Live Plant Noob here,
...So my tank is not a typical planted tank with soil substrate. It is simply sand with live plants. I am adding Tetra Plant Food once every other day for my 55 Gallon. I have a dual T5 Aqueon light on 8-12 hours a day. I have noticed one of my plants is getting brown spots, and another is turning yellow and brown. A couple of my other plants are doing fine though. Am I doing something wrong to keep them alive? Thanks for
Hi liquid. Don't worry about the sand it's perfectly capable of growing plants in.
In order for plants to be healthy and grow well you need to meet their demands, water (h2o), light, carbon and nutrients.
You already have the water. The type of light dictates how much carbon and nutrients are required. T5 lights provide medium light roughly.
The carbon is used as an energy source and the nutrients are used to repair and aid new growth.
Nutrients are split in to macro and micro where the macro nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) are needed in larger quantities. There are other macros too like calcium, magnesium etc.
The micros are things like iron, copper, chloride, zinc and are needed in small quantities but steady supply. If you look on the back of the tetra bottle you may find that it only contains micro nutrients which means you are not getting macros nutrients and you don't have a carbon source (no point having all those nutrients if the plant doesn't have the energy to utilise them)
You can buy liquid carbon online. Seachem flourish excel I think.
Sometimes tap water contains ample amounts of nutrients which is why some people have success without even using fertilisers. Especially if they use low lighting and low light requiring plants (less demand for nutrients)
For macros I buy dry fertilisers which is a powdered form and can be mixed in bottles and kept in the fridge. Way cheaper and lasts much longer.
Hope some of this helps.
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