Very little plant growth, can't figure out why :(

[Shadey]

Fluval Spec V 5 gallon

Light- 16" Finnex FugeRay Planted+ LED (PAR data?)
Substrate- UP AQUA Sand for Aquatic Plants
Ferts- Flourish Excel, Trace, NPK, root tabs
Stock- 1 betta, 4 amano shrimp, 2 nerites
temp: 78
flow: med setting on pump
Photo-period- 3 hrs 2x a day
Dosing: about the recommended (2x a week) for trace elements and NPK . For CO2 dosing at start of each photo period (so about half a cap, 2x a day)
water change: 70-80% 1x a week

Algae is under control. Betta fish is happy. I'm actually starting to worry that I'm overdosing with the Excel, because I hadn't realized that it could be harmful to my shrimp, but my main issue is that I can't figure out why Im getting basically getting no growth.

some plants i have/had:
-asst. crypts
-pale green "crypt parva" from petsmart that probably isnt
- Hygro sp. thai
-Ludwigia atlantis
-Limnophila aromatica
- rotala assorted (colorata, singapore, rotundifolia mix)
-Rotala enie (died)
-star repens (died)

attached are pictures from two months ago and then some from today.

About two years ago when I got the tank, I honestly had better growth / greener plants (albeit just crypts/anubias then) with just the stock light and pool filter sand, with no fertilizers at all. I understand that working at medium/high light is a different beast, but I can't seem to figure this out.

ty for replies.

 

[Caliban07]

Seems like a lot of light on a 5 gallon tank. If I have the right tank, that would be around 100 PAR based on the finnex chart you provided in the link.

High light is fine but light is the driving force behind photosynthesis and plants do not have a say in the matter, if photons are striking their leaves they will photosynthesise. The higher the light the faster the rate of photosynthesis and the faster the rate of growth. This is often the goal in high light tanks but in order for the plants to sustain their rapid growth and support their existing tissue mass they require non limiting nutrition. There is a line (I don't know how thick) between non limiting nutrition and toxicity. Now I'm not saying that your plants are suffering from metal toxicity but you do seem to have a whole load of ferts in this tank. So just be mindful that heavy metal toxicity in plants is a thing and also resembles certain symptoms of deficiency.

What I suspect is your problem is that you do not supply the plants with enough carbon. When plants do not have an adequate and stable source of carbon during the photo-period they begin a process called photo respiration. Photo respiration is a very energy inefficient and wasteful process that results in either a dead plant or a plant that shows little or no growth. This can also be observed when the plant does not receive enough light and so cannot fix enough carbon to sustain its mass. This is why some plants (particularly stem plants) will drop their lower leaves and focus all energy on new growth so that they can get closer to the higher portions of the tank where there is more light and more carbon.

In your case you have plenty of light and so I suspect you have two options.

1) Reduce the light so that the rate of photosynthesis is slowed which will in turn reduce the carbon requirement.

2) Add more carbon.

Excel is a great carbon source for low to medium light tanks and also has the added advantage of destroying algae (which is why I believe your tank is under control with respect to algae) but it is not as effective as injecting a steady source of carbon for the full photoperiod.

In summary. If it was my tank I would reduce the level of light and scrap the spilt photoperiod in favour of an 8 hour one and continue with excel. Some people dose more than the recommended levels of excel with no issues but be cautious. I would also back off in ferts until you see some mineral deficiencies then proceed dosing with the remedial nutrients.

Some of the plants listed may also be slightly more demanding than the usual 'beginner' plants such as Crypts and Anubias so something else to bare in mind.

Good luck.


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[Shadey]

wow, what a really great response. Thank you so much!

for now would a good thing to do be to spread my excel dose out at as much as possible during the lighting period? like a couple drops every few hours?

this is actually not my first planted tank... I kept three low/med light tanks about 5 years ago, but I had to sell them all when I moved to the US. I did pretty okay with all of them, which is why this is extra frustrating haha. ; ;

I thought that with such a small tank I would still be okay with just Excel, since Ive seen a lot of really beautiful similar setups, but I guess the light I picked is just too much? I've been reading up on pressurized CO2 systems, and I'm thinking about getting a kit. It's a little scary though.

 

[Caliban07]

wow, what a really great response. Thank you so much!



for now would a good thing to do be to spread my excel dose out at as much as possible during the lighting period? like a couple drops every few hours?



this is actually not my first planted tank... I kept three low/med light tanks about 5 years ago, but I had to sell them all when I moved to the US. I did pretty okay with all of them, which is why this is extra frustrating haha. ; ;



I thought that with such a small tank I would still be okay with just Excel, since Ive seen a lot of really beautiful similar setups, but I guess the light I picked is just too much? I've been reading up on pressurized CO2 systems, and I'm thinking about getting a kit. It's a little scary though.

No worries

This is often the problem. In most cases the lights that come with the tanks are usually adequate for growing less demanding, naturally slow growing plants. These plants will respond to higher lighting levels of course but it's usually the general consensus that one should ditch the kit light in favour of a new high intensity light that causes problems. That's because people become too focused on light whilst not providing enough of the one essential element plants need in large quantities. Without carbon plants cannot complete the Calvin cycle whereby carbon is used to produced an enzyme called Rubisco which then goes on to fund the production of ATP and NADPH which are both important in the life cycle of any cell.

Rubisco is one of if not the most important and abundant enzyme on the planet yet it is very slow and inefficient. It only uses a few carbon molecules per second and is energy expensive to produce. What's worse is that rubisco cannot distinguish Between a carbon molecule and an oxygen molecule at the reaction sites. When rubisco binds with oxygen it creates a product that cannot be used in the Calvin cycle and wastes energy and so it cannot create the necessary sugars required for growth (photo respiration)

At the beginning of the photoperiod inhibitors also block the activation sites and so the plant takes time to unblock these inhibitors before it is able to successfully bind carbon molecules. This is why siestas are said to be a bad idea, because the plant is forced to unblock these inhibitors each time the lights come on and algae respond much quicker.

The other sucky thing about carbon is that it isn't very soluble in water and actually diffuses around 10000 times slower in water than in air. Some plants in the hobby are grown emersed and so have access to atmospheric carbon. When placed underwater the plant will actually adapt new growth so that the leaves are thinner (to allow better diffusion of molecules) with rubisco levels that reflect the co2 level, lots of co2 (no need to spend as much energy making rubisco) or low co2 (must use energy to create rubisco to maximise co2 uptake). It takes time for the plant to adapt and sometimes they completely melt and Bounce back but sometimes they just melt and die. It really depends on the species carbon requirement and the availability. Much easier to go from low co2 to high co2 than the other way round.

So as you can see carbon is the major limiting factor in aquatic plants and is the reason plants have adapted so many ingenious strategies to maximise uptake. CAM plants like cactus are an example and hard water plants that can use bicarbonates another. This is why people who inject are advised to inject 1-2 sometimes even 3 hours before the lights come on so that the plant has full saturation levels from the get go.

It's not plane sailing running a planted tank I can assure you so don't be disheartened. You just struck the right balance the first time.

I would reduce light if possible first. When you go to a full 8 hour photoperiod although a good thing this may exacerbate low carbon conditions and make things worse with your current lighting intensity.

Also note that products like excel can damage some plants. I don't know enough about excel or how much you are dosing but my guess is that however it works in providing carbon is being used up fairly rapidly.


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[Fresh2o]

One way to address the lighting situation is to add floating surface plants. Red root floaters, regular or dwarf water lettuce, and frogbit are good choices. Don t do duckweed.
In a tank that size you may want to considering using DIY CO2 (yeast or citric acid based). Both are relatively inexpensive to setup and maintain.


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[Shadey]

woo! thanks again! So, earlier excel, longer light period, less light... I can do it!

I stacked some fish food containers under the feet of the light... lol. And that puts the distance to the substrate at just under 14 inches, which I suppose is still about 80 PAR according to the chart? geez.

@Fresh2o haha, I can only imagine how fast duckweed would grow.
For CO2 I've been looking at these two kits (with some additional recommended bits that they don't come with):
-Fluval Mini Pressurized 20g-CO2 Kit
-Nutrafin CO2 Natural Plant System

the first one uses cartridges @ about $1 each, and the second you can make a DIY mix for.

 

[Caliban07]

Light fresh says floating plants may work and shouldn't impact on co2 uptake as they have as much as they need but they will suck up nutrients.

Fresh knows more about DIY than I do and will probably steer you away from the fluval mini.

I think you understand the principles. Now you just have to implement them ? haha. You can use excel to supplement your chosen injection method.

Another thing I forgot to mention is having good flow will help transport the excel and nutrients around the tank. Of course this is difficult to achieve with a Betta.


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[aqua_chem]

I'm not sure that I entirely agree with some of the advice above.

While what Calibran mentioned regarding photosynthesis/photorespiration is true, I'm not sure that's what's going on here. If you take a look at last few pictures you posted, a lot of your older growth has holes or is discolored. This suggests that you might have a nutrient issue beyond CO2/Excel that might deserve some exploration before you drop a ton of money on a CO2 setup (though I would still recommend looking into that). At the very least, we can cross the cheap and easy fixes off the list before shelling out for something more pricey.

Can you tell us a little more about your nutrient dosing strategy? What product, how much, how often?

 

[Shadey]

hi! ty for replying. I've seen a little bit of growth this week, but it's not a lot. I'm not sure what to expect though. right now I've stopped other fertilizers.

I decided to go with the nutrafin CO2 set up, it's showing up tomorrow. I also grabbed a glass diffuser, a drop checker, and an air pump to run at night. I have some plastic check valves until the brass ones come in (end of the month) I think that's everything lol.

it can't hurt to have CO2, but honestly I'll try anything at this point. D:

for fertilizers I have a bunch of the flourish liquid ferts, and some root tabs.
I was using an eyedropper, and this is roughly what I was dosing, based on bottle instructions (1 cap = 5ml):
nitrogen - 1/8th cap
phosphate - 1/4th cap
potassium - 1/4th cap
trace elements - 1/6th cap
1x a week during water changes, but there was a couple weeks where I get it twice a week.

with regards to my plants being damaged, a lot of that probably happened before I tried to dose regularly, as above... Does the damage ever repair, or do you just have to wait for new growth (which I never really saw)?

thanks!

 

[Caliban07]

I'm not sure that I entirely agree with some of the advice above.

While what Calibran mentioned regarding photosynthesis/photorespiration is true, I'm not sure that's what's going on here. If you take a look at last few pictures you posted, a lot of your older growth has holes or is discolored. This suggests that you might have a nutrient issue beyond CO2/Excel that might deserve some exploration before you drop a ton of money on a CO2 setup (though I would still recommend looking into that). At the very least, we can cross the cheap and easy fixes off the list before shelling out for something more pricey.

Can you tell us a little more about your nutrient dosing strategy? What product, how much, how often?

In my opinion the heavy use of ferts mentioned in the original post indicates that ferts are not the answer in this instance. A fertile (to a certain extent) substrate with additional root tabs plus NPK ferts and traces, that's more than enough even with sporadic dosing. You would more likely see other symptoms of mineral deficiencies than loss of tissue structure and browning such as yellowing or pin sized holes. The holes in the pictures are more like structural damage. The red stem plant (looks like alternanthera) typifies the behavioural response to lack of carbon whereby the plant does indeed cannibalise itself to focus on new growth. As the plant approaches upper levels where dissolved co2 is in larger quantities the plant then grows without any problems regardless of where the nutrient levels are at. I've seen this in my 46 walstad whereby my bacopa was just a leafless stem up until about halfway up the tank it Began to grow fine. These are my observations anyway. I'd always play with light and carbon first before nutrients. The added benefit of floating plants is that by having unlimited access to carbon and light, any nutrient deficiencies would show up here first.

Op. You say you have observed positive growth. What have you done differently?


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[Delapool]

wow, what a really great response. Thank you so much!



for now would a good thing to do be to spread my excel dose out at as much as possible during the lighting period? like a couple drops every few hours?



this is actually not my first planted tank... I kept three low/med light tanks about 5 years ago, but I had to sell them all when I moved to the US. I did pretty okay with all of them, which is why this is extra frustrating haha. ; ;



I thought that with such a small tank I would still be okay with just Excel, since Ive seen a lot of really beautiful similar setups, but I guess the light I picked is just too much? I've been reading up on pressurized CO2 systems, and I'm thinking about getting a kit. It's a little scary though.

I'm not sure spreading excel out would make too much difference. Could be interesting to try but lately I'm not convinced excel is actually adding that much carbon anyways.

I've only tried overdosing excel under high light and new growth on plants was very poor and twisted. The plants were used to co2 dosing though and it was only as the bottle was empty for a week. Then I went back to co2 and plant growth went back to more normal. The poor growth between never recovered.

 

[Shadey]

Op. You say you have observed positive growth. What have you done differently?

I've tried to do what was recommended, so I raised up the light to reduce par, and switched to a single eight hour photoperiod, dosing the Excel little bit before the lights come on, and halting use of the other fertilizers.

I moved some plants more to the back, to make room for the monte carlo I ordered from someone before I made the OP (which is probably what's floating), but most of it melted en route.

I mostly seeing growth on the rotala (?) and small-ish crypts, which look okay. The Limnophila aromatica (purple) iis basically doing nothing / becoming a stick, and the red plant has tiiiiny new leaves.

pics!

 

[Caliban07]

How long have you been doing this. Have things improved on the whole since doing this?




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[Shadey]

9 days.

And... looking at the older pics, its still hard to say.

 

[aqua_chem]

In my opinion the heavy use of ferts mentioned in the original post indicates that ferts are not the answer in this instance. A fertile (to a certain extent) substrate with additional root tabs plus NPK ferts and traces, that's more than enough even with sporadic dosing. You would more likely see other symptoms of mineral deficiencies than loss of tissue structure and browning such as yellowing or pin sized holes. The holes in the pictures are more like structural damage. The red stem plant (looks like alternanthera) typifies the behavioural response to lack of carbon whereby the plant does indeed cannibalise itself to focus on new growth. As the plant approaches upper levels where dissolved co2 is in larger quantities the plant then grows without any problems regardless of where the nutrient levels are at. I've seen this in my 46 walstad whereby my bacopa was just a leafless stem up until about halfway up the tank it Began to grow fine. These are my observations anyway.

He really didn't say anything about his dosing. All he said was:

Ferts- Flourish Excel, Trace, NPK, root tabs

That's not really much to go on. Followed by:

for fertilizers I have a bunch of the flourish liquid ferts, and some root tabs.
I was using an eyedropper, and this is roughly what I was dosing, based on bottle instructions (1 cap = 5ml):
nitrogen - 1/8th cap
phosphate - 1/4th cap
potassium - 1/4th cap
trace elements - 1/6th cap
1x a week during water changes

It sounds like an inadequate dosing regimen. Liquid pre-made fertilizers are almost never enough past medium light, with or without CO2/Excel. Coupled with the fact that he's now getting CO2, you are faced with the fact that he needs to up his fertilizer game, and I would even say he should do that before onlining his CO2.

Stopping fertilizers is just an all-around bad idea in a tank with growth problems. My advise actually would have been to double whatever you're dosing now and consider investing in dry fertilizers.

I'd always play with light and carbon first before nutrients.

I would say that it's usually light or carbon, but since we can get fertilizer salts so easily these days and many people are doing EI or some derivative, we rarely see nutrient deficiencies. EI basically eliminates the potential for deficiencies, by design, for only about ~$15. It should definitely be on the short list of recommendations.

 

[PerfectDepth]

Is the dosing you mentioned the actual seachem recommended dosage? The ratios seem way off according to an online calculator. Plenty of PO4, but not very much NO3 or K comparatively. I would suggest quadrupling the amount of Flourish Potassium you are adding, and also increasing Flourish Nitrogen dosage depending on how much is being provided by food/waste/biofilter. Doubling the Flourish Nitrogen dosage would probably be a good start. When you run out of the liquids, I second aqua-chem's suggestion to look into dry ferts. Also, if I remember correctly Trace does not contain any iron. What are you adding as your iron source?

 

[Shadey]

the dosing instructions on the bottle are for much larger tank sizes, so maybe I screwed up the math.

nitrogen 1/2 cap per 40 gallons
phosphate 1/2 cap per 20 gallons
potassium 1 cap per 30 gallons
(tank is 5 gallons)

For iron I have three root tabs in the substrate, spaced out (guaranteed analysis on the back says 2.2% I'm not sure what that works out to as a dosage).

the bottles are pretty small, but I still think that running out of the liquids is going to take a loooong time. :/

 

[aqua_chem]

The problem is that the amounts given are pretty arbitrary, and aimed at a much less nutrient demanding tank. High light tanks with Excel additions are going to need a lot more, and it's hard to titrate premixed fertilizers properly.

Do you have any testing kits?

 

[Caliban07]

He really didn't say anything about his dosing. All he said was:





That's not really much to go on. Followed by:







It sounds like an inadequate dosing regimen. Liquid pre-made fertilizers are almost never enough past medium light, with or without CO2/Excel. Coupled with the fact that he's now getting CO2, you are faced with the fact that he needs to up his fertilizer game, and I would even say he should do that before onlining his CO2.



Stopping fertilizers is just an all-around bad idea in a tank with growth problems. My advise actually would have been to double whatever you're dosing now and consider investing in dry fertilizers.









I would say that it's usually light or carbon, but since we can get fertilizer salts so easily these days and many people are doing EI or some derivative, we rarely see nutrient deficiencies. EI basically eliminates the potential for deficiencies, by design, for only about ~$15. It should definitely be on the short list of recommendations.

That's true. No fertiliser dosages regimen was provided. They were given upon request but carbon although technically still a nutrient was missing and ignored so we still don't actually know what the dosing levels for excel are. We also know that high light exacerbates carbon deficiencies as well as other nutrients. Scrapping the siesta in favour of a full 8 hours may also increase the required level of excel

We can also say that 100 PAR at substrate level is too much for excel alone.

Technically we do not know for sure which nutrients cause which symptoms as the plant charts we use for troubleshooting are based on terrestrial plants that are not carbon limited.

In the words of Mr Barr 'assuming that all of our plants and their issues are the same is not a good assumption. Co2 should be addressed well before nutrients'

However, even if we were to use these charts as accepted consensus there have been no reports of yellowing leaves that would signify nitrogen or iron deficiency. There is no report of green spot algae on leaves that would suggest phosphate deficiency. There is no report of holes in leaves that would indicate potassium deficiency, there is no report of dark veins which may indicate magnesium deficiency etc etc. In fact the only real reports are structural deformities, small leaves and stunted to no growth which does (according to these charts) indicate a co2 deficiency. Since plants are made of around 40-50% carbon dry weight and only 1-2 % nitrogen (Tom Barr) and carbon is involved in the Calvin cycle which is responsible for producing the sugars necessary for healthy tissue structure and growth it makes sense to me that carbon should be the main area of focus after light.

Whether you add nutrients first or last the outcome will be the same. Since op is using root tabs (I didn't advise to stop dosing ferts I said back off) my logic is this.

Light---->carbon---->nutrients

Very high ??? Some

Adding carbon more carbon to fix the chain would then highlight nutrient issues which can easily be addressed by adding the required salts but adding salts and not fixing carbon only to remove half of your investment at the end of the week is just as inefficient and uneconomical as upping carbon.

I've seen this countless times in my own tank and others



Here is my carbon enriched tank that hasn't been dosed with ferts for over two weeks because it needs a water change. I have lots of algae but no nutrient deficiencies or unhealthy plant mass yet. I attribute the algae to to poor flow, high organics and low nitrates (BGA) but non of my plants show any signs of nitrogen deficiency.





Above are pictures of two aquatic weeds. Limnophilia and ludwigia that grow very fast. You can see that they have reached the surface and are probably now accessing atmospheric co2. Still no nutrient deficiencies. ?

As originally advised. Light needs to come down carbon needs to be addressed nutrients can then be added and then there flow which is a whole new topic. Not practical with a Betta as they sulk when flow is high.


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[Caliban07]

Here is a picture of my Walstad. No co2 not column ferts. You can just make out two tiny hygro stems I removed from a smaller Walstad tank. They were dying.



This is with the help of liquid carbon after about 3 weeks.







After about 1 month my nitrate and phosphate levels bottomed out and ALL my other plants developed green spot algae except this fast growing weed. I had to remove it in the end.


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Edit: you can also see the difference it made to the Amazon swords from first to last picture and in the last picture you can see a transparent Leaf that I had yet to remove from before the carbon dosing. Everything in that tank was dying and it was about the 6th replant under the Walstad method before I decided to add co2.