Plant people I need help

[Vanilla Magilla]

OK here are some pics of the different swords i have that have been in place for 2 weeks. 30w of light in an 18 Gal tall. I am using "Leaf Zone" and have used it twice, once when the were in the tank and yesterday. Why the brown ends? Oh yeah 10-12 hrs of light a day.

 

[yv1]

looks like some sort of algae to me,

compare it to these images here : http://aquabotanicwetthumb.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=4006090712&f=8796060812&m=3256098022

might also be just that you are lacking iron, at one point my leaves turned transparent and fell off but then i added Flourish Iron and increased my lighting and they lived to see another day.

also tall tanks get less light at the bottom than horizontal ones., might be an issue also. hope this helps!

 

[Biggen]

Nice Blue Ram, btw...

I am thinking it is lacking a nutrient instead of it being algae. This is because in one of your pictures, the leaf that is brown is actually transparent. algae shouldn't do that.

Now, what nutrient could it be? Hard to tell but if I had to guess I would say iron. But then again, you are dosing a chem that is supposed to be putting iron back into the water. Do you use regular tap water when doing water changes? You don't use distilled or bottled water, do you? Using anything but tap water in a FW planted aquarium is not good for the plants since bottled water does not contain any nutrients.

If Corv is around, he may have a better idea about what is causing this that I do...

 

[Vanilla Magilla]

I used 2 gallons of distilled water to bring my Ph down but other than that it is tap water. The leaves were browning before the distilled water. The substrate I used was full of stuff to help the tank cycle and was good for plants. I am getting runnings off of the smaller swords so they are growing. Should I prune most of the brown stuff off?

 

[stacie]

new aquarium

I am new to the aquariums. I had some Wal Mart bettas that did terrible, and decided to get some quality ones from a breeder. I was thinking of putting Java Fern, Banana plant and something else. Unfortunately, I don't know what the something else will be. Any suggestions? It is a 10 gallon tank which I have divided 3 ways to keep the bettas separated. I am currently letting it cycle as the fish are due to arrive around Tuesday (7-9). I will, out of necessity, have to buy my first plants at Petsmart since I won't receive shipped plants in time. Unless I want to spend a lot of money!!! Can anyone out there help me choose some good low/ medium light ones? I have 2 15 watt flourescents in there, but it says I can go as high as 25 watts. Thanks in advance and I love this site/forum. Lots of VERY interesting information.

 

[eparadis]

I had a similar issue with my plants awhile ago. I pruned some of the big nasty spots off and left the dying leaves fall off and rot in the bottom. Made sure I was using a full nutrient fertilizer and the plants slowly regrew and are now happy little plants.

 

[justDIY]

my amazon sword that was really big and strong, growing like crazy ... and is now rotting and pitifull 'cause I kept moving it, and the ludwiga is trying to kill it by smothering ...

anyway, it had brown tips on it's leaves, from being exposed to air for too long - the tips dried out but stayed green for a few days, then they eventually turned brown and the whole leaf died ... the plant was only exposed to atmosphere for less than 15 min, but I guess that was too much for it

 

[Chrismac]

I would say its algae, I noticed your roots are buried at bit to much in the first pic, just pull it up gently till your roots start to show. Do you have algae eaters in your tank?
My plant book says two watts per gallon for his species it looks to me like either a Bleheri or an amazonicus, Bleheri have broader leaves??
Chris.

 

[EMS503]

I go with the fact that some plants will drop off some of there leaves when first panted, and will re grow them later. Also the plant is planted just a little to deep, just lift it a little bit.

Also besides the liquid fertilizer. The plants will need an Iron supplement and fertilizer occasionally at the root system (Root tabs plus Iron) can be found locally or online. Also plants use co2. In my sons 55gal he has a Carbo plus unit , and in my wifes 29 gal. we are experimenting with liquid co2 (Flourish Excel) works pretty good.
Good luck and have patients