# Fading plants...



## agentho (Jan 14, 2007)

Wow, my plants are not looking good. I planted them in my new 7g last week after soaking in Alum for 3 days. The leaves of most of my plants lost their color, became translucent and dropped off. I thought it was because they were stressed but the new growth I've seen is also starting to fade fast.

My plan was to add the plants and in a few weeks fert with SeaChem Flourish and then upgrade to 2 X 13 watt CFs. Does my fading mean that I need to do this earlier?


Here's my info:
7g
14 watt flourescent tube
50% water change (every 1+ weeks)

Flora:
H. polysperma 'Sunset' 
H. polysperma 'Celon' 
Hemianthus micranthemoides 
Rotala rotundifolia 'Green' 
Water Sprite 
H. corymbosa 'Angustifolia x 1
Hottonia palustris x 2
Ludwigia species x 3
- I know some of these plants are not low light but while I didn't expect them to flourish, I wasn't expecting this behavior either. I thought that some would get leggy and have slow stunted growth.
Dosing:
no ferts yet
Excel every other day

I don't have my test kit yet but here are my H2O parameters from the kit that I do have:
Nitrates 20ppm
Nitrites 0
Ammonmia 0
Hardness 120 (I'm using the Mardel test strips and am unsure if this is gH, KH, etc...)
Alkalinity 80
ph 6.8

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Trying not to get too discouraged this early in the game.


----------



## agentho (Jan 14, 2007)

Forgot to add:
photoperiod 12 hours
substrate Eco-Complete


----------



## azfishguy (Jul 1, 2005)

Hi,
Your plants were already weakened by the 3 day soaking in alum. Next thing that happened was, they were placed in a very low light environment. A 14W of fluorescent light over 7G tank is not 2wpg. The watt per gallon rule hardly applies to your size of tank. Think about a compact fluorescent fixture. Here is a good informative website about lighting for planted tanks: Rex's Guide to Planted Tanks

20ppm of nitrates seems a little high for low light tank. You can easily lower that. Low light no CO2 tanks hardly need any NO3 addition. You may also want to check your phosphate level but fix your light first. It's a little too dark in there even without CO2.


----------



## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

What was your reasoning for the alum soak?

As has been mentioned, your lighting is inadequate for, imo, at least two of the plants you have there. Hottonia likes higher light, and H. micranthemoides does also. If your lighting is going to be low, stick to low light plants. Check out the plantfinder for help with this.

If you're not dosing ferts, where is your 20ppm nitrate coming from?


----------



## nswhite (Aug 25, 2006)

I think you need to add some more light get it up to 2wpg and also add some ferts. But make sure you test your water first to see what ferts you may need.


----------



## agentho (Jan 14, 2007)

Bert H said:


> What was your reasoning for the alum soak?


My source for the plants had some snails. I wanted to get rid of the snail and eggs. I had read that a 2-3 day Alum soak was effective.



Bert H said:


> If you're not dosing ferts, where is your 20ppm nitrate coming from?





azfishguy said:


> Hi,
> 20ppm of nitrates seems a little high for low light tank. You can easily lower that. Low light no CO2 tanks hardly need any NO3 addition. You may also want to check your phosphate level but fix your light first. It's a little too dark in there even without CO2.


Not dosing ferts. Must be coming from a mini-cycle that I started when I changed the substrate. I had originally thought that with fast growing stem plants such as h. polysperma and Wisteria, the nitrates would be controlled but since they're not doing so well...You mentioned that lowering the nitrates is easy. I'm assuming that it's better to let the tank finish the mini-cycle instead of interfering with it, no?

Geez, I guess I have to get a move-on with the lighting upgrade. I was really hoping to get more experience before I did that and had to deal with potential algae problems.

Thanks for all the suggestions.


----------



## agentho (Jan 14, 2007)

*Upgrading my lighting to ???*

Hi Folks,
Since my plants have not been doing well and it has been suggsted that I upgrade my lighting sooner rather than later...Will a 28 watt CF be sufficent for my 7g tank to grow most of the above plants? I'm not looking for crazy high lighting because:

1) brighter lights are crazy expensive
2) not really planning to do injected C02, just Flourish Excel.
3) I'm worried that the tank will be hard to balance

Specifically, I'm looking at the 20" Aqualight 28W Square Pin Base (Coralife)

Again, it's one thing for my plants not to be growing fast or achieve some of the accent colors. I'm just sort of aiming for healthy growth.


----------



## azfishguy (Jul 1, 2005)

Your new light should be fine. Just don't soak your plants in alum anymore. There are far less drastic methods of controlling snails especially in a small tank. Good luck.


----------

