What's Going On?

[Amunet]

We added in the new CO2 nutrafin yeast kit thing to the tank last weekend. I thought our plants would be doing well, but it seems as though they're doing terrible.
The bubble ladder thing is doing great, we're getting alot of bubbles, I'm also putting in liquid ferts, and just.. I dunno.
I thought the plants would've been doing better after a week, but they just look so scraggly and yellow and look like they're dieing.
The only plant that looks like it's benefitted at all is the Melon Sword.
I had to take out the moss balls that were in there b/c they were starting to turn brown.
And the marble queen radican sword, alot of it's leaves are getting these brown blotchy dead spots or going that pale green thin leaf color.

What's wrong? I have no idea what our lighting is.. it's whatever came with the tank. Think it could be b/c there's not enough wpg? But the plants were doing fine before the CO2 system was put in..... sigh

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Amunet]

bumping since I don't want it to disappear before it gets at least one response.

 

[R1ch13]

Well find out what your light is and then people might be able to help!

And you might wanna get a nice nutrient rich base in there if you dont already

But all i can think of is lack of nutrients from the root and also low lighting

Richie

 

[Amunet]

But that's just the thing, I don't think the lighting is a problem considering that the plants were doing great before.
Oh well... I'm gonna see if we can go back to the petstore next Monday and get new lighting.
Also see if any place has any plant substrate as well..

 

[nry]

Can you give us a brief overview of how you got to the stage you are at? Are these new plants? What species are they? What fertiliser are you using?

In a low light tank (generally a tank using the original lighting in the hood) then CO2 won't make a huge difference, it should help to grow things a bit more lush but the plants certainly won't grow as fast as those in a higher light tank.

 

[Underwurlde]

Your plants are showing signs of defficiencies. (God I hate spelling that poxy word).
This much is obvious because of the way they look.
So why is it worse now that you've added CO2?!?!?! Seems weird doesn't it, but not so in my mind.

OK, in order to grow, plants need:
Hydrogen and Oxygen <- in other words water
Give them Light...
Then they need Carbon - the basic building block. This comes from CO2 in whatever form.
Then they need Macro-nutrients (NPK).
Then they need Micro-nutrients (Trace).

Some of the above nutrients are mobile within the plant itself: As the plants grow (or try to grow) the plant can if it cannot get it from elsewhere (from the roots or leaves) get these nutrients from old leaves and give them to new. This shows up as yellowing etc of existing leaves.

You are seeing this effect. Before your plants were Carbon limited - they therefore did not grow much and hence did not need much nutrients. Now, however you've given them the lighting & carbon they need to grow, but oops, some nutrients are lacking - plant thinks: 'better start breaking the old leaves down to support the new'.

Simple solution is therefore now to start correctly dosing a COMPETE set of ferts & I think your plants will start to flourish. Most efficent way for plants is to dose directly into the water column - i.e. into the leaves. <- if you do this, of course, you won't need to go ripping your tank up and add expensive fancy substrates! (If dosing the water column, think of the use of such substrates as an 'I've forgot to dose my ferts this week' buffer ).

Andy

PS not really a lighting problem in my mind. Just think of lighting as an accelerator peddle: the more you have the faster the plants grow and hence the faster any problems show themselves. IMO you don't HAVE to have massive amounts of light. I am happy with less than 2w/gal - all this means is that my plants grow slower and this means I can dose less (cheaper) and I have less constant pruning to do (more time for me). It just means that it takes a bit longer for my 'scapes to become apparent. Let your plants speak for themselves (as they are doing so now!) and adjust ferts to suit them. Up to you what you want really....

 

[Amunet]

Ah thank you for explaining all of that.
In that tank, there is currently, 1 marble queen radican sword, 1 melon sword, and 2 dieing marble queen swords that I clipped off of the big one... think they're called sister plants? or something like that.
Also have some sort of stem? plant.. not sure what it is, looks like this stuff http/www.plantgeek.net/images/plantpics/mayaca.jpg
but not sure if it is that.. since fish store we get plants from only have their stem plants listed as "bunched plants"...
The only new plant we did get were 2 mossballs that started to turn brown (took them out) and some other sort of stem plant (think it was red foxtail) but it all died :\

Before our marble queen was growing really well.. was getting about 2 leaves a week, but now.. pfftt..

Anywho! Sooo.. I should be adding in more fert? If we don't get any plant substrate, what sort of liquid ferts or tablets or whatever should we be getting?
Right nowe we're using Sera Florena liquid plant food.

 

[Maximumbob]

Plants need a balance of light co2 and ferts (N, P, K ad trace). You have increased the co2.. you must now balance the rest.

As commented above your light is probably ok. But could you please tell me anyway what type of bulb, length, wattage and type it is. It all helps.

Secondly, plants take nutrients from the substrate and water column. You can add to the water, but a good substrate is hard to beat. Failing that I use the JBL root balls. They last for ages and my plants love them - not too expensive either.

You will find that when you disturb the balance of light co2 and ferts you will have an unsettled period where you struggle to find the balance again. This is normal.

One important thing to remember that my Grandad always taught me... 'You cant polish a turd!' By this I mean, if the plants where in a poor condition when you start its going to be a nightmare struggle to get them good looking again. This is why you see all the planted tank guys rambling on about how good tropica plants are - they are such high quality it makes growing them easy from the start.

The stem plant you have is likely elodea which is common place in LFS. Its an excellent starter plant and actually secretes chemicals to reduce algae growth. Mae sure you take off the lead weight & sponge at the bottom of the stems, remove any part which look rotten and pop it in the substrate each stem about 1" apart.

As regards your choice of ferts, I have no experience with the sera range, but I can recommend the seachem flourish and trace combined with the JBL root balls as an excellent combo. Its what I started using when I first got real plants.

How many bubles per minute are you getting up your co2 ladder btw?

Good luck with your plants... once you've gone planted you wont look back!!

 

[Underwurlde]

'You cant polish a turd!'

Brilliant.

Does your Grandad speak from experience then? Has he actually tried to polish said turd?

Andy

 

[Amunet]

I looked to see what the watts were on the bulb but it's a fluorescent.. and uhm.. yeah I didn't see anywhere on the bulb or anywhere on the lighting part that says what it would be.

We're gonna be getting some more plants this Monday hopefully so if these we still have keep going downhill we'll have new ones to work with.

Right now we're getting about 14 bubbles per minute from the ladder

 

[Amunet]

Alrighty, we went to Petsmart after dinner tonight.
I couldn't look around too much since my 3yr old niece was dragging me around the store, but we got this stuff called First Layer Pure Laterite. They had a bag of some sort of substrate stuff as well, but I wasn't able to look at it.
So is this laterite stuff good?
Do I have to remove my fish when adding this stuff into the tank? Should I just add it into the spots where the plants are? If so, how much?
Also would a tank without any extra CO2 being added benefit majorly from some of this stuff being added? If so definitely going to add some to my 10 gallon.
I've been reading some of the topics when I did a search, but I tend to forget what I just read unless it's all in a single thread.

I'm sure I had more questions but I can't remember them now.

 

[Maximumbob]

removing fish and adding a substrate is a big job - I would recommend plant tabs for a beginner TBH. Somehting like jbl 7 balls etc.

If you are keen to go down the replacing the substrate route (which I am planning to do this summer) then I would recommend reading this

Oh and Underwurld... no he was a wise ole dude, he didnt go there with a turd!

 

[Underwurlde]

^ LOL

Laterite:
I believe the German company Dupla was the first to market Laterite for the aquarium. Since it is found in the same tropical regions as the plants we use come from, and Laterite run off is found in the waters of the tropics, it seems a logical conclusion that Laterite is part of tropical plants natural element. The high concentration of iron provides an unlimited source of the mineral for the plants, it is however void of any other minerals and contains no organic material as a source of nitrogen. The oxidized iron (Fe3) can be turned into Fe2, (the form of iron most easily used by plants) by organic acids in the aquarium. This happens naturally as the aquarium ages, but can be sped up by adding a small amount of peat to the Laterite. It is also believed that the soft texture of the lateric soil is conducive to plant root hairs and may be able to absorb other nutrients from the water.

To use Laterite, you mix a small amount with gravel or course sand and add peat if desired, to the bottom layer of the substrate and then cover it with at least two inches of a top layer of gravel or sand. Using Laterite instead of a clay gravel enables you to use any type of decorative gravel you choose. It also does not affect the pH or add silica to the water. Many people have sworn that they get tremendous growth with plants such as Echinodorus and Cryptocorynes.

I'd also put some mulm down as the first layer.

Do you need to do this
No, you don't. If dosing ferts directly to the water column means (as I said above I think) that your substrate can be anything - even just sand or gravel.

 

[Amunet]

Yeah, we're not replacing substrate though.. just adding in some under what's already in there.

I've read that thread though, which is what got me wanting the plant substrate hehe...

Anywho... I think we might get plant tabs as well cause I'm not sure if the laterite stuff would be good enough for the plants to flourish.

If anyone has experience using this stuff, it would be super if ya shared some info on it! hehe


EDIT: I type too slow and didn't see Underwurlde's new post.. thank ya much for the info!

 

[Castellop123]

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