What is going wrong?

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Lifeoffroad

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Apr 23, 2011
Messages
526
Okay, i have been trying to grow plants now for a couple months. Here are my issues and setup. Please help!!

Setup:
55g with gravel
1-6700 daylight bulb
1-10000 daylight bulb
Api first layer mixed into gravel
Seachem root tabs in
Sechem florish excel
Sechem florish comp

So now the issues.

First i cant get rid of the black beard algae but it is going away i think.
The plants grow new leaves but when they do they get little holes
Some of the leaves begin to turn brown on the tips then slowly die off, but, new ones do grow.

I dont get it. Whats going on?
 
What kind of lighting do you have? The color temperature is in the right range, but more important are the bulb types, and wattages.

Use the excel as a spot treatment to help kill off the bba. Put it in a medicine dropper and spray it directly on the infected leaves. After a couple of treatments, it will die off.

How often are you dosing excel?

The symptoms you describe sounds like a nitrogen deficiency (at least the older leaves browning and slowly dying off). The pin holes sound like a potassium deficiency.

What is your nitrate testing at?

How much comprehensive are you dosing? Comprehensive should take care of a potassium deficiency if dosed in the correct amount, but will do little to correct a nitrogen deficiency.

Have you considered CO2 injection? It would help with BBA and will help overall plant growth once you have these other nutrient deficiencies worked out.
 
Also what kind of plants are you keeping and which ones are showing which deficiency?
 
What kind of lighting do you have? The color temperature is in the right range, but more important are the bulb types, and wattages.

Use the excel as a spot treatment to help kill off the bba. Put it in a medicine dropper and spray it directly on the infected leaves. After a couple of treatments, it will die off.

How often are you dosing excel?

The symptoms you describe sounds like a nitrogen deficiency (at least the older leaves browning and slowly dying off). The pin holes sound like a potassium deficiency.

What is your nitrate testing at?

How much comprehensive are you dosing? Comprehensive should take care of a potassium deficiency if dosed in the correct amount, but will do little to correct a nitrogen deficiency.

Have you considered CO2 injection? It would help with BBA and will help overall plant growth once you have these other nutrient deficiencies worked out.

Its a coralife ballastic
The 10000 is a 120v f28-t5-bp not sure about wattage. I think its for a marine tank
The 6700 is a t5 28 watt.
I also run a 18" 15 watt t8 8000k for redish tint

I dose the excell once a day. I know some of the plant are worse than others cause they were bought prior to al the fertilizers. Im dosing the comprehensive twice a week.

I believe my nitrates are at 40. however i have tap water that is very high in Nitrates so i have been trying to combat this with stress zyme, prime and a ton of bio filtration. Weekly water changes of about 30% each time and nitrates are still there.

Like i said there is new growth but its not producing at s rapid enough rate.

Lights run about 8 hours a day.

I am attaching pics of my plants cause i dont recall all the names.
 

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What kind of lighting do you have? The color temperature is in the right range, but more important are the bulb types, and wattages.

Use the excel as a spot treatment to help kill off the bba. Put it in a medicine dropper and spray it directly on the infected leaves. After a couple of treatments, it will die off.

How often are you dosing excel?

The symptoms you describe sounds like a nitrogen deficiency (at least the older leaves browning and slowly dying off). The pin holes sound like a potassium deficiency.

What is your nitrate testing at?

How much comprehensive are you dosing? Comprehensive should take care of a potassium deficiency if dosed in the correct amount, but will do little to correct a nitrogen deficiency.

Have you considered CO2 injection? It would help with BBA and will help overall plant growth once you have these other nutrient deficiencies worked out.

Yes i thought of co2 but i cant find anything economical.
 
Any updates? I'm actually growing new leaves but I'm worried they are going to brown and die. It looks like the newer plants are doing much better though.
 

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A new sprout
 

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greetings.

is it a medium or heavy planted tank? if so you could need to dose a bit more fertilizer.

the only other thing i can think of is maybe the nitrate preventive additives harm the plants, but i don't have any personal experience with this.
 
One thing not mentioned but it will also help if you get some root tabs, seachem makes them but I use ones by aquariumplants.com. Swords are very heavy root feeders and really need to have ferts where their roots can utilize them. Crypts also benefit from them. I use root tabs around most of my plants. Also how much Excel are you using daily? In high light or high growth tanks or even if a tank has alot of plants they need a higher dose of Excel daily. How much are you adding per day?
 
One thing not mentioned but it will also help if you get some root tabs, seachem makes them but I use ones by aquariumplants.com. Swords are very heavy root feeders and really need to have ferts where their roots can utilize them. Crypts also benefit from them. I use root tabs around most of my plants. Also how much Excel are you using daily? In high light or high growth tanks or even if a tank has alot of plants they need a higher dose of Excel daily. How much are you adding per day?

I am using the sea hem root tabs. I would say it is lightly planted. Its a 55 gallon with about 6 plants. I use one cap of excel daily and one cap of the comp twice a week.
 
How many ml is a cap? Been a long time since I've used Excel. With a 55g IMO you should be using 1mg per gallon and I'd round it up to a 60g dose. But from the rest of the thread it sounds like you need to get some flourish potassium. Then it would really be a good idea to test your nitrates and phosphates. Nitrates should be 10-20ppm and Phosphates around 1ppm. If you know what your readings are you get a better idea what your plants may need.
 
How many ml is a cap? Been a long time since I've used Excel. With a 55g IMO you should be using 1mg per gallon and I'd round it up to a 60g dose. But from the rest of the thread it sounds like you need to get some flourish potassium. Then it would really be a good idea to test your nitrates and phosphates. Nitrates should be 10-20ppm and Phosphates around 1ppm. If you know what your readings are you get a better idea what your plants may need.

I already know I have an issue with nitrates. Its really hard to get my nitrates down as my water runs at like 20. Why the phosphates? If those are high does it harm the plants or the fish or both? Never really paid attention to phosphates. I can't recall the ml in excel either but I will take your advice. I think I'll grab a bottle of the potassium as well.
 
The idea with phosphate is to not have to little as some plants can use it up quickly. Testing just lets you know if you need to add it. My tap water has nearly 2ppm PO4 so I don't need to dose it. Other people have little to none in their water so not adding it can be a limiting factor to plant growth.
 
The idea with phosphate is to not have to little as some plants can use it up quickly. Testing just lets you know if you need to add it. My tap water has nearly 2ppm PO4 so I don't need to dose it. Other people have little to none in their water so not adding it can be a limiting factor to plant growth.

I have no phosphates in my water and I run a low nitrate high phosphate tank so I have to do alot of phosphates daily and a small amount of nitrates. That is where having the test kit comes in handy, so you know what your tanks levels are so you know if you do or don't need dosing of that macro nutrient.
 
I agree - I have lived in places with PO4 present in the water, and in places like now, where I have to add KH2PO4 to my tank daily to keep my P from bottoming out. A test kit is invaluable when trying to properly balance a planted tank - especially if you are new and unsure of exactly what nutrient deficiencies/excesses you might be experiencing.
 
Exactly right. I never would've known to not mix it into my macro solution if I hadn't tested for it. Even now that I know my tsp water is rich in phosphate I still test for it if I have to go longer than a week without a water change just to see if it's gotten low. I think people may be able to not test for that one thing if they can have a shop test their source water at least. Going totally blind into dosing is not recommended. Personally, I've just made my peace with testing. It's oddly satisfying to really have control and customize dosing. I do understand that not everybody's a true geek about it. lol
 
Exactly right. I never would've known to not mix it into my macro solution if I hadn't tested for it. Even now that I know my tsp water is rich in phosphate I still test for it if I have to go longer than a week without a water change just to see if it's gotten low. I think people may be able to not test for that one thing if they can have a shop test their source water at least. Going totally blind into dosing is not recommended. Personally, I've just made my peace with testing. It's oddly satisfying to really have control and customize dosing. I do understand that not everybody's a true geek about it. lol

Great I will get a test kit for the phosphates. I have the liquid test kit for everything else and monitor that regularly since as I mentioned I run high on my nitrates. I constantly have to suck out the poo just so it doesn't raise things. That's another reason I started doing live plants so it can suck IP some of that. I have to say it has been effective. Level remain much more stable. Anyway, thanks again. I think the results from this is get some sea hem potassium, phosphate test kit and oh yeah I did up the excel. The cap is 5ml so I do 2 a day now. Seems to be helping.

Thanks again everyone. Can't wait to have lush greens in the tank! Its crazy I'm almost more into the plant keeping now than fish. Hahaha.
 
A couple of those pictures actually really look like phosphate deficiency. The large circles of tissue death with yellow margins is pretty classic P deficiency.
 
A couple of those pictures actually really look like phosphate deficiency. The large circles of tissue death with yellow margins is pretty classic P deficiency.

Really?? You think the black beard algae is fighting for nutrients and winning?
 
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