Chain Swords Looking Sickly

[Dreamroper]

Hi,

My Amazons are going well, and Water Sprite and Creeping Jenny are too, but my Chain Swords were doing really well, spreading nicely and now are starting to turn brown. I dose carefully with Excel & Flourish. I have a 36 gal community tank.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks-D

 

[Zimmanski]

Can you give more info and maybe a picture? Water parameters, dosing regimen, lighting, substrate, all that sort of stuff. And without a picture its impossible to tell.

 

[Dreamroper]

Can you give more info and maybe a picture? Water parameters, dosing regimen, lighting, substrate, all that sort of stuff. And without a picture its impossible to tell.

I hate to admit it, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to post a picture on here. The rest I can give you:

Water params:
0 Ammonia,
0 Nitrite
5.0 Nitrate

Dosing regimen is irregular because I had a PH spike and lost some fish, so I eased off on the dosing until things were stabilized. Lighting is 2-T5s and substrate is Eco. The tank has been up for about 2 months.
If you can tell me how to post a picture, I'll try again, but it shows it's downloaded off of my computer, but doesn't show on the posting so I'm obviously leaving a step out.
Thanks for your help. I understand if you can't give me anymore without a pic.
D

 

[Zimmanski]

You nitrates should be between 10 and 20 usually in a planted tank, but I'm not sure if its life or death unless your nitrates are consistently bottoming out.

To post a picture click post reply, then on the next page click the little paper clip (next to the fonts, sizes, letter A, and a smiley face), then on the pop up window click browse and select your photo, then when it goes back to the pop up select upload. Once finished uploading scroll down and select close this window. Then enter your text and select submit reply. Should work

 

[Dreamroper]

Picture of tank-test picture

 

[Dreamroper]

I was forgetting to hit the submit reply button. Okay, now I can take a picture of my Chain Sword and put it on here for you to see. Thanks-D

 

[Dreamroper]

You nitrates should be between 10 and 20 usually in a planted tank, but I'm not sure if its life or death unless your nitrates are consistently bottoming out.

To post a picture click post reply, then on the next page click the little paper clip (next to the fonts, sizes, letter A, and a smiley face), then on the pop up window click browse and select your photo, then when it goes back to the pop up select upload. Once finished uploading scroll down and select close this window. Then enter your text and select submit reply. Should work

Thanks for your help. Yes, my nitrates are always really low. I don't vacuum the gravel and although you can't see it, I'm pretty heavily stocked-just all small fish, but I currently have about 31 fish in there. You would think the nitrates would raise due to the amount of fish, but all of my numbers stay low. Not sure what to do to raise the nitrates?

 

[Old Scales]

The flourish is mostly the micro ferts. You will need to add the macros which is nitrate and phosphate ferts. You'll need to do liquid tests on each to know how much to dose.
Look into dry ferts by Green Leaf Aquarium. Their PPS-Pro system is a good system and really much cheaper in the long run. If you want to stay with liquid ferts, get some flourish+n and flourish+p. Good Luck, OS.

 

[Dreamroper]

Thank you OS. Here is a really crappy picture that I took with my phone. The Chains are growing, the runners are nice and healthy, it's the "mother plants" or whatever they're called that are turning brown.

 

[Old Scales]

Are all of the mother plant's leaves turning brown or just some of them? Could be just the oldest leaves dying and being replaced by new ones. I know sword plants will do that. You just cut off the old brown wore out leaves so the new ones can grow in.

 

[Dreamroper]

It looks like all of them are turning brown.

 

[Zimmanski]

Is it the actual leaves or are the older leaves getting a brown algae on them? If its the actual leaves its probably a deficiency somewhere but I don't know enough to tell which one. I know a deficiency in potassium can cause yellowing though

 

[Dreamroper]

Is it the actual leaves or are the older leaves getting a brown algae on them? If its the actual leaves its probably a deficiency somewhere but I don't know enough to tell which one. I know a deficiency in potassium can cause yellowing though

No, I think it's the actual leaves. I bought a couple of new ones today and I'm going to replace two of them and see if it happens again. It's odd when some of your plants are doing great and others not. My LFS is careful to sell me "easy" care plants too since I'm still a novice. Wouldn't the ferts have potassium in them? I use Seachem Flourish. I also dose with Excel, but I must admit I'm very conservative with dosing.