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Difficulty with my first planted tank

6K views 25 replies 12 participants last post by  steagle 
#1 · (Edited)
Having issues with what I believe to be algae and some kind of nutrient deficiency with many of my plants. I'll list the specs of my tank and hopefully an expert here can point me in the right direction since I'm obviously doing something wrong!

Tank: 90g (48" x 18" x 24")
Water: Quite hard, low-to-no nitrites/nitrates/ammonia, mild pH, 81F
Filter: Aquaclear 110 (with filter pad, filter floss + biomax rings)
Substrate: 3-4" of Eco-Complete
Lighting: 3x 54W T5 HO (all 6500K), on timer for 6hrs a day
Fish: 6x Rosy Barb, 8x Glowlight Tetra, 1x Bristlenose Pleco (eventually going to be a Discus tank with 5 adults and Barbs removed)
C02: Originally had C02 injection using this DIY system, but found it too annoying and expensive to have to make a new mixture every several days. Now dosing with Flourish Excel every 2 days.
Water Changes: 40-50% every 2 weeks
Fish Food: twice daily (bloodworms morning, flakes night)
Plant Food: using root pellets once a month and Flourish liquid plant food once a week.
Plants:
2x Red Melon Sword - Not doing well. Leaves have brown spots all over them and eventually rot away.
10x Cyperus Helferi - Not doing well. Some stalks have brown/yellow spots on them, almost all the tips are brown, and I'm pruning them faster than new growth so they are getting thinner every week.
15x Crinum "Dwarf" Onion Plant - Mostly doing well, but getting fuzzy black algae on the tips (BTW does the white "onion" portion need to be above or below substrate? Mine are below)
10x XXL Balansae - Existing leaves doing OK, but no new growth, and smaller leaves tend to rot away instead of grow. They have thinned out considerably since I put them in my tank.
2x Anubias Nana - Only green plants doing well.
6x Red Tiger Lotus - Doing great!

Other notes: I keep the tank as full of water as possible so there is minimum surface agitation with the HOTB filter. I've got a glass top with about 1.5" of open space in the back.
 
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#2 ·
I wonder if there is not enough fertilizer in there? What is the analysis of the root tablets, and which of the Flourish products are you using?
Nitrogens low to none make it sound like the plants are gobbling all they can, and may need more, which hints that there may be other deficiencies, too.

Can you post a picture of the Sword with brown spots? I can think of 2 things:
Diatoms, also called brown algae, can grow on the leaf, hiding that spot from the light and leading to it rotting there.
Potassium deficiency; aquatic plants often show this with holes in the leaves.

Black fuzzy algae (Black Brush Algae, BBA) can grow in high water flow areas, and I have seen it in many spots in my tanks, too. It can be killed by treating with hydrogen peroxide, but try Excel, since you are already using it. When you are ready to do your regular dosing turn off the water flow. Then squirt the Excel directly into the algae. Leave the filter off for 15 minutes or longer (it will not harm the beneficial bacteria to be off a short time like this). Treat daily. Yes, I know you are only dosing every other day, go ahead and dose daily and treat the algae with that dose. If the black algae turns red, it is dead.
 
#3 ·
i have to admit looking over your specs that you may want more filtration. This was something hard for me to grasp when I started out 4 years ago, but the most important part of filtration is the bioballs (or rings) for the beneficial bacteria. The general rule i have always followed is that i run filtration that is rates 2 times higher than what it says on the box. Example for your 90, i would find something that is rated for at least 150 gallons if its a HOB or a large canister like eheim or fluval rated around 90gallons or more.

I may help prevent issues for you later on. Other idea would be to slap on another aquaclear 110...
 
#5 ·
Your Planted Tank

Hello steag...

You've provided quite a lengthy list of issues. Here are some things I had to get right before my plants started to grow. Aquarium plants take quite some time to get used to tank conditions. Some never do, so patience is needed.

You must provide the right light, nutrients and pure water, large frequent water changes, for the plants and research their individual needs. Low light or shade plants aren't going to do well in strong light and the reverse is also true.

The Seachem liquid contains "Gluteraldehyde". Some plants don't tolerate it. There are a number of good liquids that don't have this industrial form of carbon.

Algae problems are typical of new tanks. The water chemistry isn't stable yet. Time is needed for the new plants, fish and water to work together to keep a level water chemistry. If there are too many nutrients (ferts) in the water, algae can be a problem. Keep feeding both fish and plants to a minimum. Your tank will be healthier.

Aquarium plants are tropical and used to long hours of daylight. It's been my experience, that tank lights need to be on at least 10 hours per day. Timers are helpful.

Just some thoughts to consider or not. Hope some of this is helpful.

B
 
#6 ·
-What exactly are your water parameters? "Quite hard", "low-to-no nitrites" and "mild pH" are pretty vague.

As I'm at work ATM I don't have access to the exact figures but I can do measurements and post back later. I was just summarizing what the basic parameters of my tap water are.

-Is there a reason you keep your temp that high?

As this will be a discus tank shortly, I wanted to have the water be at that temperature far in advance so I could see how the other fish and plants would respond.

- How much are you feeding your fish?

Twice daily, bloodworms in the morning and flake food at night. I'm careful not to under or overfeed.

- How long has your tank been set up?

About 5 months now. I meant to have a higher bioload in the beginning to cycle the tank faster for the discus, but due to one reason or another have stuck with these little fish for all this time.
 
#7 · (Edited)
@Diana - thanks for the feedback. I am using the "Total" root pellet found in this system. The liquid plant food I'm using is the Flourish Comprehensive. Detailed photos of the algae & rot have been posted below.

@msawdey - i always thought having more than adequate filtration was more for the benefit of fish health. How does extra filtration help the plants? I suppose I could put another filter on here if push came to shove but I wouldn't be too thrilled about the extra maintenance ;)

-BBradbury - I can certainly change my timer so the plants are on longer. I just thought that more light can lead to more algae, which is why I cut it back from 8 hours a day to 6. Honestly I don't know if it made that much of a difference one way or the other. As for point on algae, I have had the tank set up for quite some time now so I thought I'd have a relatively stable ecosystem by now. Do you think it could be just a mismatch of plants + nutrients rather than the water parameters?
 
#9 ·
Seachem sells nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus in separate bottles. I was using Comprehensive but in truth, Comp is basically a trace fert. It's got a little bit of just about everything. While it's great that it's providing a variety, it doesn't supply adequate amounts of macros(NPK). Dose your macros, maybe iron from the yellowing; increase your lighting schedule and you should be good to go. Your algae issues maybe coming from running the diy co2, and then stopping it, the imbalance can trigger algae blooms.

Edit: feeding fish twice a day seems like overkill to me. Granted i keep small fish in smaller tanks than that, but i feed once a day and skip a day sometimes too.
 
#10 ·
Hey ZLogic thanks for the input. I stopped the diy c02 about 3 months ago so it's been awhile but even when I was using it I still had the same kind of algae and brown/rotting plant matter. I've never had an algae "outbreak" in the sense of it getting all over the glass and devouring an entire plant but it's always been present since the tank started.
 
#11 · (Edited)
Steagle,
I was interested in your post as we have similar tanks. I am no expert and started my planted tank a little over three months ago and I am about to add Discus this weekend.
As you can see we have many similar plants. My poorest growers so far have been the Amazon Swords and the Red Melon Swords, but they are starting to come around . I have had no luck with HC. It took many weeks for most of the plants to show new growth.
Eco Complete substrate. Gieseman 48", 54w T5 bulbs. Two Aquaflora for 12 hours, plus two Mid Day for 6 hours. Temp 82 degrees. W->D filter with bioballs and a 700 gph sump pump. I have a spray bar that gives a fair amount of surface movement. Ph 7.4, Nitrates .5ppm, phos.<.5ppm. I have used Pfertz plant tabs and their Macro and Micro supplements along with Excel every other day. 50% WC every week. 10 Rummy Nose, 10 Cories and two Bistlenose.
I have yet to see algae but I am sure it will happen. And I am not sure if you can have your cake and eat it too as far as plants and Discus are concerned. One thing I have seen commonly in the threads is to avoid trying to feed and grow young discus in a planted tank. I read all sorts of opinions on when to add the Discus.
The only difference I can see between our set ups is the amount of light and filter size/flow, and probably a little dumb luck.
 

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#12 ·
Wow those are pretty similar! Other than the longer lighting schedule I see you are doing the water changes every week whereas I do it every two. This is mostly due to time constraints in my schedule but also because the water and overall cleanliness of the tank look fine on that second week. I could try doing it every week for a few weeks and see if there's any improvement.

Other than that, I'll definitely up the lighting from 6hrs back to 8, I'm also going to cut out some of the red tiger lotus leaves that are blocking light to some of the melon sword leaves. I'll also look into some macro ferts to supplement what the plants are not currently getting.
 
#13 ·
Heavy filtration sort of gets mixed in with heavy flow in the tank (as filters are typically the main providers of it).

Heavy flow in planted tanks is primarily warranted when injecting CO2 and adding ferts as it helps to better ensure equal dispersal of both of these throughout the tank. Dead spots are typically unwanted.

Without CO2 and ferts, heavy flow is not as necessary (other than that required to effectively filter the water - but water filters provide for more than enough of that). In fact heavily planted (Walstad type) tanks can get away with no flow (and no external filtration as well).
 
#14 ·
With the spray bar I seem to get even flow with some very gentle movement of the plants. I suspect that the 700 gph pump delivers much less then that given the four foot rise. There was a chart with the pump, I could look it up. Water movement at the surface is said to facilitate O2 transfer, is that true for CO2 as well?

@steagle: look into Pfertz. They are a little more expensive but I think are still having a sale. VERY easy to use, and seem to get favorable reviews here and elsewhere.
 
#18 ·
From the link in post #7, Analysys of the root tablets.
Note: I do not see and phosphate here. There is N, K, Ca, Mg, Fe and traces.

"Chemically Active Ingredients: Hydrated Magnesium sulfate, Potassium nitrate, Potassium sulfate, also trace amounts of; Cobalt EDTA, Copper EDTA, Iron EDTA, Magnesium EDTA, Zinc EDTA, Manganese sulfate, Sodium Borate, Sodium Molybdate, (Chelating Agent: Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid)

Physically Active Ingredients: Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) Magnesium Carbonate (MgCO3) Calcium Carbonate Equivalent (CaCO3) Calcium Sulfate (CaSO42H2O)"
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From post 8:
Picture 2, 3, 4: Does not look like Diatoms or potassium deficiency. More like mechanical damage.
Picture 6, 7: Looks more like what I have seen as mechanical damage or potassium deficiency. Snails and other livestock may not be able to rasp healthy plant tissue and do much damage, but if the tissue is compromised then they can rasp holes in it.
__________________________________________________________

What are the current parameters for NO3?

Based on the fertilizers listed I think the only significant supply is the fish food. The root tablets might be pretty low, unless you used them at the maximum rate. Even then the slow release means the N and K are mostly unavailable, locked up in the tablet.
Seachem Comprehensive is very low in N. Really, just a micro supplement.
Anyway, I would dose macros in the water column. See if that helps.
 
#19 ·
Hi there! I'm no expert but i do read books (Peter Hiscock is great)

Based on Peter's methology: cut feedings to ones a day, you might want to eliminate water changes as by doing such a big water changes you bring in many other elements in to the water? Also you might layoff all the stuff you dosing in to the tank? I'm under impression that when the nitrogen cycle is established your plants should be getting nutrienets out of substrate/water, specially when you got eco-complite. Just my 10 cents.
Brown stuff does not look like BBA. Also here is a rumor that ones you get BBA there is no way to get it out of your tank . True? i dont know.
 
#20 ·
@secuno - the dimensions are 48"W x 18"D x 24" T, which is listed as 90g everywhere I look (aquarium supply stores, online calculators, etc). The place I bought it from sold it as an 80g, so obviously sellers have some confusion over classifying it.

@paragon - no I haven't done anything beyond what I posted in my first post, which is why I'm here on this forum gaining knowledge :) I'm just trying to get some consensus on what is the problem/deficiency before I plop down more $$ on this tank. It would be great to hear even 2 people suggest the same thing ;)

@diana - by mechanical damage you mean snails/fish? I do catch the odd snail in here and dispose of them when I can. I've never seen more than one at a time which is why it's never worried me too much, but do you think this is the main cause of the plant damage you see? Also is there a particular macro product you could recommend that I could find at my LFS or online?
 
#21 ·
I don't see algae, I see weak growing plants. Grow strong plants and at the very least you cannot see the algae for the plants.

Get a set of dry fertilizers from one of the forum sponsors or there is a seller on the regular selling forum of the stuff as well. See the fertilizer subforum for how tos and names of it all. You are running a lot of light over a tank and not providing enough carbon, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and micronutrients for the plants to take advantage of the light. Since you are dosing Excel algae isn't getting a chance to take hold but it isn't providing all the carbon the plants need. Excel both kills a lot of different algae types and provides organic carbon, good stuff if used carefully.

I hate to take leaves that have any green on them off struggling plants but do take off the worst leaves as they aren't helping the plants grow and serve as a very nice substrate for algae to grow on. Get as much decayed stuff out of there as you can basically.

See the lighting forum's sticky thread to evaluate how much light you have. 3 full length T5HO bulbs is a very good amount of light, very likely more than the plants can handle without CO2 and a complete fertilizer. I recently discovered that my plants are happiest with at least 8 hours of lighting and am choosing to shade my lights rather than run a shorter light period. I am using plain window screen to shade the tank.

Probably because my tank has had CO2 and bright light for over a decade I haven't had issues with overdosing NPK+micros in my tank. The worst algal plagues I have had were due to not enough nutrients rather than too much. Perhaps if my tank wasn't bright and CO2 dosed I would have problems with too much of this or that, don't know.

You won't get the same advice from any two of us because each of our tanks is run differently and we have different experiences with algae. My tank is very bright [even brighter than yours], I use loads of CO2 and loads of NPK+micros, make large frequent water changes, use a sump and have small amounts of nuisance algae of certain types. Another tank has lower light, no CO2, does zero water changes and perhaps uses very little NPK+micros and has completely different algae if any at all. I have had very little experience with some of the nastiest algae out there like cladophora, rhizoclonium and thread [I have seen a bit of each once or twice then it vanishes on its own, weird] but all too much experience with BBA [black beard algae] and GW [green water]. Even if you find a perfect match the same routines will come out differently, each tank is its own little puzzle to work out.

In my experience holes in lily leaves are because they need more. More nitrate, more phosphate, more potassium. In my experience rasped sword plant leaves were ruined by snails and bristlenose plecos because the leaves were weak see above. I haven't grown Cyperus [on my short list of plants to try] but that damage looks like weak old leaves are bent and bruised and are rotting at those points. Those patches could also be the start of BBA, it can form plaques before getting fuzzy and the fuzzy tips to the Crinium is probably BBA although I don't see it in the photos.
 
#22 ·
Thanks for all the great info Kathy. Do you think it's possible for me to get away with not injecting C02 in a tank of this size? Due to the tank's location, and inability for me to store things like canister filters or pressurized C02 systems anywhere, I'm hoping I can keep this a low-tech tank. If it is truly 90gal, then my lighting (162W) is less than 2wpg. If it's 80gal then it is 2wpg. Either way, that is more in the realm of low-mid tech, correct? I've been under the assumption I can skip on the CO2 injection, and just add supplements as needed. Obviously, I have not been adding the correct chems or amounts, which I will rectify immediately. But I would very much like to stay away from C02 systems whether it's DIY or pressurized.

Also, I know I currently have a very small bioload for the size of this tank which probably isn't helping stabilize the plants. My goal is to have 5 adult Discus with a small school of Tetras (the Rosy Barbs will be removed prior to that, of course). The Discus will be going in at the end of January when I'm back from a vacation. That should be an increase in the bioload, I'd imagine? Hopefully that will help, especially in addition to the macro ferts I'm going to start adding.
 
#24 ·
Seachem makes very good products but your big tank will go through those bottles in a hurry.

You need CO2 if the tank is too bright and you can run any size tank without CO2 by managing the lighting.

Visit the Low Tech forum. The very long thread about lush low tech tanks was started by Lauralee who has a 90 gallon tank. Look at the sort of thing she does to maintain the tank. http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=99729

The wpg guide worked okay on standard sized tanks lit with T12 bulbs but doesn't work on tanks with T5. The technology makes for brighter light and the reflectors can be super good. Look at the sticky in the lighting forum for really great information or see the second chart on this thread. Another general rule but 3 T5HO bulbs over a 24" tall tank is very high to high light. http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=105774

Today you can clean up the tank and take out one of the bulbs and change the lighting period to 6 hours - or longer and put something between the lights and the tank.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Great advice, I'll try removing one bulb and I'll keep my timer at 6 hours. Didn't realize the 3x T5HO was too bright for my tank (considering there's no C02). I have a feeling this will make a significant difference.

What do you know, I just checked the tank and after two days of 8hr lighting (with all 3 bulbs) the Cyperus and Balansae both show significant more brown areas and definitely look worse than when I had the lighting at 6 hrs. I've since removed one bulb, put the timer back to 6 hrs and will monitor how this setup works. Thanks again Kathy for all the good advice.

One last question if you wouldn't mind: now that I'm embracing the low-tech approach, what's your take on water changes?
 
#26 ·
Sorry to bump an old thread but wanted to post some updates on the tank since making the changes to the lighting and dosing. I now have algae on almost every plant, still no new growth from any plant except the red tiger lotus, and the cyperus and balansae continue to wilt and wither away. The tiger lotus leaves are increasingly full of holes and ragged, though they continue to grow at a healthy rate. Only the anubias nana keep trucking along without any issues. I've been dosing Seachem potassium the last couple of weeks in addition to complete and excel, and while plant yellowing has reduced, in its place is more algae.

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the lighting change I made, but I know that I did not have this amount of algae when I had all 3 bulbs going for 6hrs a day and wasn't dosing potassium.

I know I need to get dry fertilizers asap as I ran out of my last supply. If anyone could recommend a particular set for this kind of tank it would be most appreciated.
 
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