My Vals Suck

[Ficious]

my 20 gallon planted has a. sword, a banana plant, and various valls. there arw a few valls that are groing ok but a lot of them, especialy my jungle vals, look very nutrition deprived. theyre becoming thin and pale...even see-through. a lot of the leaves are limp and look like crap!!

i use flourish twice a week and have a 25 watt eclipse natural light light bulb in there. my bana plant and amazon look good but i can get my valls to thrive.


could it just be my water quality? any recommendations welcome!

 

[tangokitty]

They are heavy root feeders so root tabs or rabbit poop would halp them out a lot! (I use rabbit poop on my root feeders and they grow like mad! I just add some every 6-8 weeks depending on growth rates)

 

[Ficious]

k ill get some root tabs next time im out

will they die completly? or can i remove any dead leaves and theylle be fine?

 

[johno]

i use flourish twice

As in, Flourish Excel? Are you aware that this is not a fertalizer? It is liquid carbon.

 

[Wolfenrook]

If it is Flourish Excel (not necessarily though, as they do a flourish that is a trace fert as well) then this is known to have a detrimental effect on simpler plants like val at higher dosages. The other thing that always comes to mind when people have problems growing val is calcium levels. Val flourishes in water that has a good calcium content, so medium to very hard water. Softer water it tends to do not so well in. It's the one plant that I have never needed to feed though, in tanks where I do use ferts it grows stupidly fast and is very high maintenance.

Ade

 

[Ficious]

well its Flourish, Comprehensive Supplement for the Planted Aquarium

made by seachem

it has nitgrogen, phosphate, potash?,calcium, Magnesium,Sulfur,Boron,Chlorine...etc...etc..zinc...(many, many other elements)

ive had the plants for about 1 month now.

this stuffs GOT to do something!!! my valls should be growing like crazy right?? ive seen other people planted tanks with valls and they were thick..heres a pic of the tank. notice the only thing that grows is the banana plant (which is amazing)

day 1

2 weeks later

if you can tell the jungle vals are in the back right and the ones up front are some sort of other vallesneria

 

[tangokitty]

I love your banana plant!

 

[Renate]

Try this site http/www.rexgrigg.com/mlt.html for ferts. He sells dry ferts for low price. In fact I bought 2lb of potassium sulfate for $2. Shipping was $5. but still better than the cost for liquid ferts.

 

[aaronnorth]

Turn the airstone off as to not drive any CO2 off that is already there.

 

[Ficious]

darn...i like that thing...is it ok to have some aeration?? my bichir and such need the air

 

[aaronnorth]

usually you just position the outflow of your filter to creat some surface agitation. - like mini waves. You could have it but it wont help.