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Permalink Reply by Tony G - AquaStudent on October 26, 2011 at 11:52am

Can you be more specific with your parameters? What type of lighting, power, spectrum, how far from the substrate...what ferts, amount of time the lights are on, more info on your substrate (by normal fine gravel do you mean inert gravel? do you use root tabs?)

 

This info will help us get a better picture.

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Permalink Reply by Rich bob on October 26, 2011 at 5:57pm

Sure thing. one T8 17 watt 6500K spectrum light strip, two single 14 watt light bulbs. I only use liquid iron ferts once every two weeks or so. (no root tabs).  Gravel is regular small pebbles (little bigger than sand) and bigger gravel caped on top.

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Permalink Reply by Oz "Mr.Chain Sword" on October 26, 2011 at 10:43pm

First Ima tell ya what ur doing wrong so u can enjoy your chain swords,first of all STOP using liquid ferts,that is not helping at all,USE ROOT TABS,Flourish Root Tabs,they have the highest Iron content of any other root tabs,second stop using Co2,that is most likely killing your chain swords,they need to establish them selves first before you try to boost their growing speed,which is what Co2 does to plants,secondly no crappy lighting,regualr light bulbs are no good,way to yellow for plants,go after the circular 24watt CFL bulbs in the 6500-6700K range nothing less then 6500K,also small pebbles should be fine but I personally pre-mixed play sand with the dirt I have in my tank to allow ALL roots to spread in an easy manner.Also if you do have a dirt tank setup you dont need to add ferts at ALL,NONE....Dirt does enough on it's own,if you don't have dirt then you will need the root tabs,and remember this fact-Roots of aquatic plants take in between 40-400 times as much nutrients as the leaves do,so in short roots are the most important part,leaves are last,if you would like to know me feel free to inbox me any questions you might have and refer if you want to my vids to see how chain sword grows,and propagates....Mr.Amazon

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Permalink Reply by Rich bob on October 27, 2011 at 2:01am

Thank you Mr. Amazon, I really appreciate the time you took to reply to me. I'm a beginner in this hobby so i'm still very much learning. The info is very very useful and eye opening. I will indeed be getting back to you.

Alex.

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