lighting and plant advice

[Quest84]

hey everyone, I am almost through with cycling my tank and it seems that some of my live plants are dying. My anubias are doing ok, have only one plant with one yellow leaf is this ok?

my anacharis turned a brownish color, and almost all of them fell apart. On two of the plants there is one light green stem, is it starting to re-grow?
I went to Petco and bought some Nutrafin Plant Gro..not sure if this is the right stuff to use but figured it couldn't hurt.


I have a 55 gal tank...21'' deep
My lighting is a T12 with two 40w ecolux bulbs

is this sufficient lighting to grow low/med light plants?
any advice on saving the plants?

 

[aqua_chem]

I would check the label to see what's in it. Some of them are just weak nitrate solutions.

Is there any chance of getting pictures of the carnage? Also, what are your water parameters.

 

[Quest84]

PH - 7.4 - 7.6
Ammonia - have been dosing 4 ppm (fishless cycle)
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 120-160

the Nutrafin Plant Gro says it is a micro nutrient formula

is my lighting sufficient for low/med light plants?
i can take some pictures, but im not sure how to post them on here

 

[Quest84]

took a few pics of the plants, plan on adding more but want to figure out why the anacharis is dying first

Pictures by Quest84 - Photobucket

 

[Apex]

Try turning off the lava aerator. Plants need CO2 and the added oxygen from the bubbles could be detrimental. It's worth looking into.

 

[aqua_chem]

Try turning off the lava aerator. Plants need CO2 and the added oxygen from the bubbles could be detrimental. It's worth looking into.

This is incorrect. CO2 will only offgas if you're injecting co2. If anything it will help O2 and CO2 levels.

 

[Quest84]

ok so do i have enough lighting? and why do u think they are dying?

 

[Cornstar]

At 80w, it should definitely be enough to raise low/med plants. But you might want to check the spectrum, I heard you want to get lights near the 6500k.

 

[jetajockey]

Definitely check the bulbs. I've never heard of that particular kind. T12's were the industry standard years ago but the technology has since been replaced with more efficient bulbs (currently t8's but will move to t5/led soon also). Along with what has been mentioned, another issue with the bulbs could be age, if they happen to be old.

 

[rreekers]

for a fertilizer i would suggest flourish root tabs for plants that have good root systems and would dose with flourish Excel and possibly regular flourish