My Plants Keep Dieing?

[Tropical sunset]

My plants for quite awhile now have been dieing and i cant understand why. I have a tropical tank 64 litre, and i've always had this problem... any clues as to what might be causing it? It's not really an emergancy it's just getting expensive that i have to replace the plants every month or so as i come home to find them broken appart and free floating in the water.

 

[kylealastairlove]

i had the same problem, with the same size tank couple of things to think about, research your plants, for example dont keep high light plants in a low light setup else they will die off, make sure if they are stem plants that the stems are not planted too closely at the bottom, space them out so the light can get to the bottom, else they will die off eventually, try dosing with some kind of fertilizer or having a dirt substrate could be useful for growth

 

[Tuxyu3]

What fish do you own?
Do you use CO2 or fertilisers?
What plants are they?
what kind of lights do you have?

Can't answer the question with no information

 

[Tropical sunset]

What fish do you own?
Do you use CO2 or fertilisers?
What plants are they?
what kind of lights do you have?

Can't answer the question with no information

I own 10 fish, 1 glass catfish, 2 rummy noses, 2 brittlenose plecos, 1 shrimp, 2 catfish (dont know what type but are nocturnal and are black with stripes[2]from head to tail and like to hide under things), 1 female platty, 1 walking tetra.
I DONT use CO2 or Fertilisers
Erm not quite sure what plants they are, i get them from pets at home usualy, and they all come with weights around the bottom of them.
I dont normaly use the lights in my tank and it is kept in a reasonably dark corner to be honest, as my room doesn't get much light and i go to college at 7:30am untill 5:00pm monday till friday. Otherwise the lights are standard ones, with a blue night time light.

Oh and i have a mixture of sand and gravel.

 

[Tuxyu3]

Well first off i would advise you to try dosing with liquid fertilisers, they are pretty cheap. I don't think any of those fish are prone to destroying plants so we can count that out. Maybe you could get a timer for the lights, again, not pricey. Standard lights could be anything, different tanks come with different standards.
The plants may need higher light or even CO2 but it is also a sad fact my Pets At Home and another LFS have been known to sell house plants labelled as aquatic ones - watch out for this.

My overall advice would be to do research and buy chosen plants online, this may be more expensive initially but if you do the research and choose well it will soon pay for itself by not needing to be replaced every month and you know for sure what species the plant is.

 

[Crossfire]

Tuxy's right...but about those fish...

Your a little overstocked....Can we get a picture of the catfish? And most of your fish need more of their kind to be happy

 

[ScholasticSpastic]

If you're buying bunch plants, you may be planting them wrong. Many of them require higher light or odd temperatures and all of them need to be taken out of the bunches and planted individually lest their stems rot. Many bunch plants aren't true aquatic plants or are supposed to be floaters, too. What sorts of plants are you planting? If the answer is "I don't know," it's probably time to do some homework.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I have a 60 litre tank and my plants are doing great. I have bacopa (mineri... sp?) near the back, java fern at the sides and anubia nana in the middle (tied to a rock), then some java moss tied to ornaments. I find all these plants do great with no care, just good water and medium light.

Oh, I also like to buy from a website called aqua essentials (not sure where you are, but if not in the UK, its at least worth a look anyway.) What I like about their website is that they give a good description of the plant, full heights, care requirements, etc. That was most helpful when I started adding most plants. So far, I've only made one mistake choosing a plant, but I thank them that I've done so well. Anyhow... their descriptions are informative even if you buy the same plants somewhere else.

 

[Aquascaper]

I dont normaly use the lights in my tank and it is kept in a reasonably dark corner to be honest

Personally, before spending more money on things, I'd try using your lights properly.

Plants need light to photosynthesise and produce 'food'
No light = No photosynthesis = No food = Dead plants