I have just started a planted tank about 2 months ago. i planed amazon swords and some dwarf and tall grass looking plants(forgot the name) last week i added a Co2 system and am putting 4 bps in while the lights are on. running lights 10 hrs a day. i have been adding api leaf zone once a week and added api root tabs. i have 3-4in of eco complete substrate. and i cant seem to get my plants to grow. they have been doing bad from when they were planted and they are now kinda brown and the swords and very small the leaves have holes in them and i dont know what to do. would greatly appreciate some help.
Planted tank help
- Thread starter Adamcik
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jwh0818
Aquarium Advice Addict
First, your keeping your light on a tad too long. Try 6 hours on 18 off. Plants grow once the lights are out.
What lights do you have?
What's your nitrate, nitrites, ammonia, kh/gh, and phosphate levels? How often do you gravel vacuum and do water changes?
What lights do you have?
What's your nitrate, nitrites, ammonia, kh/gh, and phosphate levels? How often do you gravel vacuum and do water changes?
Nitrate 2ppm, nitrites 0ppm, ammonia 0ppm, and i dont have a test kit for kh/gh or phosphate. is that something that i should have? i vacuum and do water changes about once every 2 weeks, about a 35% change. and i have an auto fill system that adds about 5 gallons every 2-3 days as water evaporates. i have 2 96W 6700K and 2 150W 10000k halides.
jwh0818
Aquarium Advice Addict
Okay can you retest nitrates? I've never seen 2ppm nitrates What test kit are you using. I would definetly get a kh/gh and phosphate test kit. What size tank is this?
jwh0818
Aquarium Advice Addict
Very good size planted tank. First I wanna know your co2 routine. When do you cut the co2 on and off compared to the light? Are your lights on timmers?
jwh0818
Aquarium Advice Addict
That sounds good. Okay definetly cut the lights back to 6 hours and look into dosing ferts. I can't seem but to think your excess lighting is causing the algae to POP up a bit and its absorbing the co2 before your plants are thus causing a hit of a slow growth. Check this site out. A lot of people go with the pps pro package. It last a very long time. http://greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizer.html you are doing everything right but maybe cut the co2 back to 3 bps and see about getting a drop checker and a kh/gh test kit ($5) and a phosphate test kit (not sure on the price)
ok i already set the lights for 6hrs, and i have been adding ferts, i add api leaf zone once a week and i have added root tabs last week. i have a drop checker but it is always blue it never reads green. and i will pick up those test kits tomorrow.
jwh0818
Aquarium Advice Addict
Okay these ferts are way different. I can't explain them in detail because I don't know a whole lot about them. Basically they are a complete fert package that provide your plants with all the micro/macro nutrients your plants need. Root tabs are needed for heavy rooting plants like your swords. There are waaaaay more knowledgeable people on here who should chime in pretty soon to give you a greater analysis on what may be happening but I can almost guarantee its the lights and too much co2 and your plants aren't absorbing it fast enough.
Sk3lly
Aquarium Advice Addict
How exactly do you perform your nitrate test?
Sk3lly
Aquarium Advice Addict
Talk us through how you perform your test with your two api nitrate bottles
planted-tnk-guy
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
That is a lot of light for a planted tank even with C02 and the plants you have are not very demanding for light I am pretty sure the grass like one is Dwarf Sagittaria. you could grow coral under that high power light =). I would suggest dropping the MH lights. The plants you are growing dont need nearly that much light and you really are wasting a lot of money on power unnecessarily (good news is less power for more tanks) =) The holes in your leaves are a lack of nutrients most likely as Swords are very heavy feeders and cannot compete with your light load. I also suggest getting some Osmocote Plus slow release fertilizer (Garden section Walmart) freeze 10 pieces with water just enough to cover the prills and push them into the gravel 3" from the base of the plant (put about 4 evenly around it). I would also read about estimative indexing (EI). It is daily dosing fertilizers macro every other day and micros on the other days and on the seventh day a 50% water change. If you want more info on this you can PM me and I will give you a contact to get great cheap dry ferts to mix your own cheaper than anywhere else. I personally use them and they are great and you can even buy premade osmocote fert tabs from him.
Do not cut back your C02 most likely you do not have enough as most people don't and drop checkers are nearly worthless (I do keep one just to make sure it reads yellow though) to little and you get algae Black beard especially to much and your fish will gasp. So you want to find that sweet spot with tinkering with the flow. Only adjust your C02 when you have time to see the results. It takes quite awhile to gas a fish so if you see them stressing turn on a aerator and reduce the flow a bit.
As for light you also want to remember Discus are from black water areas and very little light penetrates the water so almost no plants grow in their native habitat so the amount of light you have on them is not great for them either. You should check out all the amazing Cryptocoryne use C. retrospiralis as background others such as wendii bronze and red as mid ground and others as well, Java fern tied to driftwood along with Christmas moss or weeping moss. Dwarf hairgrass as a foreground would look amazing as well. Another plant I am sure you will like since you like Swords is Echinodorus 'Vesuvius' it is a great Sword Plant that looks like corkscrew grass for the back ground and it spreads by stolons.
You can PM me if you would like and I can add to any of my descriptions its late and I am trying to make sense but Well its late LOL. Dont give up you will get it I promise
=)
Do not cut back your C02 most likely you do not have enough as most people don't and drop checkers are nearly worthless (I do keep one just to make sure it reads yellow though) to little and you get algae Black beard especially to much and your fish will gasp. So you want to find that sweet spot with tinkering with the flow. Only adjust your C02 when you have time to see the results. It takes quite awhile to gas a fish so if you see them stressing turn on a aerator and reduce the flow a bit.
As for light you also want to remember Discus are from black water areas and very little light penetrates the water so almost no plants grow in their native habitat so the amount of light you have on them is not great for them either. You should check out all the amazing Cryptocoryne use C. retrospiralis as background others such as wendii bronze and red as mid ground and others as well, Java fern tied to driftwood along with Christmas moss or weeping moss. Dwarf hairgrass as a foreground would look amazing as well. Another plant I am sure you will like since you like Swords is Echinodorus 'Vesuvius' it is a great Sword Plant that looks like corkscrew grass for the back ground and it spreads by stolons.
You can PM me if you would like and I can add to any of my descriptions its late and I am trying to make sense but Well its late LOL. Dont give up you will get it I promise
=)
Old Scales
Aquarium Advice Addict
You are either really lightly stocked or you're plants are uptaking more nitrates than is being produced by the fish or added with ferts. Plants need nitrates as well as the other macro nutrients to thrive. At that high of intensity light and for 10 hours daily along with CO2, they are using nutrients at a very high rate. OR you are getting an inaccurate nitrate test. BE SURE and follow the NO3 testing procedure and shake times precisely and be sure to shake each test regeant bottle very well before adding to the test tube. As stated, you need to know your phosphate level also. For plants at your light and CO2 level you need to have your NO2 at least 10ppm and PO4 at 1-2ppm.
Double check how well your CO2 is getting absorbed and dispersed through your tank. You need to see your drop checker at least turn a bluish green(best at true green) so you know your CO2 dosing as adequate, Either by more efficient diffusion or more bubbles per second. Hope this helps, OS.
Double check how well your CO2 is getting absorbed and dispersed through your tank. You need to see your drop checker at least turn a bluish green(best at true green) so you know your CO2 dosing as adequate, Either by more efficient diffusion or more bubbles per second. Hope this helps, OS.
Old Scales
Aquarium Advice Addict
+1 with planted tank guy. Good information there too. OS.
I do follow the directions on the test. I rinse out the tube with tank water then shake the 2 bottles for 30 sec then add the drops, and shake the tube for 30 more secs. If my drop checker is reading only blue all the time that means there's not enough co2 right, so how much at a time should I raise the bubble count. Or do I need to move the drop checker closer to the diffuser? I will keep the halides off to see if that helps. And is the 6 hrs of light still ok with just the 2 67k bulbs.
planted-tnk-guy
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Just one cool thing is if you start to bulk up your planted tank even if it is with cheap easy to find stem plants and start doing the EI dosing with a 50% water change you will never have to do another test again. The biggest names in Aquaculture do not use them as the excess of nutes will never go into harmful territory with that water change on the 7th day. Check into it on the Plantedtank.net and Barrreport.com great sites. as for your drop checker Yes blue is bad way, way, way to low. I always aim for yellow on mine and watch my fish for gasping if they do I air bubble and lower the Co2 a bit (it takes hours to kill a fish from C02 as there is some O2 in the tank). 6 hours would be fine really you could put your light on a timer have one on for 8hr and the other on for 6hr have one hour before the one and one hour after for sunrise and sunset. That will give you more viewing time. I also set my timers to come on Late so I can have my tank on in the evening when I can enjoy it and I know many do this some people dont even have lights on til 3pm all your choice. and if you are going to have special company its ok to turn it on.
Truly right now your plant load is light though but you most definitely do not have enough nutrients though light yellow leaves and holes all mean Feed me =). They use to say to many nutrients causes Algae but they actually don't cause algae they grow plants and plants when growing fight off algae. You will never get rid of it all the way but the better the plants are growing the less you will see. I really cant stress Nutrients enough the big nutes are C02, NPK and Micro here is a link to Colins nutrients he is cheap super nice and will help you buy the Daily EI ferts you need hes a great guy and knows his ferts. The Planted Tank Forum
If your algae is real bad you can do a 3 day black out on the tank (just no lights) as well that will push your algae back a bit too.
I hope that helps a bit =)
Cheers, James
Truly right now your plant load is light though but you most definitely do not have enough nutrients though light yellow leaves and holes all mean Feed me =). They use to say to many nutrients causes Algae but they actually don't cause algae they grow plants and plants when growing fight off algae. You will never get rid of it all the way but the better the plants are growing the less you will see. I really cant stress Nutrients enough the big nutes are C02, NPK and Micro here is a link to Colins nutrients he is cheap super nice and will help you buy the Daily EI ferts you need hes a great guy and knows his ferts. The Planted Tank Forum
If your algae is real bad you can do a 3 day black out on the tank (just no lights) as well that will push your algae back a bit too.
I hope that helps a bit =)
Cheers, James
You truly don't need the metal halides on the tank with the type plants you have. I run 3-150w metal halides and 4 T5HO's on a 220g 100% planted tank. But I have mostly all stem plants, most which are non-green. I also only run the MH's for 6 hours daily and the T5HO's for 8 and my tank is 30" deep.
How much surface movement do you have? If you have a bubbler, HOB, or canister outflow right at the water surface you could loosing much of your CO2. You also need to up your bps up to a rate that give your an almost yellow color on your drop checker. Plus depending on the size of your tank you may need more than one diffuser.
As for ferts this is what I use... for dry fert this $15 package is all you need and will last a couple years... http://greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizers-supplements/micro-macro-fertilizers.html.
You need 3 dosing bottles found at the bottom of this page... http://greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizer.html.
This is a good thread about dosing PPS-Pro. Only read the opening post not all the comments after it.... http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/pps-analysis-feedback/39491-newbie-guide-pps-pro.html.
There are two things I do different from the article. First I use 3 dosing bottles as I split the macro nutrients for better custom dosing to the needs of the tank. Nitrates in one bottle, phosphates and potassium in one bottle, and micro's in the 3rd bottle. The other thing you'll notice the recipe calls for using MgSO4, magnesium sulfate, which you don't need if you have hard tap water with a Gh and Kh of 4 or higher.
How much surface movement do you have? If you have a bubbler, HOB, or canister outflow right at the water surface you could loosing much of your CO2. You also need to up your bps up to a rate that give your an almost yellow color on your drop checker. Plus depending on the size of your tank you may need more than one diffuser.
As for ferts this is what I use... for dry fert this $15 package is all you need and will last a couple years... http://greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizers-supplements/micro-macro-fertilizers.html.
You need 3 dosing bottles found at the bottom of this page... http://greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizer.html.
This is a good thread about dosing PPS-Pro. Only read the opening post not all the comments after it.... http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/pps-analysis-feedback/39491-newbie-guide-pps-pro.html.
There are two things I do different from the article. First I use 3 dosing bottles as I split the macro nutrients for better custom dosing to the needs of the tank. Nitrates in one bottle, phosphates and potassium in one bottle, and micro's in the 3rd bottle. The other thing you'll notice the recipe calls for using MgSO4, magnesium sulfate, which you don't need if you have hard tap water with a Gh and Kh of 4 or higher.
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