Month: April 2013

Day 11

By today, we noticed that the third plants are no longer growing and even the healthiest plant is starting to brown a little. We had to adjust the pH from 5.8 and bring it up to 6.6 by adding a quarter of a teaspoon of pH up liquid to the water.

We had made an observation and think we found the possible problem with our plants. The air stones in our tank are directly under the first and second plant. These two plants are the weakest and show the least amount of growth. The third plant is not near the air stones and is the healthiest. We came to the conclusion that the air stones directly under the plants cause them to poorly grow. However, we did not fix this problem or adjust the air stones, because we are fearful that if we tamper with them now, our healthiest plant may die.

Day 10

Sad to say, but our plants are slowly dying. The second plant is just about completely dead due to being dropped and we have not be able to save it. The first plant is slowly starting to wilt, and the third plant is still the strongest and has not shown signs of dying just yet. We are hoping that the third plant will hold on a little longer until harvest day.

The pH of the plants was at 5.9 and we did not need to adjust it. We had also turned down the amount of light given to the plants to six hours in hopes that the first and second plant might be able to start growing again with this adjustment.

WE REMAIN HOPEFUL!

Day 9

Today the second plant that had falled on Moday appears to be dying. The leavesa are still crushed and some of them appear to be turning brown. There is not much we can do to fix this, so we are hopeful that the plant does not fully die. The pH was also very low at around 5.5 and the water was extremely dirty with particles floating around. We decided to change the nutrients and water again and clean out the container to rid of all the mess. After everything was cleaned out and fresh water was added, we tested the ph at 6.5 and decided to leave it at that.

 

Day 8

Our plants today looked healthy as usual. We had to add about a pint of the nutrient solution to the container because we were running low on water. The pH was at a healthy 6.2 and we did not have to adjust it at all. However, we had a little accident with plant number two. We had went to pick up the stryafoam that held the cups to see if the algae had spread to the bottom of the stryafoam and the second cup slipped out and fell crushing the plants. We hope that because of this, the plant does not die. Next class we will have to check to make sure that it is still growing well.