Anacharis and Moneywort dead...

[Ryehard]

I recently finally got around to purchasing a bunch of plants and heavily planting my tank with Cabomba, Anacharis, Moneywort, Hornwort, Ludwigia, Java Fern, Anubias Nana Petite, Blyxa Japonica and Java Fern. I seemed to had finally gotten everything right; my nutrients were balanced and my abundance of algae miraculously disappeared. After about a week the Anacharis just suddenly melted away, and maybe a week or so later the Moneywort seemed to be rotting. Everything else is doing very well and I've even seen my Anubias Nana pearling on occasion. I've done some searching and I'm thinking the reason for the Anacharis melting is because I did a very diluted bleach dip before I put the plants in, but I'll see what you guys think. Here are my stats:

pH = 7.0
KH = 5.5
GH = 7.0
Nitrates I keep at about 15 ppm
Phosphates around 1.5 ppm
Pottasium is dosed several times a week as well as Flourish
CO2 injected into my Aquaclear intake from Yeast DIY
Lighting is 5 watts per gallon

 

[malkore]

first off, you need more CO2. you're sitting around 15ppm CO2, and blasting 5wpg of light. Get that CO2 up to 30ppm, roughly a pH of 6.7 is needed.

You're not dosing ANY flourish excel are you? it'll melt anachris, but not moneywort. moneywort is quite easy to grow IMO.

how much potassium is being dosed? are you striving for roughly 15ppm?

 

[Ryehard]

Yeah I figured I'd probably need more CO2 so I just added a second 2L bottle to my yeast system. Hopefully within 24 hours that'll kick it up a bit. I'm not dosing any excel, and I'm probably going under 15ppm of pottasium. I'm measuring by capfuls and I didn't want to overdo it, but I'm gonna see if I can pick up a syringe of some sort to measure more accurately. The strange thing is that I took a cutting from the moneywort before it completely died and put it on the other side of my tank and it seems to be doing well. I'll see if I can get my CO2 higher, and then try the Anacharis again, because I liked the look of it. Thanks!

 

[malkore]

ok, flourish potassium is actually pretty weak stuff, so you will NOT over do it, trust me.

you might wanna google for it, but i've seen some calculations that will tell you how much of a ppm increase you'll get in a given dose of flourish products. i only ever used it on my 75gal...one bottle...and stopped when I found out i needed just under half the bottle to get 15ppm. at $7 a bottle, ouch.

i get potassium sulfate from places like gregwatson.com. something like a 1/2tsp in a 20gal is an ample dose.

the extra CO2 bottle will definitely help raise levels. as you raise CO2, your plants might demand a little more fertilizer. 15ppm isn't terrible, but its a bit of a limiting factor right now.