Dying plant

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Wcked

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Hey guys

I have a few plants that seem to have dying/dead shoots in them. There are live shoots in the same rootset.

Do I pull the dead stems out? Do I leave them to see if they recover?

Also any guesses as to why they died?

Cheers


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See if you can remove the plants temporarily, remove the decaying part and replant the living bits. As to why they died, there could be any number of reasons. What is the tank set up like? Do you have pressurised CO2? Do you dose ferts? How powerful are the lights? What species of plant is it?
 
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This type....

Yes to ferts. No to co2. A betta 5 minnows and a couple of shrimp will check lamp wattage when home. 13 gallon


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62a4d5bd11633333e159ac8aa8e6e9ff.jpg


This one and a blue one. For lighting.


4fcd28aba10398e392c60df482f18c8f.jpg


After the cull it's about a 50% loss was worse that I thought 2 rootsets binned and the rest trimmed


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Tropical plant growth premium fertiliser


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Wcked, there are good fertilizers (that contain all the nutrients plants need and bad fertilizers (few nutrients). From the web site(asuming I found the right one) no ingredients are listed. Only 4 are mentioned but there are 14 that are critical. Please look at the label and list the ingredients it contains.

I think your lighting is OK. Are you doing any water changes? At a minimum I would suggest a 30% water change once per week. Water changes help keep nutrient, mineral levels, and GH and KH water parameters stable. Also what tests do you run on your tank water and what are the last measured values?
 
It was the "best" LFS had any recommendations on U.K. Sites?im away for 3 days now so can't get any accurate numbers but I'll list what I can remember.

Last ammonia check was 0.3 ppm followed by a 30% water change!

Still cycling so nitrates and nitrites aren't right yet.

Doing 30% every 2 or 3 days.

Almost bang 7 ph

GH was about 40 mg/l
KH was about 50 mg/l


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It was the "best" LFS had any recommendations on U.K. Sites?

I use Sachem Flourish Comprehensive. I see it is available at amazon.co.uk. I am not saying the fertilizer you are using is bad. However I have had problems with a incomplete fertilizer as well as others. The link below list all the elements plants need and which should be in fertilizers. My phillosiphy is that if it isn't listed on the bottle assume it is not in the aquarium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_nutrition
 
tropica plant growth premium plus is one of the better fertilisers available, it is complete.

Compact fluorescent tubes have low light output, it may be that there isn't sufficient light for your stems - how long have they been in the tank?
 
How long has the tank been running?

I think you just need a LED light.

Do you waste your time vacuuming the substrate? If you do stop, you are wasting time and money, Most people vacuum their substrate throwing away good free fertilizer like fish poo and decaying leaves then go out and waste money on CO2 and fertilizer.

I have not vacuumed the substrate in this tank in over 16 months the ONLY thing I put in the tank is fish food and change 50% of the water once a week, All my tanks have Malaysian Trumpet snails in them.

This is my Betta sorority tank
5sDRHkH.jpg


The Ph is 7.2 I have no idea what the KH GH Ammonia Nitrite or Nitrate levels are, I gave up testing the tank water over a year ago.
 
Last edited:
It's not been running long tbh. Less than a fortnight.

So I need to find LEDs that will fit into my hood. No I haven't bothered vaccing the substrate yet, and I won't now!

Cheers for the help guys!


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https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B010T1RAWA/?tag=

Will this be bright enough? Do I get 2 white or 1 blue one white?


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Personally I would not go spending money on new lighting. Back in post #4 you said there are two, one white (in the photo) and one blue...is this correct? If so, I would replace the blue with another white. Blue light is necessary for photosynthesis, but red is more needed, and this will be in the white mix. More of the white should be better. Blue can also increase algae if the red is minimal.

The other issue is probably fertilizers, as Steven mentioned. Seachem's Flourish Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Aquarium is one complete, another is Brightwell Aquatics' FlorinMulti. Whichever you like. Stem plants are faster growing plants, so they need more light and nutrients. It is possible that some nutrients are insufficient (all are supplied by fish foods, fish and water changes, but not necessarily in sufficient quantities) but both these products have all of them (except for carbon, hydrogen and oxygen which occur naturally).
 
The 2 LEDs are £5 more than another white bulb. Which if there better I'm not worried about that


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