Plants Going Black, Then Holey

[geemacd]

I have various plants in my tank and the same thing keeps happening to all of them, they start to get a black greasy coating over the leaves and then the leaves start going holey & frayed around the edges.

75l aqua one 510 tank & lights are on for 7hrs a day with a homemade hagen co2 system fitted. I have 100g purigen pouch, ceramic nodules & filter wool & sponge in top filter, tank always sits around 26degrees. There is no fertilizer under the gravel at present.

Anyone got any ideas ?

 

[Underwurlde]

Your plants are deficient.

Hence: What ferts are you dosing?

Secondary q's:
What plants & how many?
What substrate?
What kind of lights & how many?
What levels of CO2 & is it stable?

Andy

 

[geemacd]

Your plants are deficient.

Hence: What ferts are you dosing?

Secondary q's:
What plants & how many?
What substrate?
What kind of lights & how many?
What levels of CO2 & is it stable?

Andy

here is my start up thread but the plants have changed since then, but the basic set-up hasnt except the addition of the hagen Co2 with a home made mix.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=169900&hl=

Ferts - I have flourish excel but I have not been using it much as I was told I wouldnt need to with the addition of Co2

Plants - Hygrophilia polysperma, hygrophilia corymbosa & echinodorus bleheri all get covered in the black slime then go holey & frayed. Ceratopteris thalictroides goes brown

Gravel - Just basic gravel bought from pets@home with a section of smaller gravel in from RH corner for cory's to play in, (you can see in the pictures in my start-up thread)

Lighting - Is the same lighting that came with the tank, tank spec is AquaStyle 510, 51 W x 54 H x 34 D cm, 75 L with 2 x 11W PL lamps. Is there stronger/better bulbs I can buy that will fit this tank ?

Readings -
GH = 60ppm (3drops of solution)
KH = 30ppm-40ppm
Although both are very hard to try and read
PH = 6.9
Tank = 26degrees
Co2 bubbles come up the ladder at a rate of 1 every 5 seconds, but thats only when the light is on (7-8hrs per day), as the room seems to be too cold any other time for the chamber to produce bubbles (20-22degrees).
Has anyone found a way to combat this (i asked this in another thread), chamber is damn ugly sitting on top of light section of lid ?
Water changes - 15l every week to 10 days (20%)

No longer use air pump during the night (coz it broke)

I was told in one LFS that the reason for the black was the lights were on for too long (approx 10hrs), so I cut back to the 7-8hrs I am using now, but no change

Please let me know if you need anymore readings or details.

 

[Underwurlde]

First off let me say that keeping plants is easily ten times more difficult to do than keeping fish IMO….

Anyway, less of the negativity.

OK, in order to sustain healthy plants they need, in order of some sort of preference:
Light: Is essential for photosynthesis. Not enough wattage or aging bulbs will stunt the plant growth.
Plants then require the following 17 elements:
90% of a plant’s bulk is made up of: Oxygen [O] & Hydrogen [H] <- in other words, Water, H2O and…Carbon [C], the basic building block of life <- in other words CO2.
Primary Macro-nutrients : Nitrogen [N], Phosphate [P], Potassium [K]
Secondary Macro-Nutrients: Calcium [Ca], Magnesium [Mg], Sulphur
Trace Elements: Boron [B ], Chlorine [Cl], Nickel [Ni], Copper [Cu], Iron [Fe], Manganese [Mn], Molybdenum [Mo], Zinc [Zn]

^ Give your plants that lot & they’ll grow. Miss any out and your plants will show signs of deficiencies.

OK, so your points first:

Ferts - I have flourish excel but I have not been using it much as I was told I wouldnt need to with the addition of Co2

Excel is not really ‘ferts’ – it is a substitute source of CO2 instead of injecting, so yes, if you are injecting, no need for this. However it does have it’s use because injected CO2 comes with it’s own set of problems.

Gravel - Just basic gravel bought from pets@home with a section of smaller gravel in from RH corner for cory's to play in, (you can see in the pictures in my start-up thread)

Gravel alone will not support any life – there is nothing in it. Also NOT a good idea for cory’s!

Lighting - Is the same lighting that came with the tank, tank spec is AquaStyle 510, 51 W x 54 H x 34 D cm, 75 L with 2 x 11W PL lamps. Is there stronger/better bulbs I can buy that will fit this tank ?

Utterly useless for a planted tank. Start a new thread on this and aim for 2.0Watts / US Gallon. You want the right lights for plants.

Readings -
GH = 60ppm (3drops of solution)
KH = 30ppm-40ppm
Although both are very hard to try and read
PH = 6.9

And herein lies the first problem of using CO2 – measuring it. I won’t go into this here but believe me, measuring CO2 is a pain in the butt. And, you need to do this because you have to keep the levels of CO2 CONSTANT! From those figures you have with KH at 35ppm, i.e. 2 dKH° (are you sure, this seems VERY low to me?) gives CO2 of: 7.5ppm. This is very low and you should be aiming for >20ppm, but again STABLE!

Co2 bubbles come up the ladder at a rate of 1 every 5 seconds, but thats only when the light is on (7-8hrs per day), as the room seems to be too cold any other time for the chamber to produce bubbles (20-22degrees).
Has anyone found a way to combat this (i asked this in another thread), chamber is damn ugly sitting on top of light section of lid ?

These DIY kits have their uses, but as you’ve seen, not without their problems. So my first piece of advice: If I were you I would ditch the CO2 kit and go back to using Excel. I have good reasons for saying this: CO2 ‘issues’ i.e. maintaining a high enough, stable level can be difficult to do and if not achieved can lead to algae problems (the black slimy stuff on the leaves).

No longer use air pump during the night (coz it broke)

Good, you don’t want to be using this with CO2 anyway because they act to reduce the levels of CO2 in the water you’ve painstakingly tried to put in.

I was told in one LFS that the reason for the black was the lights were on for too long (approx 10hrs), so I cut back to the 7-8hrs I am using now, but no change

I’ll come clean, I don’t really know exactly what lights came with your tank, but based on the grounds that I have NEVER heard of adequate lighting supplied with tanks… Anyway, lighting period of about 8 to 10 hours is fine BUT, because your lighting is too much for the lack of CO2 and ferts in your tank (an imbalance) then algae can and is starting to get a foothold in your tank.

Is this making sense yet?

So, what to do?

Read this: http/www.barrreport.com/articles/433-non-co2-methods.html

I mention this article because it shows you how to keep plants simply: Low maintenance and no need for massive lighting and the problems of CO2 etc. If you like the sound of this then proceed:

1) Get some decent lighting in there, only need 2WPG

2) Get a decent substrate in there!!! Put something down to a level of a couple of inches like Red Sea FloraBase, Eco-Complete, Flourite etc mixed with mulm (<-you’ll already have some of this!). Then cap this off with 2 to 3 inches of sand (or similar) or if you like a dark substrate with a bit more ‘life’ in it for the plants, try Onyx sand (as it has added calcium, magnesium and iron).

3) Now bung your plants back in.

4) Dose ferts once a week and use Excel for CO2.

Hope this helps,

Andy

 

[vinylman]

You'll notice a massive improvement just by using proper lighting. Try an Arcadia Luminaire. I've doubled the lighting from 40w to 80w on my 4ft tank and now I'm even growing Cabomba, which I'd always failed with before. Aim for ten hours lighting to start with, then see if you need more or less. Lighting isn't everything, of course, but it's a massive improvement when you get it right.

 

[geemacd]

You'll notice a massive improvement just by using proper lighting. Try an Arcadia Luminaire. I've doubled the lighting from 40w to 80w on my 4ft tank and now I'm even growing Cabomba, which I'd always failed with before. Aim for ten hours lighting to start with, then see if you need more or less. Lighting isn't everything, of course, but it's a massive improvement when you get it right.

problem with that is :
a/ it cost money and that is something that is in very short supply at the moment and seems destined to be for the foreseeable future
b/ I use the in-lid filtration on the tank, so to change to an over-head lighting system would mean buying an external filter also.

Thanks for the idea though, in an ideal world then this is something I would love to go to as I think it even looks better than a enclosed tank, never mind the other benefits I would get from it.

I am going to have to move the tank to another room in the house soon which will mean taking out most of the water, I dont know whether to take out the gravel also to put in some sort of substrate under it at that time (will need to figure a way to rehouse fish while I am doing all this without getting a major spike after I put everything back in

 

[vinylman]

Yes, I'd definitely take the opportunity of moving the tank to put in an undergravel fertiliser. I used Tetra Complete Substrate, and it's been fabulous; I noticed the difference even before I got the Luminaire. You won't believe how well roots will grow in it. Sometimes you can get the Luminaires very cheaply on eBay. If you go that way, just be careful to use someone who has been selling on there for some time. Don't forget to re-wash your gravel before putting it back in the tank after the move - it holds very little bacteria, most of it lives in the filter.