Browning Plant Leaves

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Skai

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jan 29, 2015
Messages
225
Location
Catonsville, MD
So, after a bit of struggle with some water chemistry, I figured I'd managed to get a handle on it. So, I decided to try again to plant my 125 gal tank. I got some java fern, swords, and two lovely St. Elmo's Fire swords, and there were still a few disparate plants that somehow hung on through my chemistry woes (also pretty basic plants but I can't recall what. They look reeeally sad at this point).

So, pretty much immediately they start browning. I can't figure why. I'm testing everything I can think of so I'm tossing it to you guys to see if I'm missing something that should be obvious. There are still some fake plants in there but I'm trying to phase them out.

Water chemistry (as of today):
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: ~10-20 ppm
Phosphates: 0

Lights: Fluval LEDs although I remember buying plant specific ones I no longer remember which model they are. For 8 hrs.

Water changes 50% weekly.

Doses:
10mL flourish Excel daily
CO2 (liquid) daily
Flourish Iron (I have some red plants I'm trying to color up) 2mL every two-three days
 

Attachments

  • 20200126_142650.jpg
    20200126_142650.jpg
    257.7 KB · Views: 38
  • 20200126_142639.jpg
    20200126_142639.jpg
    228 KB · Views: 51
  • 20200126_142540.jpg
    20200126_142540.jpg
    249.1 KB · Views: 36
  • 158033783544954227393.jpg
    158033783544954227393.jpg
    240.5 KB · Views: 36
Has the java fern gone pale at all or still good green leaf colour? And I’m assuming ferts / liquid CO2 dosing is as per bottle instructions.

I’d suspect the swords are just adjusting to new water (hopefully) as they should be fine with higher micro ferts dosing. Else I have had high iron dosing cause browning in ferns and needle-leaf stem plants. Also the liquid carbon dosing can cause plants to lose leaves first up but generally all mine recover fine.

Nitrates is borderline low. Phosphate too low and would therefore say potassium is likely too low - often resulting in holes in leaves.

Pale leaves eg java fern, I find is light too high and not enough CO2.
 
Last edited:
Yeah the java is one of the plants not seemingly having much reaction at all.

I've got to pick up some root tabs as I didn't realize I was out, so that will help with potassium and such. I'm mostly worried about the St. Elmos, cause they started reacting quick.
 
Back
Top Bottom