# Staurogyne sp. 'Porto Velho'



## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

My S. 'porto velho' has been growing hit and miss, after a long (30 days) acclimation period where all the leaves fell and were replaced it starting growing well and at the time I dosed excel daily, it started spreading but I had to quit using the Excel and it has just quit growing and is losing some leaves, this morning I put 6 Osmocote gel caps in the substrate to help.

Tank specs.
30 inches tall 

Light 130 watts @ 9hrs.
add 192 watts @ 7 hrs.
add 192 watts @ 2.5 hrs. so I don't think it's light unless I'm cooking them

Pressurized CO2 between 28 to 44 ppm

Winter water temp. 76-77 degrees

Flourite Red
EI dosing with Fe daily
Weekly water changes

Ph 7.2 in the am 6.8 in the pm
kh 7
gh 1.5
Nitrates 30 ppm

I'm hoping the addition of the root tabs will do the trick but any help would greatly appreciated, thank you.


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## HolyAngel (Oct 18, 2010)

Are you not using co2?? That's a TON of light for no co2.. This plant will grow with hardly no light or co2, as well as under high light but it needs GOOD co2 to do so..


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

Doh, forgot that one, yes the CO2 is as high as I can go and have living creatures in the tank. Thanks for pointing that out.


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

44 ppm of c02 really is not that much good surface agitation will allow you to increase that amount assuming u are really that high. however
you could reduce your lighting amounts and never have to increase c02


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## Rockhoe14er (Jan 19, 2011)

how is the flow in your tank? do you get a good sway from all your plants? 

Also how are the other plants in your tank growing? are they all growing great and it's just this plant that's struggling or are there others that are struggling.

I have this plant under about 50 par lighting with as high of co2 as my fish can handle and it has just exploded. I will say that it took about a month or two before it just went everywhere. I'm not sure if it just has a long transition process but at least for me it took a while before it really started growing really fast now i can hardly trim it fast enough. 

Also that fact that your growth improved when you added excel tells me that you might have too much light and not enough co2 for your light levels. I would just lower your light a bit and see how things change.


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

My flow is good from top to bottom and most of my other plant are growing well, my Val nana and H. pinnatifida are in need of something too and it could be root tabs.

I have had the light lower and nothing really grows in the tank, most of the reading I did today suggested it requires high light and nutrients, most of the tanks I see it growing in are using AS. I actually had this tank setup with a little more light and all the plants did well but the list didn't include S. 'porto velho' at that time.

I tried to push my CO2 a while back and bought a drop checker with some 4 dkh solution and ended up killing 6 Rummy's and 2 Green Neons, apparently tetra are good indicators of high CO2, it got to be nutrients in the soil because the tank is in balance with no real algae to speak of and other plants are growing like crazy.


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## 150EH (Dec 6, 2004)

I hate to bump this thread back to the top but, The S. porto velho perked right up and started putting out long green leaves everywhere after the Osmocote tabs were planted. I used one 00 sized tab every 4 inches or so right down the middle so multiple plants would get nutrients from a single tab and put one between 3 C. nurii plants to move them along as well, so this plant needs good root nutrition as well as water column dosing and good light, greedy.


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