Why Wont They Grow?

[Noahs ark6]

Hi.

I've got a 125 litre planted with just a playsand substrate, the plants aren't hard to care for plants and it's medium planted. i dose TPN+ and co2. However, i can never, ever get my plants to grow well and they always dies within a few weeks. I am doing nothing wrong (form what i can see) and am becoming quite frustrated. thanks in advance

 

[Fishy friend2]

What plants, are they?

Maybe there is an imbalance

 

[Noahs ark6]

They are Staurogyne repens, java moss, java fern, dwarf hairgrass(which is the only one thats surviving) red ludwiga

 

[tanksalot]

What lighting do you have and how many watts in total?

Also, can you be more specific about your CO2: what is your set-up, are you using a drop checker? How is the flow and filtration in your tank?

The more details you give, the more chance someone can work out some answers for you.

 

[Noahs ark6]

moderate to high flow (950l/hr (125 litre tank)), pressurized co2 1 bubble every 3 seconds. 40 watts in total, I think i worked it out to be 1.5 watts per gallon (give or take a few) which is ok isn't it?

 

[tanksalot]

If you're running pressurised you really ought to have a drop checker - you need to know how much CO2 is actually circulating in your tank and available to the plants.

20 bubbles per minute doesn't sound a lot for that size of tank, by the way. That's close to what I'm putting into my 27 litre nano to get good colour and growth on some of my trickier plants - your tank is nearly 5 times the size (but that's only guesswork, which is why you need a drop checker to see what's going on)

That aside, I don't see any obvious reason why you shouldn't be able to grow plants if you have 1.5 w per gallon and you feed a complete fertiliser (the sand really shouldn't be an issue if you're dosing the water column sufficiently).

What other plants have you tried and failed with? And when they die, how do they die? Are you sure some of them aren't just "melting" in the way plants often do when introduced to a new environment (many will come back given time)?

 

[Noahs ark6]

I didn't know plants would shed when put in a new tank. That could be the reason, but i did leave them in the tank for about a week after i thought they were gonnas and they didn't come back. I've tried with water wisteria and others but i cant think of them now. My plants do pearl, so i thought they were getting enough co2. A drop checker is on my list of things to buy.