Plants don't look healthy

[sean_grimes]

I've got a 20 gallon long with 2 guppys, 5 neon tetras and some ghost shrimp. This tank has been set up for 4 months now. There are 2 amazon swords, 2 Aponogeton (Grew from bulb), 2 onion(grew from bulb) and 1 anubius plant. I put some root tabs under the plants when I switched from gravel to sand 2 weeks ago and still add small amounts of liquid plant food.

The swords and aponogeton seem to be struggling a little bit because the tops of the swords on some leaves went yellow/brown. The aponogeton turned a bit brown and just don't look healthy.

My current lighting is an aqueon 8000K full spectrum daytime 17W t8 24" bulb. I have it on a timer for 10 hours a day.

Any suggestions as to why some plants are struggling? Could it be that I moved them from gravel to sand 2 weeks ago? Not enough lighting?

I've read some places where it's recommended to have 2x watts the amount of gallons in the tank. That seems high for a 20 gallon. I love the look of live plants but hate it when they look unhealthy like this! I've also had a bloom of brown diatoms covering the plants as well.. My water params are in check and good.

Thank you for any help!

Sean

 

[TotallyCoral]

Hmm, I don't think it could be so much a lighting problem. Have you tried any ferts at all? Such as flourish, iron and excel? Give them a shot. I personally use flourish excel whenever I remember and dose comprehensive weekly. The results are outstanding! For such a low light tank, it's bumping real well. I also used root tabs as well.

 

[tropicalmackdaddy]

Id also turn the length doen to 8-9 hours. Eleven is a bit much

 

[Rivercats]

Moving plants stresses them. Sand has no nutrients and therefore you will need to keep root tabs around your swords and aponogeton. Swords are nutrients hogs and they do use alot of phosphate, but they draw most all of their nutrients from the substrate so good root tabs are important. Another thing is dosing liquid carbon, such as Flourish Excel, will greatly help with plant growth.

As for the diatoms... they occur usually in new setup due to the high amount of silicates found in tap water. They will go away in time as your tank matures and the silicates are used up. You could get a couple Oto Cats or a couple snails. Nerites love diatoms. Or there are a couple products you could use temporarily to remove phosphates and silicates. You'd have to look under phosphate removers. Personally I prefer the snail or Oto method.

 

[sean_grimes]

For the plants I have put in some API root tabs in the sand a I put in some aqueon liquid plant food. I have not tried any liquid carbon so that might be my next step. That wont harm any fish/shrimp/snails will it?

I have some MTS to get the gas pockets out of the sand but am fixing to get a load of assassin snails as well. I might look at adding some oto cats.

I will turn the lights down to 8 hours a day and see how that goes.

Thank you everyone for your responses

 

[Rivercats]

Liquid carbon will not hurt fish, snails, or shrimp. Is there a reason your going to add assassin snails. If you are finding you are getting more and more MTS's... MTS's will reproduce fast when food sources are ample. They will actually slow down breeding and will retreat to the sand mostly when food is scarce in the tank. They self regulate their breeding with the availability of food. So if they have become an issue, you need to cut down on food. With having alot of fish in various sizes in a 220g it took me some time to figure out how much food (I use two size foods, one very small for rummy nose and threadfin rainbows) I needed to feed without overfeeding. Once I got the amount down to the feeding size I noticed the MTS population got smaller. Another thing, once you add assassin snails, when they eat through your MTS population, you will have to get more snails for them to eat, and you won't have MTS's to aerate your substrate. Just something to think about. Your root tabs may not be adequate for the root plants, never used that brand so am unfamilar with them. I have a dirted tank which is a nutrient rich substrate and I use Phosphate root tabs around my swords and I also use iron root tabs. They also need iron via the substrate, and lack of that can cause yellowing of sword leaves too. Excel won't help the yellow and browning leaves, only adding the right nutrients will do that.

 

[sean_grimes]

No I don't have an overrun of MTS.. yet. I have been warned of overfeeding can lead to a lot of snails so I try to scoop out any left over food the fish don't eat. The root tabs contain 5% iron per the package info. We'll see how everything goes!

 

[manbeast]

be carefully with excell I have read in other threads, and found in my own experience that's it is not very shrimp friendly

 

[Rivercats]

I can honestly say I don't have shrimp but I've known people who use it who have shrimp. Kind of like a few plants are known not to tolerate Excel well and some can actually melt... one is Val, thing is I have a good size patch of corkscrew val that has never had a problem. Sometimes it is much safer to start dosing with 1/2 recommended dose every other day and if all is well the first couple weeks you can increase your dosage. I would love to have shrimp but I have Angels and Rams and I'm not going to feed them a live lunch.

 

[sean_grimes]

I too have done research with excel and shrimp. From what I've read, as long as I don't OD they should be fine. I put the initial dose in today and going to see how it turns out. I don't plan on dosing every day but every 2-4 days when I can. I'm hoping everything has a positive reaction to it.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

I too have done research with excel and shrimp. From what I've read, as long as I don't OD they should be fine. I put the initial dose in today and going to see how it turns out. I don't plan on dosing every day but every 2-4 days when I can. I'm hoping everything has a positive reaction to it.

It's a better idea to dose every other day or even a low amount daily. When your carbon source isn't consistent algae can sometimes get a leg-up as plants have a much more difficult time adjusting to fluctuating carbon levels than algae.

You can look at it the same way you look at feeding your fish. When you feed them just feed your plants, too. Feeding your fish a lot every few days isn't as good for either them or your biological bed as feeding a small amount daily. Same with Excell for your plants. It would be like running a co2 system every other day, vs every day.