Plants not growing like they used to

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cherokeeluvr

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Sep 16, 2014
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I’ve been struggling on and off with algae issues then plant growth issues in my tank. The tank at the beginning of this year was doing pretty well, but then cyano bacteria attacked, which led to a complete tank restart. Since that, I’ve had little to no success with plant growth.

Tank Details:
- Fluval spec V (5 gallon)
- Finnex planted plus light (about 6 hours a day) (could a light age out to where it doesn’t grow properly?)
- Flourite sand
- CO2 (1bps; on 2 hours before lights and off 2 hours before the lights go off)
- dose Thrive about 3x a week
- weekly 40% WCs
- 1 betta
- 1 Amano shrimp

In the past, I was able to grow a lush carpet of Monte Carlo easily along with Rotala indica and AR mini with doing the same routine. A little over two weeks ago, I restarted the tank again to a weird algae (not cyano) that I couldn’t get rid of. I purchased a large portion of submersed growth Monte Carlo, octopus plant, Rotala magenta, and pearl weed. All of the plants looked pretty good, except the pearl weed was already a bit rough looking. After 2 weeks, the octopus plant is still looking great and everything else has died with the exceptions of a couple tiny bits of stems on the dead stems. I did get some Red Root floaters, and those are growing like crazy, but everything below water is doing the opposite. I understand that some melt and death will occur from shock of transplanting, but this is beyond that.

Here is the day I planted the new plants.

osvgxf.jpg


Here is a look at the tank from a few days ago. If you zoom in, you can really see the amount of dead stems.

zl9fso.jpg



Despite this bunch of plants failing over the last couple weeks, I haven’t been able to get anything to grow super healthy in months. Does anybody have clues as to what my problem could be? Any help would be much much appreciated!!
 
I just tested the water to see if there is anything unusual. Here are the readings:
Ammonia-0ppm
Nitrite-0ppm
Nitrate-20ppm
pH- 6.4

So everything here is normal except my pH. My pH is usually 7.6. Could a low pH be causing these problems? The tap water still tests at 7.6. I know CO2 can affect pH, but would it swing it this much? This was tested after CO2 has been on for about 4 hours.
 
You want at least a 1.0 drop in pH from CO2.

What is your kH and gH measurment? Ca and Mg deficiencies are quite common.

I would say the transition was enough to effect them, and another underlying cause is not letting them bounce back.

I would run CO2 up to 1 hour before the lights come on.
 
You want at least a 1.0 drop in pH from CO2.

What is your kH and gH measurment? Ca and Mg deficiencies are quite common.

I would say the transition was enough to effect them, and another underlying cause is not letting them bounce back.

I would run CO2 up to 1 hour before the lights come on.


I just put my drop checker back in (my old one broke and I never got around to putting to the new one in) and the color is yellow. Wouldn’t yellow indicate to high of CO2 levels? Would decreasing the CO2 flow until I get a pH of 6.6 be more stable and safe for the tank?

I don’t have a way to measure kH and gH.

So having the CO2 go on and off 2 hours ahead of the light schedule is too long?
 
I just put my drop checker back in (my old one broke and I never got around to putting to the new one in) and the color is yellow. Wouldn’t yellow indicate to high of CO2 levels? Would decreasing the CO2 flow until I get a pH of 6.6 be more stable and safe for the tank?

I don’t have a way to measure kH and gH.

So having the CO2 go on and off 2 hours ahead of the light schedule is too long?

I'm not saying the 2 hours is the issue, but I would guess the last hour or so of the photoperiod is not at sufficient levels. That's the boogyman of high tech planted tanks, small errors can and will cause large issues.

My tank's drop checker will go yellow at about a 0.8 drop in pH, so no, a yellow drop checker does not mean you are at sufficient CO2 levels. Many planted tankers are in the 1.35 peak Ph drop from CO2, that would be a very very yellow drop checker ;)

Why would you decreed the CO2 and only get a pH of 6.6? I drop my tank from 7.2 to 6.2. When running high CO2 its a good idea to run an airstone at night to replenish O2 levels, and to have a good amount of surface agitation at all times to ensure proper gas gas exchange.

What source of water are you using? I would boost gH by 2 degrees regardless to ensure you are supplying enough Ca and Mg...

How much Thrive are you dosing?
 
I'm not saying the 2 hours is the issue, but I would guess the last hour or so of the photoperiod is not at sufficient levels. That's the boogyman of high tech planted tanks, small errors can and will cause large issues.

My tank's drop checker will go yellow at about a 0.8 drop in pH, so no, a yellow drop checker does not mean you are at sufficient CO2 levels. Many planted tankers are in the 1.35 peak Ph drop from CO2, that would be a very very yellow drop checker ;)

Why would you decreed the CO2 and only get a pH of 6.6? I drop my tank from 7.2 to 6.2. When running high CO2 its a good idea to run an airstone at night to replenish O2 levels, and to have a good amount of surface agitation at all times to ensure proper gas gas exchange.

What source of water are you using? I would boost gH by 2 degrees regardless to ensure you are supplying enough Ca and Mg...

How much Thrive are you dosing?



Ok, I’ll have the CO2 run a bit later and see if that helps.

You said that the pH should drop 1.0 and my pH is normal at 7.6, so dropping to 6.6 would be 1.0. My tank, when CO2 is running, is going down to 6.4 currently.

I’m just using tap water if that’s what you’re asking. How do you boost gH?

I dose around 1/2 pump about 3x a week.
 
Looks like you are supplying sufficient amount of ferts weekly (see photo).

Yes, the 1.2 drop in pH should be enough, how are you measuring the pH? Drop tests can be off slightly or a lot.

If you leave the CO2 on longer make sure to monitor fish for gasping.

Lighting is plenty.

How did you go about restarting the tank? Too much H2O2 / Excel / Metricide for killing algae can and will cause plant melt.

Other than that, the transition pains will take up to a few weeks to correct themselves.
 
Looks like you are supplying sufficient amount of ferts weekly (see photo).

Yes, the 1.2 drop in pH should be enough, how are you measuring the pH? Drop tests can be off slightly or a lot.

If you leave the CO2 on longer make sure to monitor fish for gasping.

Lighting is plenty.

How did you go about restarting the tank? Too much H2O2 / Excel / Metricide for killing algae can and will cause plant melt.

Other than that, the transition pains will take up to a few weeks to correct themselves.



I’m using a drop test for the pH.

I emptied the tank of everything except the sand, rinsed the tank and sand out, bleached and scrubbed the rocks (then rinsed and left is heavily primed water), and then added everything back. I left the filter media in old tank water and it in after everything else was done. I didn’t use any of the products you listed.
 
Ample lighting, CO2, and ferts. I’m wondering if the new plants were subject to excessive heat while in transit and damage did not appear until well after planting.
 
Ample lighting, CO2, and ferts. I’m wondering if the new plants were subject to excessive heat while in transit and damage did not appear until well after planting.



It’s possible, but that wouldn’t explain why nothing has been thriving in the tank for months. It’s just frustrating, because it seems like everything is right, but nothing is growing well!
 
It is frustrating. I remember at one time you were selling your surplus of low light plants. The plants I sold you in the past seemed to to well. I see that you had issues with DBT last year. IMO that plant is too much work.
I cant figure out what is going on either.
 
It is frustrating. I remember at one time you were selling your surplus of low light plants. The plants I sold you in the past seemed to to well. I see that you had issues with DBT last year. IMO that plant is too much work.
I cant figure out what is going on either.



I had great success with low light plants without CO2 or ferts, which makes this even more annoying! Your plants did great and lots of them thrived when I first set up the system; I wish that was still the case!! The DBT was just a pain, which is why I went back to Monte Carlo, which had done great for me in the past.. :/
 
This is an odd case.

1) I think 2 weeks is not enough time to tell for sure if the plants aren't still going through transition pains.

2) Stunted plants are very annoying, use this as an excuse to pick up some fresh plants and see how they do.

3) Ca and Mg are important secondary nutrients, I would look into a gH test kit. May as well go for a kH as well to determine the hardness of the water. Certain plants do better at different hardness levels.

4) Remove dead plants and organics, you might have some algae shortly if the plants aren't cooperating.
 
This is an odd case.

1) I think 2 weeks is not enough time to tell for sure if the plants aren't still going through transition pains.

2) Stunted plants are very annoying, use this as an excuse to pick up some fresh plants and see how they do.

3) Ca and Mg are important secondary nutrients, I would look into a gH test kit. May as well go for a kH as well to determine the hardness of the water. Certain plants do better at different hardness levels.

4) Remove dead plants and organics, you might have some algae shortly if the plants aren't cooperating.





1) I agree that 2 weeks maybe isn’t enough, but to have everything die so much is strange. And aside from these plants, nothing has been doing super well in months.

2) I like he way you think!!

3) I’ll look in to purchasing a test kit.

4) After I took the picture posted in this thread, I pulled all the dead stuff out that didn’t have any piece of live leaves still attached.
 
I don’t think co2 is the issue here. In know and regularly converse with many aquascapers that use very little co2 with no issue at all and have perfectly healthy plants that would be considered difficult to keep by most.

One thing I do agree with is to increase oxygen levels. Try running the air stone all day and use a pump to circulate the oxygenated water. This should keep the microbes at their efficient best. The Biological oxygen demand on a planted aquarium or any aquarium for that matter is greater than we tend to realise. Poor o2 will lead to poor tank health and poor plant growth. Just inject some co2 but don’t worry about it too much. As plants grow they will help keep o2 levels higher as well. Water changes can replenish oxygen levels but I’d be wary about tap water and sudden TDS shifts.

Keep Dissolved oxygen levels high. It’s the most important parameter in your tank.
 
Well, given another two weeks, the tank still looks awful... the octopus plant still looks fine and the pearl weed grew a couple stems, but everything else looks worse. And on top of the plants doing poorly, my nasty algae is back :( This tank is driving me crazy, so it’s going bye bye.

I just ordered plants to reset up an old 10 gallon. The new plants are pretty low tech and should hopefully do well for me! I may just run CO2 really low or not at all. I really hope this new tank going back to low tech will do the trick!
 
What changes did you make and what did you keep the same in those two weeks?



I decreased CO2 just a tiny bit and then left everything else the same. I would imagine after a month of being planted, that the plants would be starting to grow, but that wasn’t the case.
 
I decreased CO2 just a tiny bit and then left everything else the same. I would imagine after a month of being planted, that the plants would be starting to grow, but that wasn’t the case.


Can you try running the air stone all day everyday as an experiment. If you’re going to tear the tank down anyway it’s worth a shot. You could also turn the filter off and remove the sponge. Stop dosing etc. You can still do water changes but smaller ones. Give it a week and see if you notice Anything different.
 
Can you try running the air stone all day everyday as an experiment. If you’re going to tear the tank down anyway it’s worth a shot. You could also turn the filter off and remove the sponge. Stop dosing etc. You can still do water changes but smaller ones. Give it a week and see if you notice Anything different.



Alrighty. I put one in, and I’ll let it do it’s thing until the new plants come! Why would I turn off the filter?
 
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