Plant Problem

[gillicous]

hi all hope you can help,
have been enjoying a very healthy tank for the past 12 months but now all is falling apart with my plants
i have planted hydrophillia from the start which grew really well and looked vibrant i had to trim them back because they were growing to big .

since then the leaves have all gone black,soft and are falling off really bad although there are new shoots they soon die off to
any ideas whats going on my stats are ph6.5,nitrite 0 nitrate0.3 ammonia 0 temp30 celc
no longer have the sae

 

[three-fingers]

Lot's of questions first

What colour are the leaves before they go black?

Pictures of the plant and tank would help a lot too .

What flowrate does your tank have and what volume is your tank? It should say the litres per hour (L/H) on the pump.

What type of lighting is over your tank and what is it's wattage?

Do you have any other species of plant in the tank? Do you add fertiliser, and how often do you do water changes?

Hopefully with these answers myself and other members should be able to give detailed advice .

 

[Primous]

temp30 celc

I'm not sure which hygro you have but 30c is a little too high and could be the cause or a contributing factor. Hygro (on average) are best kept between 24-26C with a max of 28C so I'd look at adjusting your aquarium temp.

 

[CezzaXV]

I was also going to mention the temp. What fish are you keeping? There are very few fish which will benefit from a temperature that high.

 

[three-fingers]

They are keeping a discus-orientated community tank, so the temperatures fine . A mentioned, it will be a slight contributing factor - since the plants and algae will be growing slightly faster and require more nutrients - but really a few degrees C* shouldn't make a difference if you have everything else right .

The platies will be more disease-prone and short-lived at that temp though, would be better off in another tank if possible.

 

[gillicous]

Lot's of questions first

What colour are the leaves before they go black?

Pictures of the plant and tank would help a lot too .

What flowrate does your tank have and what volume is your tank? It should say the litres per hour (L/H) on the pump.

What type of lighting is over your tank and what is it's wattage?

Do you have any other species of plant in the tank? Do you add fertiliser, and how often do you do water changes?

Hopefully with these answers myself and other members should be able to give detailed advice .

hi thanks for getting back.
The leaves are green to start then go browny/green then black and squishy then fall off they are neary bare stalks now but there are new shoots growing at gravel level.
ive added no fertilizers
my flow rate is running at 3 times an hour with the media ive got in the filter
the plants have been growing really well just got bad all of a sudden
there are no other species of plant and i change 25% water every 3 days 60 imp gal tank
hope this helps have added new pics at top of album if you go to my link in my sig
thanks

 

[three-fingers]

What is the lighting? T8 or T5 tube and wattage?

Do you use RO water? Also I forgot to ask, lighting hours?

With hygro being such a fast growing plant, you not using fertilisers, such a low flow rate and high temp I would suspect the hygros running out of multiple nutrients and algae is just smothering it then it goes black and dies.

If this is the case would recommend adding lots more circulation by by means of another powerhead/wavemaker - I would recommend 10x per hour just to be sure, even though you may get away with less. It sounds like a lot but many, including myself use much more, and there are ways of diffusing the water flow or aiming the powerhead so its not uncomfortable for slow moving fish like discus. Also, when the plants grow, the water flow will be dampened massively.

Using Tropica Plant Nutrition + root tabs would be an easy way to provide some nutrients to the plants, they will most likely be very lacking in nitrogen as your waters so low in nitrates. Tropica Plant Nutrition + liquid would be faster-acting aand probably more effective. Not any fertilser will do, most dont contain nitrates and phosphates - which your plants seem to need.

Without knowing much about your lighting I dont know what to recommend there yet, but there are probably steps you can take that invlove either blocking out some light or reducing light timings .

 

[gillicous]

What is the lighting? T8 or T5 tube and wattage?

Do you use RO water? Also I forgot to ask, lighting hours?

With hygro being such a fast growing plant, you not using fertilisers, such a low flow rate and high temp I would suspect the hygros running out of multiple nutrients and algae is just smothering it then it goes black and dies.

If this is the case would recommend adding lots more circulation by by means of another powerhead/wavemaker - I would recommend 10x per hour just to be sure, even though you may get away with less. It sounds like a lot but many, including myself use much more, and there are ways of diffusing the water flow or aiming the powerhead so its not uncomfortable for slow moving fish like discus. Also, when the plants grow, the water flow will be dampened massively.

Using Tropica Plant Nutrition + root tabs would be an easy way to provide some nutrients to the plants, they will most likely be very lacking in nitrogen as your waters so low in nitrates. Tropica Plant Nutrition + liquid would be faster-acting aand probably more effective. Not any fertilser will do, most dont contain nitrates and phosphates - which your plants seem to need.

Without knowing much about your lighting I dont know what to recommend there yet, but there are probably steps you can take that invlove either blocking out some light or reducing light timings .

hi thanks for the reply im using t8 25watt aquaglo tube and its on for 8 hours from4-12oclock i live in Cornwall uk so my water is naturaly soft and ph6.5 and no chloramine perfect for the discus have brought the temp down to 29 hope the pics helped will lookin to the products you recomemded thanks

 

[jonnyf84]

get co2, photosyntheses is essential, follow other advice on lighting and ferts.

should help lower ph too if in a discus set up.

 

[three-fingers]

get co2, photosyntheses is essential, follow other advice on lighting and ferts.

should help lower ph too if in a discus set up.

pH is already at 6.5 and soft, and CO2 is not essential to add - fish and bacteria will produce it themselves for free. It wouldn't hurt to add a pressurised CO2 kit (other than the wallet ), but depending on how low the KH your water is, you could end up being down at pH 5.5 or lower and with your lighting it should be easy to run the tank without added CO2.

I would reduce the light timing to 4-6 hours a day, up the circulation and add a decent fertiliser/root tab.

The 1*C drop in temperature will make negligible difference, but can only help I guess . Once you have made the changes, you could try and get things kick-started with more plants, maybe try some other easy ones like different species of hygro or some Cryptocoryne spp..

 

[jonnyf84]

um, i said photosyntheses is essential, which it is for longevity. Fish and night time production of co2 from plants is not enough to sustain the vast majority of plants for any more than a year, at best.

 

[gillicous]

thanks for all the advice will be taking it all on board and will be implimenting them to keep the plants healthy and also the fish

 

[three-fingers]

um, i said photosyntheses is essential, which it is for longevity. Fish and night time production of co2 from plants is not enough to sustain the vast majority of plants for any more than a year, at best.

I'm sorry, but the bolded statement is just not remotely true, though the main contributor (which I listed) of CO2 in "natural" aquaria are usually bacteria, not fish or plants .

There are countless examples of aquariums that have thriving plant life for many, many years on the internet and in many books . A good start would be looking up "Walstad" style aquariums. Some don't even require water changes .

In fact every single one of my personal freshwater aquariums has gone well over a year without any artificial CO2... I will put up multiple dated pictures that span well over a year for each aquarium if you require this to believe what I'm typing...

I did read your post properly . Photosynthesis is obviously essential for plants to be grow full stop (never mind "longevity"), anyone who knows what the word means should know that...if an organism cant get "food", how would it survive? What you clearly implied with your post was that artificial CO2 supplementation is needed - which it most certainly is not .

Did you know some plants don't even need get their carbon from CO2? Some common aquarium plants like Vallis spp. do fine with carbonates (which is why they thrive so well in hard, alkaline water).

 

[jonnyf84]

You said fish produce it and I know her literature well, you took your time over that reply didn't you. I won't waste my time with a lengthy response.

which results in quicker, less nutrient deficient and more scape-able plants,

el natural or co2 and ferts?

 

[three-fingers]

You said fish produce it and I know her literature well, you took your time over that reply didn't you. I won't waste my time with a lengthy response.

Fish do produce it, as do bacteria, I don't see where your getting confused . If you knew it well, you would never had made the bolded statement in my above post. I don't count is as wasted time if somebody comes across this thread in a search and my blabbing on helps them understand the subject of plant nutrition, or just maintain a healthy aquarium stress-free. I generally don't time writing my posts, sometimes I get up for a cup of tea too .

Your just arguing high-tech vs low-tech for some reason . Different approaches that both work very well, all I took exception to were your inaccurate and very misleading statements

which results in quicker, less nutrient deficient and more scape-able plants,
el natural or co2 and ferts?

Thats not what the thread is about . In most cases additional CO2 and ferts will result in plants being less nutrient deficient "quicker", though "more scape-able" is entirely subjective. That is really very obvious and nobody in this thread implied anything otherwise, so I don't see why your making it out as a point. IMO any hygro is "more scape-able" when growing slowly though .

To conclude: pressurised CO2 is not necessary for a planted tank.