# Yellowing leaves, stunted growth, small holes



## Colman (Jun 11, 2006)

My 20 gallon tank was established 3 months ago, I did not ever rinse the filter cartridge, causing an algae bloom that lasted for 3 months. The tank was lightly planted with strong lighting, the substrate black gravel and laterite. I had 6 fish, loaches, betta, school of glowlight Danios. 2.5 weeks ago I became fedup with the algae carpets so I boiled the substrate and replanted everything. tada no more algae! I bought hygrophilas, java ferns, indian fern, and others. All is well except as of 5 days ago i noticed small holes in the plants, stunted growth and yellowy leaves. i recently lowered the ph from 8.0-7.7, my town's water is very hard. I have never used any fertilizer, should I? I placed an ammonia remover in the tank today. Does anyone have suggestions to cure my yellowing leaves and create normal plant growth? Any advice would be much appreciated!


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

Some more info is necessary I think:

Type and amount of lighting
CO2?
Type of filtration?

It does sound like the plants are lacking nutrients.

If you have more than 2wpg, then your tank will be much better off with CO2 and fertilization. You mention you lowered the pH, how did you do that?

You need to have lots of plants, especially fast growers at the beginning. They will be your ammonia removers...

Here's some good reading to get you started on the essentials:

http://www.aquatic-plants.org/articles/basics/pages/01_intro.html

www.rexgrigg.com

and welcome to APC!


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## Colman (Jun 11, 2006)

Thanks for the article, I have 2 20 watt tube bulbs and one 13 watt spiral bulb.

I have never used any fertilizer, I have no idea how to use the CO2 system--- and probably there is not much in my tank. I am using an Aquaclear power filter with an aquaclear filter cartridge. I lowered the ph using the nutrifin down liquid.


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## Alin10123 (Jan 3, 2006)

Colman said:


> Thanks for the article, I have 2 20 watt tube bulbs and one 13 watt spiral bulb.
> 
> I have never used any fertilizer, I have no idea how to use the CO2 system--- and probably there is not much in my tank. I am using an Aquaclear power filter with an aquaclear filter cartridge. I lowered the ph using the nutrifin down liquid.


You seem to have plenty of lighting. The thing is, the more lighting, the quicker your plants will want to grow. As a result, you will have to have more nutrients. But once you add more nutrients, your plants will want to grow even more, so you'll have to add in some CO2.

I would start off first with some nutrients. Yellowing of the leaves usually means lacking in Iron. I would start out with some flourish iron. I would also try some flourish. Then i would at a minimum add flourish excel if you decide not to inject CO2 into the tank.

CO2 is usually either a bi-weekly extra maintenance, or a $$ initial investment with it being cheap to maintain in the future.

But i would start with at least the fertilizers first, then consider the CO2.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

Alin10123 said:


> ...
> 
> But i would start with at least the fertilizers first, then consider the CO2.


Actually, with that much lighting, the priority needs to be CO2. Either that or reduce the intensity of your lighting until you get CO2. If you reduce the lighting, then fertilizing should help. But until then, CO2 is going to be your major issue.

I've found that there is an "order" of requirements for plants and it is the following:

1. light
2. a source of carbon (eg CO2)
3. Macro fertilization (NPK)
4. Micro fertilization (iron and traces)

You need to ensure them one by one down the list. With high light and no CO2, adding lots of ferts is not that productive as the plants will not be using very much of them at all; they need carbon first.

Once again, the above relates to higher light tanks with good plant mass. The situation is different with lower lighting...


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