Panadalover93
Fish Fanatic
No its on top of my tank
Why are my floating plants melting
- Thread starter Panadalover93
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For the simple reason thay they shadow plants below.
How many bubbles/minute of CO2 ?
Detailed list of your plants + overall pictures of tank.
But link is saying "underwater".
I think spectrum isn't suitable to floatings : too white bluish, too long lighting.
How many liters ?
Spectrum should be around 6500°K. closed to this :
Not in one go !
Decrease it by increments of 30 min. every 5 days.
Cut back? As in the roots? This does promote growth. However, I don’t recommend it for yours, because they are in such bad condition.
Plants are unlikely to die from too much light and 12 hours a day is not causing this.
Floating plants can suffer from lack of light even if they are right underneath the light unit. It's not common but low wattage globes might not be providing sufficient light for the particular plant.
Most floating plants live in full sunlight in the tropics and the intensity of the sunlight they get is extremely high compared to aquarium lights.
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If the OP is doing a huge water change before adding the fertiliser, that is fine because the water change removes most of the remaining nutrients and the plants will not be suffering from an excess of nutrients. Most floating plants love nutrients and will quite happily grow in 4 or 5 times the recommended dose of fertiliser.
The directions on aquarium plant fertilisers are mainly so you don't overdose and poison the fish and other inhabitants. The plants will take much higher doses without any adverse effects.
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All floating plants do not naturally live in humid environments. Yes they live on the surface of water and it is humid due to the water. But they do not have a glass or plastic cover a few inches above them and they do not normally get kept in high humidity environments. Their leaves normally remain dry and in extremely humid conditions, many species of floating plants will start to rot. This usually appears as black around the edge of the leaves and leaf gradually turns black and dies.
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You don't prune floating plants and don't cut their roots because they use the roots to take up nutrients. Any damage to the plant (leaves, stem or roots) can allow fungus, bacteria or viruses into the plant and these can kill the plant.
Floating plants can suffer from lack of light even if they are right underneath the light unit. It's not common but low wattage globes might not be providing sufficient light for the particular plant.
Most floating plants live in full sunlight in the tropics and the intensity of the sunlight they get is extremely high compared to aquarium lights.
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If the OP is doing a huge water change before adding the fertiliser, that is fine because the water change removes most of the remaining nutrients and the plants will not be suffering from an excess of nutrients. Most floating plants love nutrients and will quite happily grow in 4 or 5 times the recommended dose of fertiliser.
The directions on aquarium plant fertilisers are mainly so you don't overdose and poison the fish and other inhabitants. The plants will take much higher doses without any adverse effects.
------------------
All floating plants do not naturally live in humid environments. Yes they live on the surface of water and it is humid due to the water. But they do not have a glass or plastic cover a few inches above them and they do not normally get kept in high humidity environments. Their leaves normally remain dry and in extremely humid conditions, many species of floating plants will start to rot. This usually appears as black around the edge of the leaves and leaf gradually turns black and dies.
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You don't prune floating plants and don't cut their roots because they use the roots to take up nutrients. Any damage to the plant (leaves, stem or roots) can allow fungus, bacteria or viruses into the plant and these can kill the plant.
In my experience with floating plant light levels, spectrum and humidity, and CO2 levels don't cause what your are seeing. Plants need nutrients other than light CO2 and water. There are 3 primary source for these nutrients:
1 your water
2 your fish
and your substrate.
Your location is listed as Kuwait. Kuwait has no natural source of fresh water. All drinking water if from desalination. Meaning your tap water probably has no nutrients.
If you have a lot of fish the fish waist would release nutrients into the water. unfortunately I only see 2 or 3 fishing the two photos. So you probably don't have enough fish to satisfy the needs of the plants.
Now most gravel substrates are inert and generally provide no nutrients However in some case they do have some nutrient. for plants. Some people use dirt substrates. These have more nutrients. Nowthe plants burried in the substrate can access substrate nutrients. However thefloating plants cannot. One problem with substrates is that any nutrients they have will eventually run out. When that happens you have to replace the substrate. but there isno way of knowing if the new substrate will have enough nutrients.
Keep in mind that plants need 14 nutrients to grow. If you don't have enough of just one your plants will not grow. The nutrients are nitrogen (N), Pottassium (K), Calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), phosphorous (P), Sulfur, Chlorine (CL)(as a safe chloride salt), iron (Fe), Born (B), Zinc (Zn), Copper (Cu), Molybdenum (Mo), and nickel (Ni).
In my case I couldn't find a fertilizer that would work with my water. I eventually made my own fertilizer. There is one fertilizer in the UK (TNC) that looks like it would work for me but it is not available in the US. I have no idea as to what is available in Kuwait.
I am at a loss as to what to recommend you could try more fish in your tank but that is problably not good for the fish in your small tank. You could try making your own fertilizer but in some countries it can be very hard to get the required fertilizer salts due to llegal issues. You could reduce or eliminate water changes to let fish waist build up but that could be harmful to your fish. but that said I have seen post about tanks that don't or rarely get water changes.
1 your water
2 your fish
and your substrate.
Your location is listed as Kuwait. Kuwait has no natural source of fresh water. All drinking water if from desalination. Meaning your tap water probably has no nutrients.
If you have a lot of fish the fish waist would release nutrients into the water. unfortunately I only see 2 or 3 fishing the two photos. So you probably don't have enough fish to satisfy the needs of the plants.
Now most gravel substrates are inert and generally provide no nutrients However in some case they do have some nutrient. for plants. Some people use dirt substrates. These have more nutrients. Nowthe plants burried in the substrate can access substrate nutrients. However thefloating plants cannot. One problem with substrates is that any nutrients they have will eventually run out. When that happens you have to replace the substrate. but there isno way of knowing if the new substrate will have enough nutrients.
The common answer to nutrient problems is to use a fertilizer. However many fertilizers assume your water has some nutrients. This is true for flourish. In fect flourish was designed with the assumption that your have a lot of fish or nutrient rich water. You don't have either. My experience with RO water and an inert substrate is that flourish comprehensive does not work unless you overdose. Unfortunately flourish is so low in some nutrients that even if you use 15 times the recommended dose you would still not have enough copper or zinc to get good plant growth and the amount of iron in the water will be getting close to toxic levels for fish. Reducing the dose of flourish will also not work.
Keep in mind that plants need 14 nutrients to grow. If you don't have enough of just one your plants will not grow. The nutrients are nitrogen (N), Pottassium (K), Calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), phosphorous (P), Sulfur, Chlorine (CL)(as a safe chloride salt), iron (Fe), Born (B), Zinc (Zn), Copper (Cu), Molybdenum (Mo), and nickel (Ni).
In my case I couldn't find a fertilizer that would work with my water. I eventually made my own fertilizer. There is one fertilizer in the UK (TNC) that looks like it would work for me but it is not available in the US. I have no idea as to what is available in Kuwait.
I am at a loss as to what to recommend you could try more fish in your tank but that is problably not good for the fish in your small tank. You could try making your own fertilizer but in some countries it can be very hard to get the required fertilizer salts due to llegal issues. You could reduce or eliminate water changes to let fish waist build up but that could be harmful to your fish. but that said I have seen post about tanks that don't or rarely get water changes.
You could talk to this person to see what he does to get good growth. Maybe he knows of a better fertilizer.
Panadalover93
Fish Fanatic
Wow such great advise.
Heres the thing; this 5 gallon is a new one i started about 2 weeks ago. Substrate is extra fine sand. With 2 root tabs by seachem.
Plants are all fine i have cabomba. Rotala. Microsword. Java moss. Amazon sword. And some hygrophilia . In addition to the floating plants. Floating plants i got from the same source i bought the plants, they seem perfect and growing buds . They did melt a bit at first them came back. However the floating plants when i got them he had them in the bag the same way fish come in a bag. So im not sure if that could be the cause?
Also for some reason majority of them have atleast one leaf that dips underwater
No humidity however the sponge filter causes surface agitation i dont know maybe when the bubbles pop they spray some water onto the floaters?
yes issue in kuwait is water is overtreated while chlorine is close to zero and i have measured my tap water chlorine is around 3mg/l
i still dose prime . However gh here changes some days its 8 some its 2 im not sure why. (Im strickly speaking tap) also kh is super high im always measuring around 20.
i think they treat water by some sort of RO system not sure though but they have won several award for clean water. Also my home runs RO as most homes here . Another thing is im not sure if this attributes to nutrition loss , kuwait is super hot we get about 50c and as you can imagine what happens to the water pipes, they get extremely hot and water comes out boiling no joke you physically see the steam! Im not sure if this boiling of water also depletes nutrition. ( of course we wait untill its cooled down to fill out tanks)
So thats why i “over dose” when in reality i really dont think i am.
fish stock is about 4 guppy and 4 endlers and 2 baby snails that have hitched onto the plants. 1 is rams horns other im told was nerite but im not sure i know they dont breed but i dont know he might have had it in brackish water.
the tank is stocked with more plants than fish thus why i added those dosages!
Also i only feed once a day
The thing about kuwait is we have just 3 stores that have fish products stocked which are brand name. Other stores are just flea market stuff. You have to understand how small the count Is and how little this hobby is practiced here most people who keep fish here are subscribed to the maintenance service provided by the pet store so the products they use hardly are stocked on shelves due to lack of need
@Panadalover93 why didn't tou give me those important specifications ??? It is not for want of asking !!
Panadalover93
Fish Fanatic
Im not sure !! My mistake i just now relizrr I should’ve done that
Waterspray will have no effect on a healthy floating plant. I am not sure but one of your floating plants might be Salvinia minima. On some floating plants the new leaves may develop just under water surface. And move to the surface as it developed. The plastic bag they cam in is not the cause of your problems.
Ihave never been to Kuwait but from what I have read is that most of your water is from distillation. This is a process in which the water is heated. The resulting water vapor it then move through pipes to another tank were it is cooled and condensed to pure water. The other process is RO system but on a much larger scale than what you have in your home. The water utility then probably adds some KH to prevent pipe corrosion. Hot water will not affect plant nutrients
General hardness (GH) is a measure of calcium and magnesium in the water. Plants need both. But the Gh test doesn't say your water is just from calcium or just magnesium. You want both in your tank. sometimes Gh is measured in Parts per million (PPM or milligrams per liter) Some GH test report hardness in degree One degree is equal to 17.8 PPM. If you measure 2 to 8. If that is degrees it is varying from very soft to soft. You might want to try using a GH booster on your tank this'll ensure you have both calcium and magnesium in your tank. You don't have to boost the GH by much for your plants. Just one to two degrees should work for your plants.
Also keep in mind that different fish have different GH requirements. I don't have any experience with Endless and Guppies, but I understand these fish do best in harder water. About 8 degrees GH.
An additional thing to keep in mind is that most fertilizers doesn't have any calcium and magnesium. This is because calcium and magnesium don't dissolve well when mixed with other nutrients. SeaChem Flourish does list calcium and magnesium on the label but there is actually very little in the bottle and it is not enough for healthy plants.
A lot of floating plants have trouble under high humidity or with water constantly dripping on their leaves. Water lilies and lotus struggle, water lettuce and & hyacinth will rot in aquariums with a coverglass, and salvinnia regularly rots under covers.
If the plants got hot in the bag, that could have damaged them. This can happen if the plants were not in an insulated box or if they were left in a vehicle for a while. The temperature in the bag can reach 35-40C and the plants get cooked.
Panadalover93
Fish Fanatic
Yea here in Kuwait outside temp reaches 50 and inside a car easily can get to 60+ c not f so u can imagine the oven we live in!
Panadalover93
Fish Fanatic
Could you recommend a product that is better than flourish? Or can i usr another product by seachem such as trace or advanced in addition?
The only aquarium plant fertiliser I use is Sera Florena. I monitor the iron levels with an iron (Fe) test kit. There are lots of other brands that are meant to be good so maybe start a thread or poll asking which brand of plant fertilisers people use in their tanks or wait for @StevenF and see if he can give you as formula to make up a fertiliser.
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