# [Wet Thumb Forum]-frustration - why dont my plants look good?



## gloriabills (Dec 28, 2005)

my plants seem to survive, but arent a lush green forest like im wanting - please help.

heres the skinny...

10 month old tank 55 gal.
substrate is gravel with 2 bags flourite mix.
1 40w corallife 10,000k.
1 40w powerglo. 
2 40W GE plant and aquarium.
16 hours a day and some indirect sunlight.
no algae except on java moss.

3 hagen natural co2 w/ ladders.

25% water change every wk or every 2 wks.
add 1 cap of Flourish with every water change (for 50 gal).

ph 6.6
alkalinity 1.78571 meq/l
hardness 3 dh
ammonia 0

plants and fish...

1 ambulia Limnophila indica 
3 Anacharis Egeria densa 
1 CRYPTocoryne walkeri CRYPTocoryne walkeri 
16 dwarf sagittaria SAGittaria subulata 
3 italian val VALlisneria spiralis 
java moss
1 moneywort Bacopa monnieri 
1 red melon sword Echinodorus x barthii 
1 watersprite Ceratopteris thalictroides 
1 pond penny Lysimachia nummularia 
3 baby tears Hemianthus micro 
3 dwarf hairgrass Eleocharis acicularis 
3 giant hairgrass Eleocharis montevidensis 
3 Glossostigma GLOSSOSTIGMA elatinoides 
3 Hygrophila sunset Hygrophila polysperma 
3 Stargrass Heteranthera Stargrass 

2 angelfish 
2 clown loach 
3 cory cat 
1 fancy tail guppy 
3 neon tetra 
1 pleco 
1 redtail shark 

any suggestions?


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

Do you know what the nitrate level is in the tank water?

Your fertilizer regime is probably not good enough to match the lighting and CO2 that you are giving your tank. A cap full of Flourish once a week is very little and it doesn't meet all of your plants' needs.

If you aren't adding potassium and you aren't using a soil substrate then a potassium shortage is almost guaranteed. A shortage of nitrogen is also common in CO2-augmented tanks that aren't fertilized.

Shortages in nitrogen and potassium cause the plants to be generally light-colored, to lose their older leaves prematurely and to be generally thin and weak. If the new growth is light colored or stunted then you may have shortages in trace metals. Other deficiencies are also possible.

Do you have any close-up photos of the plants?


Roger Miller


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## gloriabills (Dec 28, 2005)

thanks for the quick reply!









nitrite = 0
nitrate = 0

heres the strange thing.
last week i added A LOT of plants.
before i added them, my ph was 6.6.
today my ph is 7.4.
do plants make your ph jump like that?
also on another note, any suggestions on good test kits for gh/kh.
i use aquarium pharmaceuticals, but its very difficult to use.

thanks again!

hers some pics of dwarf sag., moneywort, stargrass (which is hard to tell, but it looks really pale and transparent).
also, the algae on the moss is tought to see, but theres plenty there.


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## gloriabills (Dec 28, 2005)

you can see some black on the edges of the leaves.


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## gloriabills (Dec 28, 2005)

same thing here.
instead of all green, it seems to be bleached on the edges.
my camera makes these picstures greener than they really are.


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## gloriabills (Dec 28, 2005)

my transparent stargrass - yuck. im killing it i think.


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## gloriabills (Dec 28, 2005)

the moneywort is in the back, it has black on the leaves and rolled edges.

notice the anachris in the front.
the bottom of the plant is how i bought it, very full.
the sparse part starting in the middle and going up is how it is now growing.
is this normal?


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## gloriabills (Dec 28, 2005)

heres the dark/brown algae on the moss.


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

> Originally posted by gloriabills:
> thanks for the quick reply!
> 
> 
> ...


There's one problem. In the usual aquarium setup nitrate is the major nitrogen source for aquatic plants. When you run a tank with CO2 and good lighting you need to provide enough nitrate to keep around 5 ppm in the water.

Adding potassium nitrate (which you may be able to buy as stump remover) is often the best way to add nitrate because it also provides potassium at the same time. There are a few other alternatives. For general dosing guidelines and how-to's you might read:

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_dosage_calc.htm

Chuck Gadd (the author of that page) has a number of other useful articles at the same site.



> heres the strange thing.
> last week i added A LOT of plants.
> before i added them, my ph was 6.6.
> today my ph is 7.4.
> do plants make your ph jump like that?


Sure. It's the CO2 in the water that keeps the pH down to 6.6. Plants use CO2. When you added more plants they used more CO2. As a result, the CO2 level in the water went down and the pH went up. There could also be a problem with the CO2 delivery from your CO2 systems, or with increased circulation at the water surface allowing more CO2 to escape.



> also on another note, any suggestions on good test kits for gh/kh.
> i use aquarium pharmaceuticals, but its very difficult to use.


I've always liked the Tetra kits. The GH and KH kits are both pretty easy to use and to read.

A few notes on the photos:

Black edges on leaves are often caused by algae. If you have a rasping fish (pleco, for instance) then they may clean the algae off the middle of the leaves, but leave the base of the algae on the edges, making them look black.

The crypts are awfully crowded, but otherwise they don't look too bad. Crypts are not very good indicators of problems, because they are very conservative plants. When things get bad it seems like they just grow more slowly.

You may help some of your plants out by breaking up the big bunches. Stems can be planted one at a time or in small groups of 2-3 stems. Long forceps are great for that work.

The star grass looks like it's suffering from a shortage of both nitrogen and potassium. That causes the poor color, the weak stems (which are weak enough even on healthy star grass) and the loss of older leaves.

Rolled edges on leaves can be cause by damage from rasping fish or by a nutrient problem. It's one of those symptoms that I sometimes attribute to a potassium shortage. If you look closely at those curled leaves you might find small pits or holes in the surface.

Once you treat the observable problems you may find new ones popping up. For instance, the pictures don't show an evident iron problem, but if you fix problems with nitrate and potassium then growth will speed up and the plants may outgrow the available iron. You could safely double your Flourish dose and it might avoid some future problems.

Roger Miller


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## gloriabills (Dec 28, 2005)

thank you very much for the info Roger!


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## imported_BSS (Apr 14, 2004)

16 hours a day of light is quite a bit also. In my high-tech tank, I only run them for 10 hours.


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## Kelah (Jun 15, 2005)

In the case of nitrogen and potassium shortage, is it good to dose NPK liquid fertilizer?


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

Kelah,

NPK fertilizers made for house plants and other terrestrial plants usually contain some ammonia. Aside from being toxic to aquatic life, the ammonia in those fertilizers may trigger algae outbreaks.

If the fertilizer you have in mind contains no ammonia then it may be useful in aquariums.


Roger Miller


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## Choppy (Oct 4, 2005)

After spending a week emailing Greg Watson (a great guy http://www.gregwatson.com , I realized I'd been starving my plants to death -- 0 nitrates=0 food. I am a real newbie at this myself, but I bet this is a major part of your problem, too.

Your setup and mine are very similar, and I was wondering how the three Hagen units seem to be working for you? I can't afford to buy a big, scary all-in-one CO2 system at the moment, and I haven't the talent for a DIY system. I was hoping to get away with the same piggy-back arrangement with Hagens that you've done...

I am very interested in how you evaluate their effectiveness once you get to feeding the plants a bit more. Please let me know.

Charlie


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## gloriabills (Dec 28, 2005)

The Hagen systems work fine, but it was hard to notice much improvement since i was "starving" my plants of other nutrients.
I just started added 1ml of a potassium nitrate solution (spectracide stump remover)to work my up to a total of 5ppm.
Hugh difference!
I could tell the day after i added my first dose.
My plants are green and a lot healthier looking, so I think I'll be able to see the benefits of the added CO2.


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