My plants are sick.

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fishshl

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
39
My plants look sick.

There are a lot brown spots on the leaves of Afzeli Anubias. And leaves
of Java fern become small and narrow.

What should I do now?
 

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do you have enough light for them? that would be the first concern that if you have the nutrients they need. do you have a test kit and what are your tank specs
 
Please answer the questions listed in the "Plants need help? - Here's the place" Sticky. Those answers will provide the information we need to help you help your plants.
 
20 G Tank, setup for 2.5 month.
Currently, 6 neon, 2 panda cory, 4 platy fries. 2 ghost shrimp.
Ammonia 0, NO3 5 or more.
I don't have other test kit for plants.

Light is very low. Only 15W.

Currently, I only want to keep the low light plants.
Now I have Java Fern, Java Moss, Afzeli, hornwort, Anubias Nana, Wendii Green
and micro sword. Micro sword need high light. It will not survive I learn from other guys.

But I want to keep all other plants. How much light need for them?
 
You have two problems...the first one is your light level. You need at least 1wpg to provide the bare minimum of light that the plants need. From the description of the tank, you probably have a screw-in incandescent bulb. This can be replaced with a CF screw-in.

The other is your NO3 level. A constant level of 10ppm at minimum is essential. If you are sure that the level is 5ppm, you may have to dose with Flourish Nitrogen. Usually, a fish load of your size will accomplish >10ppm weekly.

How often do you perform PWC's?
 
At least once a week, 10~15%.
Today I used Quick Dip 5. It shows nitrate around 20. Last weekend, I tested it by Nitrate test kit( Aquarium pharmaceutials), it showed 5 ~ 10. It's hard to tell the color sometimes.
 
The test strips are notoriously inaccurate. You are best off sticking with the AP kit for your testing. Even your AP kit may be inaccurate at levels under 10ppm. It's best to maintain NO3 levels between 10-20ppm to ensure that your test kit is accurately reading the levels and your plants are getting enough NO3. For those that want to maintain NO3 at levels lower than 10ppm to induce better reds, and higher grade test kit is necessary.

Your first step is definately to see about upping your lighting to at least 1wpg. If you are currently using incadescent lighting as Jchillin suspects, it is even more necessary to upgrade your lighting as incadescent lighting is nearly useless to plants. Luckily those CF bulbs are an easy fix to that situation.
 
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