Plants Dying

[dave_m13]

Hi All

I have a 365 litre tank with 4 40w bulbs, 2 are white, 1 Blue, 1 purple.

I have sand substrate nothing else. I have added quite a lot plants but plants with the bigger leaves such as Amozon swords just do not grow and then go brown and then leaves just die.
I have some camboba that does grow quite quickly but the after a while the bottom steams start to go yellow. Basically apart from a couple of plants all seem to look to be dying. Even the hornwort that is floating is growing but then turns brown.

I have a bag that I purchased that is supposed to have all the nutrients needed for my tank.

Readings are

Amm 0
Nitirte 0
Nitrate 10-30
Phosphate looks about 1
PH 7.2 - 7.6

Any ideas why this maybe happening?

Thanks
Dave

 

[Jen]

I'm thinking its a lighting problem. You say you have 1 blue and 1 purple light... do you know the kelvin rating for these bulbs?

 

[DanDanUK]

Hi All

I have a 365 litre tank with 4 40w bulbs, 2 are white, 1 Blue, 1 purple.

I have sand substrate nothing else. I have added quite a lot plants but plants with the bigger leaves such as Amozon swords just do not grow and then go brown and then leaves just die.
I have some camboba that does grow quite quickly but the after a while the bottom steams start to go yellow. Basically apart from a couple of plants all seem to look to be dying. Even the hornwort that is floating is growing but then turns brown.

I have a bag that I purchased that is supposed to have all the nutrients needed for my tank.

Readings are

Amm 0
Nitirte 0
Nitrate 10-30
Phosphate looks about 1
PH 7.2 - 7.6

Any ideas why this maybe happening?

Thanks
Dave

Try some Co2 and also you could try getting some aqua glo bulbs both will help to promote plant groth.

Also you could try Irish moss peat it alters your PH so you would need to find a balance.

 

[Jen]

also... are you fertalizing the tank at all?

 

[dave_m13]

Sorry do not know what the kelvins are, the lights came with the tank.
The bag that I have is supposed to provide all the fertilising I need but obviously its not providing enough.

I have a smaller tank that I add a small amounts of osmosis water so that the water is softer and the plants do seem to be doing well. Do you think doing the same in the larger tank would make any difference?

 

[Jen]

What does the smaller tank have for lights?

Can you tell me anything more about the light in the big tank? Is it a flourescent fixture, or power compact? Do the bulbs themself look blue and purple, or is that just the colour they give off? How long have you had these lights?

 

[dave_m13]

Smaller tank only has 2 x 15W Plant bulbs I think arcadia freshwater, so only about 1WPG

Just checked the lights
2 of the lights it says Water plant 40W, these are white.
1 says Fresh/Sea aqaurium, 40W give off purple
the other one cannot see the writing but this gives off a blue light

from what I can tell the bulbs are white flourescent that give off the different colours, they are 4 x 48" and are all connected as one but have 2 switches but the way they are wired you can if needed turn the white lights off and have just the purple and blue sort of like the night.

Only had the lights since December

 

[Jen]

Ok. I'm thinking this is a fixture meant for salt water tanks. Does it look something like this?

 

[dave_m13]

It looks sort of similar but has the purple light at front then white then the middle part then Blue and then White again. Does not have a reflector
Do you think it maybe worth getting 2 more plant lights?
What bulbs are you using on yours?

Forgot to say I have a small nutrafin Co2 unit on small tank

 

[Jen]

So your bulbs are the double sticks? 2 tubes from 1 socket? Thats power compact. I have that exact fixture.

I use 4 of the white bulbs. They are 65watts each, and reated at 6400K (kelvin). Plants need white light to grow. White light is rated in the 6000k to 6700k range. This range is basically described as a sunny day without clouds. The blue and purple light will be too 'cool' in colour for the plants to use. To buy these bulbs at my fish store, they are 50CAD each, so I get them off a guy on ebay for 6 bucks.

What is your co2 level?

Since you have lights and co2, what are you doing for fertalizer?

 

[dave_m13]

I think it has 2 sockets for 2 bulbs, pretty sure it is seperate for each bulb.
I will have to look on ebay to see what I can get, maybe will try some reflectors as well.

Sorry do not have CO2 on this tank I am looking to get something. Not sure when though.
I was using a I think a nutrafin gro fertilizer, then I purchased a bag that is supposed to do the fertilizing to the tank, this was purchased from an online plant seller, in the UK. Very good plants.

I think I may have to get 2 more lights try different ferts and get CO2 then hopefully the plants will be ok

 

[Jen]

Yeah... I would look at getting 2 new white bulbs first.

Have you got a link for the fertalizer bag?

 

[dave_m13]

Here is the link, does not give you that much info but the leaflet that came with it did have lots of info.

http/www.aquaticplants.eu.com/acatalog/Plant_Food.html