My plant leaves are brown now? Help please!

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ChemEngineer

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jun 28, 2011
Messages
8
So my aquarium has been around since March of 2011, and it is a 29 gallon biocube. It has been planted the whole time, but only recently have my plants started to show unusual signs. I have a 36 watt 10k bulb, and also a 36 watt actinic bulb (about 2.5 watt/gallon). My plants all seemed to be growing well for the first few months, but now they are starting to brown around their edges, or have entire leaves covered in brown stuff. I’ve tried wiping it off, but that doesn’t seem to work. Anyone have any idea what can be wrong with my plants?


My ammonia/nitrites are zero, and nitrates are at 10 ppm. My temperature holds steady at 77 °F, and my lights are on for about 13 hours a day. I use Seachem’s Flourish twice a week, and have recently started dosing with Seachem’s Flourish Excel (once I noticed the browning).
Below are some pictures that hopefully will help diagnose the problem.



If you need any more information, please ask and I’ll try to answer quickly.


Thanks for your help!





 
It looks like some of them could be sword plants?

I have heard of swords doing this before. If I am right, it looks like nutrient deficiency. The plants suck up a lot of nutrients, but then there are no nutrients left in the tank and start to melt away. I think this happens with big plants, like swords.
 
My swords did that when I lacked on adding the iron enriched fertilizer(also had a nice algae bloom). I didn't realize the new bottle I got wasn't iron enriched. Once I started using the stuff with iron all the plants perked up.

Not sure if it was iron(tests said I was low), but once I switched back to the iron enriched stuff, things got better.
 
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Reduce your lighting to 8hrs per day. FYI- the actinic bulbs do nothing for plants. You have just a bit over 1wpg. Replace the actinic with another 10000k or 6500k and definitely reduce your photo time
 
Agree with reducing photo period ( 8 to 10 hours) and losing the actinic in favor of a 6500K or 5000K tube. The brown appears to be diatoms which an Oto cat will happily remove. Diatoms are normal in new setups.
 
The brown spots are diatoms, so the plants with brown spots dont have any problem. They are common, i usually have some in my tank's walls. I used to have a pleco who ate them, but you could consider getting a snail or an oto, theyre fast cleaners. I understand how frustrated you must be, but dont worry that much, swordtails are hardy and will resist.
Best of luck!
 
Reduce the photo period (8 or 9 is fine), replace the actinic with a 6700-1000k and consider adding some root tabs for your sword. Swords are heavy root feeders and do not benefit as much as stems do from ferts in the water column.

Right now you are probably closer to 1-1.5 wpg. Just wipe any of the diatoms off the leaves with your fingers and remove as much as you can from the glass. Some snails will do the trick in keeping your plants clean.
 
Thank-you everyone! Your responses have been helpful!

I noticed a few people said diatoms, and a couple said it was from an iron deficiency. As far as the diatoms are concerned, are they blooming due to over-exposure to the light? And as far as oto cats are concerned, I already have two of them (and 3 amano shrimp). Do I need more of them to keep the diatoms under control? And also, I have tried wiping them off the leaves of my plants, but it seems like nothing is coming off the leaves. Is that what diatoms normally do?

Sorry to come back with more questions, but I promise it is only because I am trying to learn (and hopefully figure out how to fix the issue).

Thanks in advance for your further help!

P.S. I have reduced the amount of time of light on the plants to 8 hours as suggested.
 
Diatoms would come right off in a cloud of dust. Leaves browning could be from lack of nutrients, swords are heavy feeders.
 
It's neither Diatoms or the plants dying off, it's the start of BBA. The Hygro in the front would probably show signs that something is wrong first since they are nutrient hogs.
 
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