I throw out cups compacted of this stuff a week! so If anyone needs some Id be happy to ship them!


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## rhymon78 (Mar 17, 2012)

That water lettuce looks sick in your tank by the way! Can't wait until my floaters look like that! 

Hmm, wasn't keen on the co2 anyway.. 

Nitrates are not a problem, I have around 20-40ppm out of my tap water. I dont treat my water with anything, I just run the tap hard into my bucket and then let it sit for 24 hours to declourinate etc before adding it to my tank.


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## Byron (Mar 7, 2009)

rhymon78 said:


> Byron, my GH is around 16 if I remember rightly, so pretty hard. And I have dosed with 2.5 ml of flourish comprehensive 2 times this week, only just started using flourish this week, I also removed my carbon filter pad this week too! So hopefully things will start to improve soon. Got some black beard going on on my java fern and Anubis though, so think I might be leaving lights on too long. Around 12 hours give or take.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I think this is still just the plants adjusting. Removing the carbon (if it was still active) may improve this too, as that could have been competing.

Anubias and Java Fern are shade plants, and in direct light they will almost always attract brush algae. Floating plants over them will help, and/or decreasing the intensity [not sure what this is, so just mention it as another cause]. If intensity is fine, then duration can be looked at.

Byron.


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