Stable, healthy plants, now dying!!

[Welsh]

I cleaned my 17litre last...Saturday. I cleaned the filter -- with old tank water, took all the plants out and then stirred up all the gravel before adding more water. I woke Sunday to find all my plants dying My Staugoryne repens was brown and decayed, my Christmas moss is browning and so is the java moss, which were both a lush green, the crytpocoryne wendtii green is melting slightly, my java fern windelov is blackening and my pygmy chain sword is yellowing.

I add flourish comprehensive regularly, along with excel and have never had a problem like this before. The only thing I can think of which caused this problem is that I stirred up the gravel, which I haven't done for a long, long time. I can only imagine gases, of some sort had built up and when released have attacked my plants.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[Atxpunx]

Yeah I would think the taking out of your plants was the problem. I know crypts don't like being moved once set as I would imagine most plants don't once they are well rooted. The stirring of the gravel seems a bit much for cleaning and you might have disturbed the balance of the tank when you did that. I'll take care of that starogene repens for ya

 

[aqua_chem]

That sounds really peculiar. Quesitons questions questions...

Is anything living in that tank?

Any chance you forgot water conditioner?

Overdosed Excel?

Have you tested your water yet?

Have you changed your water since then? That might be the first thing you want to do.

 

[Welsh]

There's not much living in there at the moment, just a 1' bristlenose pleco.

Nope, definitely dosed water conditioner.

I was thinking that it could be the excel and I was warned about it on here before buying it, that it may do more harm to the plants than good, especially to the moss and java fern.

The water params are fine, Ammonia - 0ppm. Nitrite - 0ppm. Nitrates - 10ppm

Yup, I changed it.... sometime in the week I think and topped it off last night.

I never have any luck with this tank lol.

 

[aqua_chem]

Is this the first time you used excel? I've always had great luck with it. The staurogyne probably woouldn't have been affected at anything but a significant dose.

 

[Welsh]

I've been using it for about a month, and everything was growing like wild-fire. I then did my water change and it all went to the dogs after that lol. I'm not a happy bunny at the moment. I use the excel in my 12gallon too, and haven't experienced any problems. In fact, my cryptocoryne tropica, has completely turned brown this week, which has been green since I bought it last year. I have basically the same plants in this tank, as I do in my 17litre, yet everything is doing fine.

After reading on the net, the only thing I can think of is, apparently when you pull up, or dig around your tank after using excel you must do a 50-70% water change, maybe I didn't do a big enough one :/

 

[aqua_chem]

I've never heard of anything like that before. Issues with substrate only usually come up with deep beds, usually 3"+.

 

[Welsh]

Mine's definitely not that much.

Should I just cut out the co2 for now and keep dosing regularly with flourish comprehensive?

Also, I'm going to get RCS for this tank, will the copper in the flourish be too much for them?