im about to give up on plants

[panboy]

i try to grow plants, and they do grow, but algae grows 10 times worse. i can never find the balance with fertilizer or whatever i need to stop algae.

plus, my plants do grow, but half of them look horrible, with brown edges and ugly stuff.

i have a 46g, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, ph around 7.2-7.4, using tap water

i have a diy co2 2liter bottle system with 2x 2 liters = 4 liters.

i add flourish iron and pottasium and hav a couple root tabs. and have 2.7 wpg

i have regular gravel, mixed of big gravel and small pebbles like 2-3mm in diameter.


i have water wisteria, contortion val, wendti crypt and red tiger lotus.

......
my wisteria grows alot, the new leaves are bright green but the olders are brownish and seem like they have some type of brown algae on them. even the new leaves after a week or so once more new leaves appear above them, they become brown like the older ones, not completely brown, but the edges are brown and they arent bright green and straight as before.
contortion val is great, wendi growns great, but i just notices TONS of hair algae on it, it is coming off easily, but it just bugs me that stuff like this happens.
my red tiger lotus looks horrible. it grows slowly, but the older leaves start growing green spot algae......
.......


i have really tried almost anything. i work so hard to keep these plants, but they never do that well, except for the "Easy plants". i've spent so much money and time on these plants, i thought they would look better, and i thought algae would not be as bad i have it. algae grows all over, from gravel to large rocks, driftwood, plants, even coveres the filter intake tube if i dont clean it often.

i dont know what else to do....
how did you guys find the balance for adding fertilizer without growing algae as bad as i do.

one last thing that i might try before switching to cichlids is adding some smaller size gravel with a mix of flourite and see how that goes. if that doesnt help, then im done unless u peopel ahve better suggestions.

sorry for the long post, i just tried to describe everything so u know what i am dealing with

 

[FoundMoney]

I'm a real noob so I don't know how much help I'm going to be. Also, I only have the easy plants myself. When I first started the tank I had a couple of plants and I was doing fishless cycling. After about two weeks I had algae everywhere. However, at that point I was really only concerned with cycling. In the meantime, a couple of times I spent a lot of time and really cleaned the tank. I scraped as much algae off of everything that I could.

Finally the tank cycled and recently I bought a bristlenose catfish. I was amazed at how much better the tank looked after having him in there for only a couple of days. Yes, there is still algae but it's not all over everything like before. The cat does a good job of cleaning up the driftwood and the rocks. He even ocaissionally sucks on the leaves of the plants. However, most of the time I just have to clean the algae off by myself.

I look at it this way, algae is natural so in a healthy tank there is always going to be some. Do I have a show tank? No, but I figure I have something that exhibits various life forms that occur in nature, even if I didn't actually buy them.

I know that's not much help, but I would advise you not to get too discouraged. How long has your tank been running. From what I understand it takes a while for a planted tank to get established so that everything's growing nicely.

 

[panboy]

its been established for almost a year.

i try not to get discouraged, but with the time and money that ive put into it... i do

 

[FoundMoney]

i try not to get discouraged, but with the time and money that ive put into it... i do

I can imagine how frustrating it must be. I've had some frustrating moments myself and I've only been doing this for a month. In six months if my plants are all dying and the tank is covered in algae I'll be very disappointed.

Just one more piece of free advice, which is of course worth every penny. Don't stress out about it too much. Keep growing what grows in your tank and stick with it. At one point the only thing in my tank that was showing any signs of life was the anacharis and I was seriously considering just growing lots of that in my tank. Now it seems a little better so I'll see how it goes. But remember, this is supposed to be a hobby, so it should be enjoyable. Sometimes we just need to stop and watch the fishes.

 

[reiverix]

Well I think that having zero nitrates is one of your problems here. What about your PO4 level? At 2.7wpg and CO2 there's a good chance you are under fertilizing. Keep nitrates at around 10ppm and PO4 at about 1ppm. Don't let nitrates fall to zero because the algae won't mind but the plants need the nitrogen.

Also it could be you are under planted. You don't mention too many plants in your list but you are pumping CO2 and a fair bit of light in there. Get the plants to outcompete the algae for the nutrients.

 

[Discomafia]

Yea, try to go to your local fish auction or ask around for cheap plants, and stuff your tank full of 'em. Join your local aquarium society, sure to be a LOT of good deals there. Then you can see what plants do well in your tank, and then decide what to stick with. This advice has worked for me in the past. As for getting rid of your algae, this should help. Plants turning brown sounds like a lack of ferts...

 

[panboy]

yeah ive always thought it was a lack of fertilizer, so many times i put it more than i normally do. which if u read one of my other posts it talks about my algae problem and how i can not find the balance.

its either little fertilizer, good control of algae, plants die and become brown,
or....
more fertilizer, plants look better, green algae covering everything, from driftwood to intake filter, plus clumps of hair algae on my gravel....

i have been thinking about adding kno3 for nitrate, but still unsure, since not to many people use it, it seems theres another way around it. from what i know, plants need nitrates, and without them they cant grow, so i have lots of nutrients for the plants, but they cant use it.... that correct?

i dont have anything to measure phosphates.

the plants i listed is all i have, but i have lots of each.
my wisteria covered the back left corner, maybe 1/8 of my gravel, it grows ALOT but they dont look good.
my crypt on the back right is only 5 plants of wendtii but they are really large, and take up lots of space.
the contortion val is the most space taking, taking up probably 1/4 of my gravel, the middle back of the tank.
and i have 2 golf ball sized clumps of java moss that i forgot to list and my tiger lotus is super small.

so im not sure if that is not enough plants according to my wpg and co2 system.....

also.... one more thing..... sometiems i think i vacuum to much and dont let any nitrates build up. i know its best to vacuum, but since my plants need it, maybe i dont need to do it as much.... i have thought of this before...... but my tank gets a very heavy layer of something that is not poop that if disturbed easily floats around for hours and clouds my tank.
i know its not poop, because its a brown color, on the light side, and seems like loose floating something.... i dont know how to describe it. however, i vacuum that up like crazy every week.

thanks guys for the help, means alot

 

[guppygirl]

I would reccomend getting oto's or pleco's or Siamese algae eaters. That might help with your algae problem. Also, as said before, stuff a bunch of plants in there. Some good cheap ones are water sprite, java moss, hygrophila polysperma. Those should suck up nutrients and grow with the low light.