# Help! Plants dying!



## SuperYogurt (Jun 26, 2009)

Hi everyone,

I have a 10 gallon with 2.3 watts/gallon and gravel substrate. I'm dosing with Seachem Flourish every water change (about 25% once a week).

The problem that I have is that none of my plants are growing. Not even my duckweed is growing. When I first got the plants they were growing like crazy, so I know it's not the light.

The tiger lotus grew 5~6 new leaves before stopping, each one smaller than the one before. The last one it grew was tiny, and was much greener than the others. Now one of its oldest leaves is turning transparent at the tip, looks like the leaf is disintegrating.

The duckweed spread across my entire aquarium twice, before it stopped growing almost entirely. It also started turning purplish.

The pennywort grew many lengths before slowing down, and now they're barely growing too.

The problem is, I'm dosing with Flourish, so at least the duckweed should grow. Maybe it's one of the macronutrients? I'm thinking it might be nitrogen or phosphates, since I decreased the amount of fish I had in the aquarium. I'm not sure if the growth stopped before or after I took away some of the fish.

I'm really out of ideas, any help is greatly appreciated.

edit: I've been having some blue-green algae (cyanobacteria).
edit 2: My sagittaria subulata died, leaves turned transparent, and melted away. But that was before I started dosing with Flourish.


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## Karebear (Oct 6, 2008)

Hi SuperYogurt

Welcom to APC. It looks like your plants need some macro nutrients to grow, your fish will not add enough for them. Flourish only adds traces to the water, if you want to keep using the flourish line you will need to use more of their product. Check out the fertilizer sections and look at the EI Sticky, this really helped me. 

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fertilizing/15225-estimative-index-dosing-guide.html


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Yep, you need macros. Duckweed or any floating plant is a great indicator of needing macros or not.

Also on a 10g 2.3 watts is pretty low unless it's T5 lighting.


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## armedbiggiet (May 6, 2006)

what kind of lights you are running? Just want to make sure the lighting is not the one to blame. lots of time plant can do okay with out adding fert. and your case do sounds like light problem. Unless it is T5 or PC's.


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## SuperYogurt (Jun 26, 2009)

Thanks everyone.

Karebear, and Tex Gal. Thanks for the tip on macronutrients! I'll probably be getting some Seachem Flourish Nitrate/Potassium/Phosphate instead of using KNO3, KH2PO4, etc. Any ideas on how I should fertilize? How would I know which of the three macronutrients are missing? I'm pretty new to this fertilizing stuff, so I'm a little lost.

armedbiggiet, I have 23 watts of CFL lights (5000 kelvin). I used to have 30 watts of CFL and everything was growing well. Then it just stopped, so I changed back to 23 watts to prevent algae from taking over. Seeing Tex Gal's comment, I'm guessing 23 watts isn't enough, so I'll switch back to 30 watts.

I realize that light might be a problem for some of the plants, but in my experience, at least the duckweed should be growing well. Actually it was growing like mad, before randomly stopping.


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## Karebear (Oct 6, 2008)

SuperYogurt said:


> Thanks everyone.
> 
> Karebear, and Tex Gal. Thanks for the tip on macronutrients! I'll probably be getting some Seachem Flourish Nitrate/Potassium/Phosphate instead of using KNO3, KH2PO4, etc. Any ideas on how I should fertilize? How would I know which of the three macronutrients are missing? I'm pretty new to this fertilizing stuff, so I'm a little lost.


Start by following the instructions listed I would use all of them and go from there, oh yes, you need to add flourish excel for your carbon source unless you plan to us some sort of CO2


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## SuperYogurt (Jun 26, 2009)

Thanks Karebear. I have an update though. I popped by my LFS with some of my tank water and did a nitrate test. It turns out I have 0ppm in my tank. So I'm guessing you guys have found the root of the problem!

I looked for some Seachem Flourish Nitrogen but they didn't have any. When I talked to the employee, he said that I'm not supposed to add nitrates to my tank, and that 0ppm is a very good sign. Is this true? If not, should I go for the Flourish Nitrate, or should I get more fish/put some fish food in the filter?

And one last thing, could it be that I'm gravel vacuuming too much? I vacuum everything once a week during the water change.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

The LFS guy is WRONG! Plants need Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. These are the macros. They use them in amounts in the order listed. Yes, Flourish Nitrate is the nitrogen source. Don't use fish food as it has to be ammonia, then nitrite and then nitrate. Nitrate is harmless to the fish, the others are not.

Don't vacuum a planted tank except just lightly over the surface for visible debris. You should be feeding enough for your fish to eat. No more. Add ferts and you will be fine.

Go to the fertilizer section and read up. You gotta do your homework.  Here are some other sources for you.

http://beginneraquarist.petfish.net/Beginner%20Aquarist/Home.html

http://www.aquatic-plants.org/articles/basics/pages/index.html

http://www.rexgrigg.com/


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## SuperYogurt (Jun 26, 2009)

Thanks everyone, I've ordered some API nitrate tests and a bottle of Flourish Nitrogen from Big Al's. I'll get some of the Flourish Potassium later if I need it. I'll update this thread with the results in the near future.

Unfortunately, my tiger lotus has already lost two leaves, and the other ones are looking quite yellow. Hope I'll be able to save it.

By the way, do flourish tabs give enough nitrates to root feeding plants?


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## Karebear (Oct 6, 2008)

SuperYogurt said:


> By the way, do flourish tabs give enough nitrates to root feeding plants?


I have had tiger lotus bloom in my tank with just flourish and flourish root tabs. Did you get the bulb to your lotus or just the plant? If you have the bulb, it will send off more plantlets.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Some tabs contain only traces. Others are complete. My tap water has lots of phosphorus. With rotting leaves/ fish waste, etc. it would be possible to have a source of nitrogen. 

What you already know:
1. None of my plants are growing, not even my duckweed
2. When I first got the plants they were growing

This tells us that you need to have a source of nutrition that is complete. N+P+K (macros) combined with trace minerals and iron. Does your fert tabs have all that? If not, then you have to add more than your root tabs.

Did you read the links?


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## SuperYogurt (Jun 26, 2009)

I did read the links Tex Gal, thank you for posting them, they were very informative. As of now, I'm just waiting for the Flourish Nitrogen to arrive via shipping (I read up on EI, but I think I'll try the commercial stuff first). In the mean time, my LFS has some Flourish Tabs, which contains:

Total Nitrogen 0.28%
Available Phosphate 0.17%
Soluble Potash 0.16%

I'm guessing that this is not enough to alleviate the nitrogen deficiency in the water. But I'm willing to try it if it'll save the tiger lotus.

The tiger lotus did come with a bulb, which I guess stored some nutrients it could use before being emptied out. Now it's losing leaves at the rate of around 1/day. I guess I just don't have enough nitrates in the water to sustain it with only Flourish or Flourish Root Tabs.


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## sukhkawal (Sep 18, 2009)

you need a range of the following give or take:

NO3 range (nitrogen) 5-30 ppm
K+ (potassium)range 10-30 ppm
PO4(phosphate) range 1.0-2.0 ppm
Fe (iron) 0.2-0.5ppm or higher

so no root tabs are not enough and i dont think they will solve the problem


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