Dirting An Established Tank?

[RyanTheFishGuy64]

Hey Guys,
 
I have 10g that has been running for about 2 years, and my plants arent really doing anything at all. My Java Moss is the only thing that has visually grown. I have some Jungle Val that i have had for AT LEAST 6 months and it hasnt gotten any taller or had any runner. I have an Anubias that produces leaves ALL THE TIME. I get a new leaf probably once a week.  I also have Dwarf hairgrass that doesnt grow either. I have really bright lights, but my substrate is just inert sand. I dose phosphate and iron with water changes, with all of this I cant get the val or hairgrass to grow. Would it be worth it to dirt the tank? Would that have an impact? 

 

[Byron]

Yes and no, to both questions.
 
Aquatic plants will grow and even thrive in almost any substrate.  Light is the single most important factor, followed by nutrients.  These need to be in the water, and it is just as easy to add them as it would be to tear down the tank and reset it with dirt.  The dirt gives out anyway, so you would be back to where you are.  The only real advantage of using dirt is the initial higher level of CO2 occurring from the breakdown of organics in the dirt; it takes a sand or fine gravel substrate a few months to build up the organics to this level.  But even so, I have never found this an issue, and I have maintained fairly heavily planted tanks for 20+ years with gravel or sand.
 
I will need to know all the data before I might be able to pin-point the issue, if there is one.  Can you provide the lighting data?  You refer to it as "bright," but given that you are dosing both phosphate and iron, and assuming the plants are not doing any better than you think, you should be seeing a real algae mess.  Which leads me to wonder about the lighting.  Also, Anubias is a low light plant, and in bright light it almost always develops brush algae on the leaves.
 
I would not add phosphate to any planted tank, it is highly unlikely to be insufficient especially in low-tech setups.  Fish food contains all the phosphate a tan of plants is likely to need.  Iron might be missing, but this is only a micro-nutrient, and it would be better to be using a comprehensive (complete) liquid fertilizer which would contain iron but in balance with the other essential nutrients.  Some of these might be missing now, depending upon the tap water GH and the fish load/foods.
 
Once things are better, I would remove the Jungle Val.  This is a huge plant, with leaves that will easily grow to 3 feet and even longer.  A 10g will not provide the space for this.  However, on the Vall, can you also give me your GH of the tap water?  This is a genus of plants that always grows best in moderately hard to hard water, and as you are not presently adding any of the hard minerals, the only supply will be the source water.  If for instance you happen to have soft tap water, this is almost certainly the problem with Vall.  But knowing the GH will resolve this.
 
Byron.

 

[StevenF]

Lighting level recommendations I have been following these recommendations Low 12-17 LSI, medium 20-25LSI, high28-32 LSI.  LSI stands for Lux per squar inch of tank surface area.  (Lux or lumens are a measure of how bright the light is.  Don't use watts.  Watts is just a measure of how much electrical power the light uses and doesn't tell us how bright it is.  I am currently at medium on this scale.   Note this scale assumed your tank is less than 20 inches deep.  If your tank is deeper you will need more light.
 
There are two basic types of fertilizers micro and macro.  Macro nutrients are nitrogen(N), Phosphorous(P), and Potassium (K).  Generally you don't need to add Macro nutrients.  fish food generally has enough.  Also I have personally seen my plants stop growing (and Algae taking over) with phosphorous at 5ppm.  If you use Phosphorous fertilizer I would recommend having a phosphorous test kit and keep the levels as low as possible (less than 1ppm).
 
Micro nutrients are 20 or so elements that in general are only needed at very low levels in the aquarium.   Iron is one of these elements.  I have hard tap water and as a result I use RO water which has a GH of 25ppm (very soft).  RO water  totally lacks micro nutrients.  As a result plants will not grow. in RO water.  In my experience if you are low in any one of the micro nutrients your plants may not grow.  instead of just adding iron I would add a complete micro nutrient such as Seachem Flourish.
 
I wouldn't add dirt at this time.  Instead I would determine how bright your light is (its probably not as bright as you think it is). And determine your water harness GH is.  if your GH is very soft I would recommend adding a complete macro nutrient.  And until you know what your phosphorous levels are I wouldn't recommend using the phosphorous fertilizer.