Changed Substrate..........

[Big_eyes]

I recently changed from horrid large gravel to a very fine almost sand type substrate. It's a very fine gravel but not quite sand. Since the change though my live plants aren't looking too good and a few seem to be slowly dying off.

Is this a usual thing or do some plants just not do well in denser substrates?

 

[Bobtastic]

Did you add any nutrient rich soil-like substrate underneath the new finer substrate? Or have you just go from course too fine gravel? I ask cos over time food and fish waste will have settled and started to decay in the old substrate which will have generated some nutrients for the plants to use to grow. The new substrate will obviously not have this for a little while.

In most typical planted tanks there is a clay-base substrate used to give plant roots some nutrients depending on this substrate it is either capped with sand/gravel or left as is.

Also are you dosing the water column with ferts? If you're not you'll not get the best growth out of your plants. That coupled with the change of substrate is probably starving them...

 

[Schmill]

With a new substrate that is currently 'naked' of any of the fish waste and left over food that can help plants in later times, I would be tempted to add some root tabs to your rooting plants, just to give them something to work with until the new substrate has matured.