My Plants Are A Bit Brown

[Ilya]

The only one that looks healthy is my java fern .

This guy really grew. But the bottom portion is kind of brown

The leaves of this one are getting bad.

One leaf is even pale!

Here is one of my snails. Awwe :3

 

[Themuleous]

Good good

 

[frozenbarb]

Looks like a Light Problem

 

[Ilya]

120 volt, 19 watt, fluorescent. And a 22 gallon. Is that enough?

 

[frozenbarb]

I would say Not enough. til you get better Lights you could rip of the leafs that are turning brown. on your Amazon swords. Since they are leaves that were in Emerged form

 

[fearce]

Hi,

I think im having the same problem with my plants.

I have a rio 125 with 2x 18w lights one normal tube and one plant growth tube.

Its on for about 11-12 hours a day.

I use no plant additives nor co2.

I this were I am going wrong. But I have heard and seen so many other success stories.

(BTW - Sorry If this hi-jacks, your post. But i guess the replies to this will help all!)

Thanks alot

 

[Underwurlde]

You have too much light for your environment.

I say this because light will stimualte growth, all be it a 'low' amount in this case (approx 1W / gal, is still enough for plant growth - it will just be slower plant growth). You've provided 1W/gal, so the plants will start growing and they will do. However the problem is that in wanting to grow the plants now need nutrients. Your environment lacks these nutrients so what happens is first off new plants will eat into their reserves (this is called 'buffering') and when this has run out, if lacking in a 'mobile' nutrient then the plant will take these mobile nutrients held in older leaves to provide for new emergent growth and this is why some of your older leaves are gradually turning brown (as the plant sucks these mobile nutrients out).

If you had more light then the plants will want to grow faster and would therefore need more nutrients; in other words in your case because the tank environment lacks nutrients, the older leaves will turn brown (and then die off and rot producing nasty old ammonia) quicker.

Learn what nutrients you need and get them into the tank for successful plant keeping!

Andy

PS
It also looks like you have a snail infestation. A physa acuta seems to have hitch-hiked into your tank via one of the plants. Try to get rif of them if I were you!

 

[Themuleous]

I dont necessarily agree with Andy there, 19w over a 22G is not a lot by any means, and not IMO to much light. He is right about the plants needing nutrients but none of the plants you have are demanding and will probably survive on what there is already floating about the tank and given to them via fish waste. I have two tanks that dont received ANY fertilisers and the plants in those are doing fine, not great but sufficient for my needs in those tanks Adding a liquid fert like seachem flourish trace wouldn't hurt though.

I reckon the light you have might not be the right type, i.e. not designed to promote plant growth. This could cause the leaves to turn brown.

Frozenbarb is right about the leaves being the emergent type on the sword. Once under water the plant ditches these and grows underwater leaves, which are longer and thinner. This is perfectly normal, espeicially with swords. Given a few weeks/months the plant will have replaced all its leaves with underwater leaves and should perk up a bit FYI Company's grow aquatic plants out of water, with just their roots in water as its easier to do, than growing them underwater, well as I understand it anyway.

Sam

 

[Underwurlde]

<snip>

 

[Underwurlde]

Perhaps I wasn't all that clear....

In saying 'too much light' I did not necessarily mean that 1W/Gal is too much light per se: what I meant was that 1W / Gal is a lot of light for this tank becaue it lacks nutrients.

Plants will grow better emergent because of the ariel advantage i.e. access to CO2.

Andy

 

[Themuleous]

Right I see, but why does a tank with 1WPG require nutrients to be added? Which ones are you suggesting? Are you saying that adding more nutrients would help the plants and thus help stop algae?

Sam

 

[Underwurlde]

Hi Sam.

All I am going on is the pics. I see leaf tips browning and I concluded therefore that a mobile nutrient within the leaf was being moved by the plant to areas of new growth. If nutrients in the plant are being moved around in this manner, the buffer will be depleted and this leads me to think that this chaps tank may have been lacking one or a number of nutrients for this to happen.

Adding the nutrient that is missing should help if this is the case, the rate of take up will be determined by the lighting levels (which is why I was thinking that more light would exasperate the problem).

Mobile nutrients that could be lacking such as Nitrogen (N), Phosphate (P), Potassium (K), Magnesium.

As for algae, I make no reference to that. Is that an issue as well do you think?

Thanks again,

Andy

 

[Ilya]

Well, I bought underwater tablets. And it's one leaf is still turning slowly brown. I also bought grass . How do those spread out?