Any idea whats happening to these

[Marshallc]

I put new lights on my 55 months back plants all seemed fine now lately all my plants look horrible and I have almost a green felt growing on some plants and on the sand. And some plants even look black. Here's some pictures.

I dose with excel and have some root tabs in from when I had my swords but they dwindled down to nothing and I pulled them.

 

[BBradbury]

Hello Marsh...

Are those plants a variety of Cryptocoryne? It appears your plants are going through a reaction to a new environment. Did you just get these into the tank? If so, most plants show the effects of being moved. This is pretty normal. The plants will look poorly for quite a while and some will die off. Eventually, most regrow when they get used to their new place.

I would fertilize just a little and only when you do a water change, like once every week or two. Too much fertilizer and the plants don't use it all and this can cause water chemistry problems.

If the plants are relatively new to this tank, they need time to get used to it.

Just a couple of thoughts.

B

 

[Marshallc]

They have been in this tank for around 8 months and with these lights 6

 

[BBradbury]

Hello again Marsh...

How is the lighting? Crypts don't do very well in lower lighting. Moderate lighting is the minimum, stronger is better for these plants. I use 3 florescent lamps, 6500 to 6700K. The lights are on for 12 hours per day and have the plants in a shorter tank. My Crypts do pretty well, but take a long time to get used to being moved.

B

 

[Marshallc]

I have the odyssea lighting. 4 6500k t5 ho's I was running all 4 but I have switched to running 2

 

[BBradbury]

Marshall...

4 lamps would be very bright, so I think your move to cut the lighting by half is a good idea. Too much light and you tell the plants to increase their growth and a CO2 system would be the only way to properly feed a plant under that much light.

I'm a fan of large, frequent water changes and replace half the tank water no less than every couple of weeks. The changes replace nutrients the plants need for sustained growth.

If you have a reasonable fish load in this tank, you may consider backing off on the ferts entirely for a week or two or just dose a fraction of your current dose and only when you change the tank water.

B

 

[Marshallc]

Yea I slowed down on the ferts and now I'm constantly scraping algae off the glass. Some weeks it's not so bad. Some weeks it's a pain to look at. The uv light has helped some but mainly for green water which happened not long ago