Plants constantly dying. Makes me sad.

[skuredboi3000]

Hello fine Aquarium Advice people,
I have a 50 gallon freshwater tank with several plants in their (I attached a few pictures, so I hope those are visible). The tank is maybe a little over a year old, but I have never had any success with my plants growing. I bought a lot last year and all but the hardiest died. I have good eco-complete substrate, the pH is usually a little high because I do water changes with tap water but I lower it to keep it around 7.4. I use Prime water conditioner to get rid of any chlorine from the tap. My ammonia levels are zero, along with the nitrites being zero as well, and the nitrates are around 4 ppm. I tried addding a CO2 booster because I thought maybe my plants were out of oxygen, but no help. I had a light specifically for planted aquariums. There's a bit of a snail problem, but I recently bought three assassin snails and they seem to be going at it. Those plus a zebra nerite snail are the only aquatic animals I have in their, so there can't be a problem due to overfeeding fish because there aren't any in there. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but its been months of slow death after the initial onslaught of the first wave of plants. I'm begging you intellectuals to help me.

 

[KingKoopa512]

What type of light are u using are the pics with the tank light on

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[TMaier]

Your nitrates are so low. Are you adding any ferts? They could be starving for nutrition.


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[KingKoopa512]

Lol beat me to it tmaier

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[skuredboi3000]

Oh ok! I was under the impression that you were supposed to have 0 nitrites and nitrates. The big plant is Green Temple and it's leaves look weak and droopy, and the other smaller plants in the front almost have blackish leaves at parts. I put a new bag of eco-complete in it last month but maybe that still isn't enough nutrition. Should I put root tabs or liquid fertilizer in or what would you suggest I do to fix it? And yeah the light is on in these pictures but the flash of the camera sort of drowns out the aquarium light.

 

[TMaier]

0 nitrites. Nitrates are food for the plants.

Fish waste is awesome fertilizer once the nitrogen cycle has done its magic.

Maybe try some liquid ferts?

I don't all the details but some plants are root feeders and the Eco stuff and root tabs kick it here. Other plants are water feeders and really need those nitrates.

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[TMaier]

Lol beat me to it tmaier

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We got each other's back!


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[Caliban07]

Oh ok! I was under the impression that you were supposed to have 0 nitrites and nitrates. The big plant is Green Temple and it's leaves look weak and droopy, and the other smaller plants in the front almost have blackish leaves at parts. I put a new bag of eco-complete in it last month but maybe that still isn't enough nutrition. Should I put root tabs or liquid fertilizer in or what would you suggest I do to fix it? And yeah the light is on in these pictures but the flash of the camera sort of drowns out the aquarium light.

As far as I am aware Eco complete does not contain nutrients that are bioavailable to plants although it does contain the chemicals from the porous rock. It's a way Carib-sea can market it as complete even though bacteria can not break what is in it down to a useable nutrient source for plants.

It's high porosity and subsequent large surface however means that it has a very high cation exchange capacity so it is able to sequester nutrients ready for plant uptake.

It's popular because of this, it's aesthetic appeal and the fact that you don't have to wash it before it goes
In the tank.

That said. Just for its high CEC alone I would give this a go. You don't have to replace it, because there is nothing to exhaust.

As for the nutrients. You would have good results buying some pre-made osmocote root tabs from someone on here or by making your own supplementing at the roots and also supplementing the water column with a fertiliser of your choice. I use dry powders because they are cheap and go a long way. Fertilising both the column and the substrate gives you larger margin for error in terms of deficiencies.

Since aquatic plants are around 2-4% nitrogen dry weight it makes sense to make sure this is available to them and we do that with nitrate. Nitrate test kits are not very reliable however and so if you administer nitrate yourself, then there is no need to test because you will know who much is going in.

The Estimative index dosing method is one of the most popular dosing methods around and since we know that nutrients do not cause algae, we know we can add enough so that the plants cannot possibly be limited. For example, I can dose anywhere between 20-40ppm nitrate weekly.

For more information on EI visit this page: http://www.ukaps.org/index.php?page=dosing-with-dry-salts

This will also address the other nutrients required in larger amounts such as potassium and phosphate as well as the trace elements such as iron, zinc and boron.

There is one nutrient however who's importance often gets overlooked. That nutrient is carbon. Close to 40% of dry tissue weight is carbon. When plants are submerged they can have a hard time obtaining enough co2 to grow healthily or even positively and so it would be a good idea to supplement by using the co2 booster daily at recommended levels in conjunction with a good fertilising regimen.

The other important aspects of growing plants successfully are water flow, and lighting. Most of the time lighting is ample and increasing intensity simply increases speed of growth but good flow (as much as 10x the tank volume per hour) ensures the co2, nutrients and oxygen are evenly distributed around the tank.

Address all these parameters and it becomes quite difficult not to grow plants under water.

Good luck.


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[Caliban07]

I've had a very steep learning curve when it come to growing plants.

November 2015



Present



I'd like to say it's been fun but......


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[skuredboi3000]

Wow thanks everyone so much! I just got several small tetras and a few ghost shrimp for some long term fertilizer/care. I also added Leaf Zone plus seven root tabs and a little bit of CO2 Booster. We'll see how this plays out because I don't know what else these plants could need at this point.

 

[TMaier]

Wow thanks everyone so much! I just got several small tetras and a few ghost shrimp for some long term fertilizer/care. I also added Leaf Zone plus seven root tabs and a little bit of CO2 Booster. We'll see how this plays out because I don't know what else these plants could need at this point.

I think you just unloaded both barrels on your plants and they better LIVE. Lol


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[skuredboi3000]

I've coddled these plants long enough! I did more than release both barrels. I released the [moderator edit] kraken on 'em and went out with guns blazing firing at the rate of Bruce Lee's punches. Ive had enough of this try to gently coerce them to be healthy stuff. May the odds be ever in my favor?

 

[Caliban07]

Wow thanks everyone so much! I just got several small tetras and a few ghost shrimp for some long term fertilizer/care. I also added Leaf Zone plus seven root tabs and a little bit of CO2 Booster. We'll see how this plays out because I don't know what else these plants could need at this point.

Put the booster in every day. Start off with the recommended dosing. Make sure you have good surface ripple to allow oxygen in to the tank.

Edit: what is your lighting by the way?

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