my green thumb

[gaya]

I'm so bummed. I got some micro sword grass on line and some glosso. I planted the glosso which is turning yellow. I took the micro sword and separtated it and potted them. Now the grass is turning yellow/transparent. Maybe i damaged the roots as i was separating it. I don't know. I have CO2 going but it's not working as well as i would like. I'm using power compact at 130 watts. The tank is a 30g. i also added some K and Fe supplement fertilizer. What else should i do?
thanks in advance.

 

[Angry_Platy]

Yellow leaves indicated an iron deficiency. How often are you fertilising? My plants went very green once I started fertilising every week. The fertiliser I use is a micronutrient fertiliser with very low levels of phosphate and nitrate.

What is wrong with your CO2? I am sure that if you can get it working well then your plants willo be a lot better off.

At 130watts, on a 30gall tank, it is nearly 4wpg, which is very high lighting. Perhaps the plants you have can't handle such high light. But then if that were the case I am pretty sure they get "burnt" and would appear brown rather than yellow.

What other plants do you have? Are they growing well? I have found there are some plants that I cannot grow no matter how hard I try....like Cabomba....it will NOT grow in my tank.

Not a "cure" for you but certainly some things you can think about.....

 

[gaya]

Hi Angry,

I have planted some glossostigma. i want that to form a carpet which is why i have such high light. I'm using a substrate that consists of regular gravel, eco-lite and florite. I also have the micro sword grass which i separated into separate bunches. i got 4 really huge bunches of it and i wanted to break it up and spread it around. I was careful when separating and i didn't let the plants dry out. I have put these in little plastic pots. maybe this is not enough room for the roots? I put them in pots cuz i'm not yet sure where i want to plant them.

That's pretty much it right now. I have a tank full of plants awaiting transfer but i wanted to see what the glosso would do first. The CO2 is now working. I fiddled with the hose and it started pumping bubbles out so i guess that is ok. I've read on the internet that with some plants (like crypts) they can start melting when moved to new conditions. I got these plants last saturday. The grass was lush green when it arrived and now it is going transparent. I put in fertilizer a couple of days ago that had Fe and K in it. I don't know what else i can do.

 

[Angry_Platy]

The only thing I can suggest at this point gaya is to give either gf225 or Konrad a PM....they have always been very helpful when I have had questions.

HTH.

 

[gaya]

thanks angry

 

[guppygirl]

To my knowledge, crypts are the only plant that will "melt" under changing conditions. I hardly think glosso and microsword will.

 

[gaya]

the microsword has turned transparent and i don't know how different that is from melting though i guess it may not be goey (sp?). I also got some ambulia from them (arizona aquatic gardens) and the stuff just disintegrated within one day.

 

[abstract]

sounds bizarre to me - only thing i can think of is too much lighting....

 

[gaya]

sounds bizarre to me - only thing i can think of is too much lighting....

i must have damaged the roots on the micro sword cuz i have the stuff in two different tanks with different lighting. plants used to be so easy.

 

[Nospherith]

I'm afraid the thing you should concerned about with that much light is algae. It's a dubious proposition that 4wpg light will kill your plants, in fact it may make them merely metabolize faster.

 

[gaya]

For so long i didn't have enough light. I bought the pc system that was meant to fit this tank. i do have my CO2 going. and i intend to heavily plant this tank so hopefully i can avoid algae but with my luck who knows. I do have a uv system that is not currently hooked up. that might help. I wonder if this is too much light for the fish. maybe i should get a different bulb? have one 6500K and the other something else?

 

[Nospherith]

~6500K is good. Get anything much lower than that and the lights might appear a yellowish or reddish color. Anything greater will be used less by the plants and more by the algae.

What kind of diffusion are you using for your CO2? If it's just an airstone (like me )) there probably isn't enough diffusion. I'm considering getting some bubble ladders from Foster and Smith.

Anyway, it's too bad what's happening to your glosso and microsword. I would have thought that they would grow spectacularly well considering your lighting situation. I think Angry Platy might have the right idea when pointing out a possible iron deficiency. But you were dosing Fe so I don't know. It's not root damage.

 

[gaya]

for my CO2 i have one of those plastic ladder looking things...diffuser. i have some communication problems. I think it is working well. At first i didn't see many bubbles from the system at all but after two days! i'm getting a bubble every few seconds and it rides along this ladder thing and gets smaller and smaller as it travels. by the time the bubbles reach the top of it they are almost dissapated. it's pretty cool.

I'm gonna give my plants a good trim tonight, do some water changes. hopefully their just acclimating.

btw, does any one know if clown loaches eat plants. my penny wort has holes in it and they look like fishy bite marks

 

[abstract]

i dont think clowns eat plants but i have never kept them before ..what other fish are in there? usually holes in leaves indicate some kind of nutrient deficiency i think...

 

[gaya]

I've been adding nutrients to my tank. i also have three female gups, 3 otos, and an angel in there. hmmm. i hope none of them are eating my plants. i should go pick up some veggies just in case as i haven't treated them in awhile. The other day my angel took in a inch long stem that was floating around. I was afraid she was gonna choak! None of my little guys like zuccini and cucumber, they just let it rot in the tank. I read in another thread today that clowns dig potatoes. I'll give that a try.