Melting or eaten??

[OGFadedThoughts]

Hello all, I have a 10g RCS tank, 8 rcs 1 amano and 1 zebra snail. Is anyone eating my plants? I think I also have nematodes..yuck

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[Fishdude3233]

Pics would be helpful.

 

[OGFadedThoughts]

Here's my cardinalis and floating water sprite

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[Fishdude3233]

Hopefully river cats will chime in. I'm still learning the ropes of plants

 

[Mebbid]

They look to be melting from a nutrient deficiency. What are you doing for ferts / carbon? What is your light fixture?

 

[OGFadedThoughts]

Roots of my water sprite they uses to look like jelly fish tentacles now there's only one

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[OGFadedThoughts]

I'm dosing with florish excel every other day. And my lighting is one 23watt bulb 6500k its a 10gallon tank

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[Mebbid]

I'm dosing with florish excel every other day. And my lighting is one 23watt bulb 6500k its a 10gallon tank

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You are going to need to look into fertilizers for your tank. You basically have two choices. Dry ferts or liquid ferts. Seachem sells an entire line of pre mixed fertilizers for tanks. They are convenient but the only drawback is that they are expensive. The other option is dry ferts, you can custom mix them and they are dirt cheap. It is a little more difficult to do (still easy)
A dry fert pack from green leaf aquariums will cost you between $15 and $30 depending on whether you want pps pro or ei for a dosing schedule. Either way the fert pack will last 1 - 2 years on a tank the size of yours.

Excel only lasts about 12 hours in the tank before it breaks down. I would suggest dosing it daily.

What plants do you have in the tank?

 

[OGFadedThoughts]

I have anubius, hornwort, lobelia cardinalis, floating water sprite, java fern, marimo moss ball, xmas moss, dwarf hair grass and hygro compacta

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[Mebbid]

The excel you are using is likely in the process of or is going to kill the anubias.

Those plants are pretty much all water column feeders. I would definitely add some fertilization and see how they respond. The hygro might benefit a bit from root tabs.

 

[Rivercats]

Liquid carbons such as Excel are fine even in high doses for Anubia's. The roots on your floaters will not grow and flourish if there isn't enough nutrients in the water. As Mebbid suggested you need to start dosing some type of fertilizer. Most of the plants you have are nutrient hogs so even tho you have a small tank dry ferts would give you all the macro and micro nutrients your plants need.

 

[OGFadedThoughts]

Thank you so much on your knowledgknowledgeable response!

Well I do have them all in floramax. Would I still need root tabs? Also what type of liquid fertz would help? I just started using API leaf zone which is just iron and potassium. And the hair grass is looking better already!

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[Rivercats]

Thank you so much on your knowledgknowledgeable response!

Well I do have them all in floramax. Would I still need root tabs? Also what type of liquid fertz would help? I just started using API leaf zone which is just iron and potassium. And the hair grass is looking better already!

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You only need to use root tabs with swords, crypts, bulb plants, and often plants like wisteria benefit from them. With DHG you can actually place a couple root tabs close to it as many people have found that to be helpful. It wouldn't hurt to try it.

As for liquid ferts you could also try using Seachem Flourish Comprehensive along with the Leaf Zone. I would honestly look into using dry ferts as that will supply all the micro and macro nutrients your plants need. You can dose either PPS-Pro or EI. Not to mention the dry ferts are so much cheaper and will last years if used in small tanks.

I would also use the Excel every day especially since you have DHG. Dose 1ml of Excel for every 5 gallons for 2 or 3 weeks and see how the plants do. You can then up that to 1ml Excel to every 2 gallons. Just remember the faster the plants grow the more nutrients they need which is why dry ferts are so much better than liquids.

 

[OGFadedThoughts]

Kool thanks for the info!

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