Advice on plant care.

[DeadlyPenguin76]

Hi. Fairly new to the hobby (less than a year). We have a planted freshwater tropical tank. The plants are looking very faded and old. I've trimmed them back a bit a month ago and have been feeding them regularly with aquarium plant food. They are mostly stem plants and planted in a large gravel substrate only. Do I trim right back? Do I remove all and start again? There is new growth from some of them so I'm reluctant to pull it all out. I can't add pictures as the shots I take are too large in mb size to upload.

Thanks in advance....

 

[Bert2oo1]

Hi. Fairly new to the hobby (less than a year). We have a planted freshwater tropical tank. The plants are looking very faded and old. I've trimmed them back a bit a month ago and have been feeding them regularly with aquarium plant food. They are mostly stem plants and planted in a large gravel substrate only. Do I trim right back? Do I remove all and start again? There is new growth from some of them so I'm reluctant to pull it all out. I can't add pictures as the shots I take are too large in mb size to upload.

Thanks in advance....

What exactly are u dosing as "plant food" plants should get old and die they should constantly grow. If u have decaying leaves etc then u need to trim them all off and just focus on the new growth. I'd say your missing a vital nutrient if the plants slowly die off.

Substrate shouldn't be the issue, what kind of plants are you growing?

 

[DeadlyPenguin76]

Using TNC complete. Plants are various stems and a few lower broad leaf plants bought in pots. Couldn't tell you exact species. I was dosing as stated on the bottle but it was giving me nitrate spikes so I stopped for a while, got my balance back and then dosed smaller afterwards. I think I just need to get rid of the dead leaves and from what I've read elsewhere trim the tops off as they reach the surface.

 

[Bert2oo1]

Using TNC complete. Plants are various stems and a few lower broad leaf plants bought in pots. Couldn't tell you exact species. I was dosing as stated on the bottle but it was giving me nitrate spikes so I stopped for a while, got my balance back and then dosed smaller afterwards. I think I just need to get rid of the dead leaves and from what I've read elsewhere trim the tops off as they reach the surface.

How bad were the nitrate spikes? U want it to sit around 20ppm so nitrogen is always available to the plants

Yep u just trim the tops and pull the bottoms or u can leave the stems and they will sprout 2 new stems from where u cut.

 

[DeadlyPenguin76]

Nitrate was around 30 to 40ppm plus nitrite was high too so used seachem prime to get both down to almost nothing. Maybe I've gone too far and it's killing the plants?

I have aquarium scissors now which will make trimming a lot easier as I quickly did it with ordinary scissors before so it was more hack than trim.

Thanks for the advice, I loved my plants when they were in good shape just want to get them back to their best again.