Doing everything but plants STILL won't grow!

[Tetra22]

Nobody can seem to tell me what's going on. I have a standard 55g tank with 160w of 6500k, T12 shop lights. I have I DIY co2 system at about 1bps, being completely dissolved. I'm adding the recomended amounts of dry kno3, kh2po4, a little extra iron and potassium with leaf zone, and flourish comprehensive 3 times a week with a 40% wc each week. I have some anubias, melon sword, anacharis, and some other plant I don't remember that are all rather small and pathetic. Tanks been running for about 2 years, these live plants about 1.5 years. I had the plain old standard lighting first with no added nutrition and my plants took of like crazy. Then they just stopped growing. So slowly I've added all the different necessities and they still won't grow. I do only have regular natural color gravel but that shouldn't make this big of a difference. I just bought some nice new lush anacharis bunches in hopes that maybe a brand new plant would grow. And I just bought one different bulb, a 40w aquarium T12 that has a CRI of 92. My other 6500k bulbs didn't say aquarium on them and they only had a CRI of like 75. But they had like 3000 lumens in, what I believe, the right spectrum. As far as I can find, I'm doing everything they say to.
Please, I'll give you a penny for your thoughts! But you have to first put your 2 cents in.
Nitrates are at 15-30ppm
Ph is about 7.6
No ammonia or nitrite
I only have strip tests for kh and gh levels which don't give squat of an accurate reading.

 

[DragonFish71]

While I'm far from being an expert, I do have planted tanks.

One thing I can say with swords of any kind (other than micro) is that they are root feeders. I didn't see any mention of root tabs. I use tabs once a month along with liquid ferts, CO2 and my swords go insane. I've had to move my amazons to larger tanks. My compactas & melons have tons of new growth, the melons have awesome reds.

How do you keep your anubias? Is the rhizome completely buried? If so, unbury it some. It grows best when attached to wood or rock, but if you lightly bury the roots, letting most of the rhizome show through, that will help too.

 

[fort384]

I am curious still about your lighting setup. You said you are using shop light T-12s. How do you have them set up? Do they have decent reflectors on them? At 160W, that looks like 3 WPG, which should be good. But it is difficult to get most of that light down into the tank with T-12s. I used T-12s for a short time and switched to some T5HO lights and the difference was dramatic. I am not saying you have to go out and buy T5HO lighting... but I wonder if you are getting enough of your T-12 light into the tank to really call it 3WPG?

I also agree about your substrate/possible need for some root tabs. You have some heavy root feeding plants in your tank. Even if you are using aquasoil or something along those lines, root tabs would be beneficial, especially since the tank has been setup for 2 years. If you are using standard substrate, than I would say root tabs are definitely in order. Anyways, that's my 2 cents. Would look at lighting and substrate fertilizer.

Good luck! You will figure it out... it is amazing how fast a planted tank will take off when you get the balance right and figure out what the 1 limiting factor is.

 

[zach_1_6]

i have the same problem, i am buying some T5 HO lights in hope that will make a difference.

 

[Tetra22]

My one little anubias plant's rhizome is above the gravel with the roots digging into the gravel. That makes sense on the melons. Should I uproot them a little and maybe trim the roots until I get tabs? Last I tried to reposition one of those melons, the roots weaved all over the tank under the gravel. Perhaps if I lift the roots out of the gravel a little, they can get to the nutrients in the open water? Is that a big nono or what?
About the lighting, I have 2, two bulb fixtures mounted on the inside of a homemade wood hood. So as far as I know, most all of that light is getting into the tank. The bottom of the bulbs are about 2-3" off the surface of the water.

 

[fort384]

If the bulbs are mounted directly in the wood hood with no reflectors, only about 20-25% of the light output is probably actually making it into the tank.

It won't hurt for the roots to be a bit exposed, but I don't think you are going to see the same benefits if the roots are trying to pull nutrients from the water column instead of the substrate. Root tabs pretty cheap. I think they would be worth a try.

 

[Tetra22]

It's the whole shoplight fixture that's mounted there. Including the glossy white reflector that came with it. I know shoplights aren't the best aquarium lights...but it's the best I could do on my budget. And I am planning on getting root tabs. The nearest store that carries them is about 50 miles down a curvy road, though, so I don't get down there very often.

 

[fort384]

Understood. There are some decent sources online for root tabs.
Amazon.com: API Root Tabs Aquarium Plant Fertilizer: Sports & Outdoors: Reviews, Prices & more

I think a lot of folks have had a lot of success with shop lights. I wonder if you couldn't cheaply modify the reflectors some how to get even more light into the tank. If it is all hidden under a wood hood, it wouldn't have to look pretty. Maybe even some shiny smooth aluminum foil or mylar taped or glued in above the bulbs? Someone with some experience building fixtures might be able to chime in and offer some tips.

 

[BillD]

I don't think lighting is the problem here. I have grown lots of plants with a lot less light than that. The fact that the nitrate is as high as 30 indicates the plants aren't growing or there aren't enough of them. The new light is a 5000K compared with the 6500K. I have had better luck with 5000K than 6500K. I have one 48"tank with a single 32W T8 with no fixture (also no reflector) over it that grows lots of Vals, dwarf sag, and L. sessiflora. I took about 100 Vals out of it last week. The bottom inch of gravel does have some soil mixed in it, but other than that it is totally low tech.

 

[DragonFish71]

Another thing might be the issue is anacharis itself. From what I understand anacharis is like a sponge. It soaks up most/all the nutrients causing a deficiency in other plants. Mind you, this is what I've read from others, not from my own experience. I've read that most folks use it for just that reason, to "soak up" the nutrients to combat algae growth. Most fast growing stem plants are used for this as well, but aren't as sponge like. I've read it likes high light but not CO2 (again, based on what I've read) and it doesn't do well with things like Seachem Excel. I could very well be wrong in this, I could have misread or gotten it mixed up in my brain (I have moments ya' know )


As for the swords, when I plant them, I trim a little of the root and put them in the gravel/substrate just to where the leaves are coming off of the root ball. Then give them them a really light pull so that there's just a bit of the white showing. I think that part is called a corm (?), where the leaves meet root. Guess one of these days I should google up on things.

"I don't think lighting is the problem here. I have grown lots of plants with a lot less light than that. The fact that the nitrate is as high as 30 indicates the plants aren't growing or there aren't enough of them. The new light is a 5000K compared with the 6500K. I have had better luck with 5000K than 6500K. I have one 48"tank with a single 32W T8 with no fixture (also no reflector) over it that grows lots of Vals, dwarf sag, and L. sessiflora. I took about 100 Vals out of it last week. The bottom inch of gravel does have some soil mixed in it, but other than that it is totally low tech."

Vals and dwarf sag are considered medium light plants. So from what you describe as your lighting set up, they would do fine. I don't know about the L. sessiflora, never heard of that one.

medium light plants: PlantGeek.net - Plant Guide

 

[fort384]

I tend to agree with you Bill that lighting isn't the main concern. However, I don't think that a difference in color temperature of 5000K v 6500K would make that drastic of a difference either. I grow plants like crazy under a 10000K bulb, and have grown plants like crazy under 6500K lighting.

So if it isn't lighting, and it obviously isn't N limited... some other nutrient is the limiting factor? So back to substrate/root tabs?

Here is an off the wall question Tetra... what temperature is your tank at?

The plants you are growing are not all that demanding... so this is puzzling.

 

[fort384]

Another thing might be the issue is anacharis itself. From what I understand anacharis is like a sponge. It soaks up most/all the nutrients causing a deficiency in other plants.
http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide_list.php?category=1&filter=&filter_by=4&page=1

Agreed, Anacharis is like a sponge. If conditions are even close to optimal, it will grow like crazy. However, the fact that N is staying as high as it is tells me that that anacharis is not growing up to its potential.

 

[Tetra22]

I know it doesn't make sense. So I'll try root tabs then. My water temp. is 78. It's just a basic community.

 

[Faile]

I would recommend check the swords to see if they've developed a corm. If so remove it, as they tend to go dormant and stop growing once the corm develops. By removing the corm they'll start growing for you again.

You mentioned that you had replaced one bulb. How old are the others? Bulbs should be replaced after about 8-12 months as the spectrum shifts and is less usable by the plants even though they still light up.

I know that you only have test strips for KH, but even that would be helpful to get a ball park idea of what your CO2 level is.

How much Phosphate are you dosing? If it's not enough the plants won't be able to make use of the rest of the nutrients, which would explain why you are seeing higher Nitrate levels and poor plant growth.

How much Potassium are you dosing? Insufficient levels could cause the same problems as being Phosphate limited.

 

[Tetra22]

How do I tell the difference between a corm and a bulb? I'm starting to think that quite a few of my plants are actually aponogeton. They grew from some of those dry bulbs in packs they sell at places like PetsMart. But I should still have some swords in there.
My lights are fairly new at about 4-6 months old. Can't remember for certain.
I just tested my water and these are the results:
I have ph tests in strip-7.2, regular liquid-7.5, and high range liquid-7.7. So I'd call it around 7.5?
Liquid phosphate test read about 8-9ppm.
Nitrate strip test read 0ppm and liquid read 40ppm.
Nitrite-0ppm
Ammonia-0ppm
Gh strip-75-100ppm
Kh strip-180ppm

So that's everything I can test for. How much PO4 should I have?
I just did a 40% pwc, pulled up all the plants, trimmed the roots slightly, trimmed old leaves, gravel vacuum, and replanted so the plants are just barely anchored. So far so good.

 

[fort384]

Something is wrong with the PO4 reading. You should have under 1 ppm PO4. Tests generally don't read above 3-4 ppm. Either way, I really doubt that P is your limiting factor. You need to perform a few more water changes and get that P down below 1 ppm. I wouldn't dose P any more until plants exhibit P deficiency. If it remains high, it is dangerous for your fish, and you will end up with a really bad algae outbreak.

I think more than likely, you are missing a trace element or a few trace elements that are normally present in aquatic soil. I don't think the problem is a macro nutrient. We know N is good, and we know P is very high. Plants will grow even with a K deficiency.

Also, whatever you are doing to dose CO2 isn't working. It looks as if your tank is just about at equilibrium with the air, maybe a tad higher. You want your CO2 to be above 20ppm, more like 30ppm. However, this also wouldn't cause your plants to not grow at all. Just something else to look at.

 

[fort384]

Here is another idea... can you post a picture of your tank, maybe some close ups of the plants? Let's identify what you actually have in the tank and make sure you are growing true aquatics. The big chains sell a lot of plants that are marked aquatic that are definitely not. So let's figure it out. If you are sure you have anubias... it grows extremely slow anyway, so that coupled with some non aquatics could be the solution to the mystery?

 

[Tetra22]

Ohhh...ok. I just got that PO4 test kit yesterday so that's the first time I've tested it. So should I add more flourish? That's what I use for my trace. And I'm going to be moving in a little over a month so I'm gonna need to mostly tear down that tank anyway. Do you think I should take advantage of that time and switch to some different substrate?
What is the benefit of planted tank substrate? It adds ferts and whatnot right? Well you can accomplish that with root tabs right? Plant substrate is also a smaller grain size and slightly more porous, right? So what if I used regular sand from around my house and added root tabs? I've already put the sand in question in a few of my other nonplanted tanks, and it seems to do fine.