My only live plant looks horrible

[Scott1980]

I've got a 10 gallon aquarium with 1 gold fish, 4 neon tetras, 1 cory dora, 3 Black Skirt Tetas, 1 African Dwarf Frog. I'm taking the goldfish out next week into a seperate tank he's getting HUGE! Anyway back to the subject. The tank is only 3 months old but doing ok. I added a Java Fern. I leave the light on for about 12 hours a day, that's what the guy at the store told me to do. The plant in the last month since I bought it though has brown algae growing all over it. You can't even see much green. Plus little pieces of it are breaking off and floating around. The bulb is just a regular Florescant bulb. Any help is great thanks.

Scott

 

[Pacu Man]

maybe introducing an algae eater might help the situation but can i ask what filteration you are using?

 

[Scott1980]

I've got a Penquin Power Filter also including a bio-wheel. What algae eater would you recommened? I'm afraid that even after taking the gold fish out, my tank is overstocked a little. I'm also having to clean my Aquarium walls of algae almost everyweek.

Scott

 

[justDIY]

my guess is your java fern is getting too much light

try reducing the light to 6 or 8 hours a day, or find a way to shade the fern some.

do you have the fern attached to a rock or driftwood, or are you trying to grow it from the gravel?

if you're trying from the gravel, make sure the plants rhizome (the flesh the root and leaves grow from) is not covered ... it is better to have the roots exposed than to have the rhizome covered.

 

[Scott1980]

I actaully have it in one of those plastic pot things it comes in. Do I need to take it out of that? The guy at the store told me I could leave it in. Another quick question. Once I can get this healthy I want to get more plants in there, something that's confused me though. Is when I gravel vacum, how do I handle rooted plants. Obviously I don't think I can take the plants in and out when I vacum or do I? Thanks for you help.

Scott

 

[justDIY]

those tiny plastic pots contain a compound to protect and encourage root growth in a plany, but are not very good to support the plants future growth.

remove it from the pot and use some cotton kite string or regular fishing line to tie the plant to a rock or driftwood ... wrap the plants roots a few times with the string, pressing it lightly onto the surface of the rock or wood.

after a few weeks the plants roots will grow into the wood or around the rock.

as for getting more plants - what type of gravel do you have, and how deep is it.

there are a variety of plants available that don't need to root in the gravel, and you can just push them out of the way when you want to vacuum.

alternatively you can root the plants in the gravel and just vacuum lightly around them, being carefull not to go "too deep" and injure the roots.

however, I would recommend you use small teracotta pots. you can get a bag of natural kitty litter or Schultz aquatic potting soil, and put some in the pot followed by gravel ... then your plant will have good soil to grow, and you can move it easily to vacuum your gravel

 

[Scott1980]

The gravel I have is about 2 inches deep. I'm not sure of the brand. It's some cheap o I got from Walmart. It's small though, it's not big and chunky or anything. How does waste that falls close to you plant that you can't vacuem affect your aquarium long term though. These are just questions I've been wondering the 3 months I've had this thing.

Scott

 

[justDIY]

the waste that falls near the plant will be taken care of by the plant and the bacteria that grow on the gravel.

if enough of your gravel is planted (like most of it) then you don't really need to do any vacuuming.

the problem with gravel is that the grains are too large for plants to get a good foothold in. even small gravel 3 to 5 mm is too large for most plants. you really need something that is 0.5mm to 3mm

the other problem with gravel is contains no nutrition for the plants, espeically if you've been vacuuming. this will cause the plant to starve to death

when I first setup my 29 gallon (which has gravel on top of sand) it wasn't able to support plants for over a month after I stopped vacuuming ... but once those nutriants built up, my swords and other plants grow like crazy now. I occasionally vacuum portions of unplanted gravel, but only when it's looking really ratty.

 

[Scott1980]

What's your suggestion to use then what brand of gravel? And if I decide to change my gravel out, what's the best way to do it without killing my fish. Or should I just start another tank get the plants in then add the fish?

Scott

 

[justDIY]

there are a lot of brands to choose from, and all seem to have similar properties.

Some are easier to work with than others.

If you want continue using the gravel you have now, try this:

buy a small box of 1st layer pure laterite - you'll see it near the chemicals at the pet store, it is a small green and yellow box.

measure out the recommended weight for your tank according to the package, and then make small packets of it using butcher paper or wax paper and cotton string. Try to make the packets as small and tight as possible, to avoid the contents from mixing right away in your water. Take these packets and cram them all the way to the bottom of your gravel, spaced evenly across the whole bottom. Make sure you cannot see them from the top - they must be completely covered. After a few weeks, the bacteria in your tank will eat the string and paper, releasing the laterite into the bottom of your gravel. Now you can plant just about anything in your ordinary gravel and the roots will dig down into the laterite layer for their nutriants!

doing a gravel change to a "plant gravel" with water in the tank will lead to lots of dust problems and severely cloudy water. If you want to rebuild your tank or start another, you can just put a 3" layer of substrate down (lightly rinsed if you wish) and then slowly fill the tank with water.

some choices for you are: Flourite, Flourite Red, Schultz Aquatic Plant Soil, Seachem Onyx Sand, something called Eco-Complete Substrate and last but not least, plain old natural kitty litter covered with a fine gravel.

 

[Scott1980]

interesting, I bought a new bulb. A friend gave me this tank and I found out the bulb is just plain old cheapo. So I got a ZooMed plant bulb with 6700 I think is how you say it. So I'll see what happens.

Scott

 

[BillyZ]

pardon a Salty barging in... you mentioned you have sand in the bottom of your tank which is covered by gravel. What kind of sand? I'm wanting to build up the substrate in my FW tank to give the plants a little more root room but was thinking of using some extra southdown sand I have from my SW tank. do you think the plants would like that (added slowly of course). I currently have a couple swords and... oh bugger... forgot their names. Cabomba, apparently, and something else not listed on liveaquaria.com... looks a bit like the cabomba, but not as fully leafed.

I've currently got about 1" of natural rock gravel... average size about 1/4" (big stuff)

 

[Guest]

If the sand you want to use is carbonate based then it will play havoc with your water chemistry. What you might want to do is head down to an industrial supply house and get a bag of fine gravel and just use that instead of the current boulders you have in there now. And it would help if you put down some laterite on the bottom.