plants turning yellow???

[llb30]

I am a bit new to all the low tech planting idea and wanted to give it a try.

well my plants are turning yellow and I was wondering what I needed to do to get them back to their green color?

This is a low tech 110 gallon long tank. It is gravel and nothing else, lights are 3 120volt 106 watt bulbs..... I started dosing Flourish, Flourish Iron and flourish Excel a week ago and I am doing as directed. My lights are on 9 hours. I have all low light plants in the tank. I have java fern and lace fern that is turning brown. My crpty (ms?) is doing GREAT but the onion(?) and the vals are turning yellow. Is there anything else I should be doing? Any help would be great!!!!

Thanks

[mistergreen]

Try putting root tabs/nutrients around the base of the vals. Your lights might be a little high to be considered 'low tech'.

[llb30]

ok will do with the root tabs, the light is high???? I would have thought it was low lighting as it is about 2-3 watts per gallon.

[Buddha]

2-3 WPG is around high light.. Root tabs would be a good place too start.

[PinoyBoy]

Some have experienced that excel + vals = melt. What kind of lighting do you have? T5HO, T5, CF?

[llb30]

ok, I was thinking that was considered low lights....what is low light in a tank?

The lighting I have is a 48in triple bulb fluorescent light strip.

So I should not be dosing the tank with vals???

[mistergreen]

I'm guessing you have t5 bulbs. The watts per gallon rule does not apply to new bulbs like t5s. They output light more efficiently than t-8s.

I'd say 1 of those bulbs is low-tech. If you like what you have now, you might want to upgrade with CO2 and get dry ferts. It's cheaper.
http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/

[llb30]

ok was able to look at the lights now that they are off. I have 8,000k full spectrum daylight 32w t8 bulbs. I have 3 of them. I am trying not to have co2 in this tank but if it needs it I can research it.

so any ideas on the plants....should I stop dosing? I went ahead and put root tabs around the vals. I am do to dose today but wanted to get your opinion first....I'm afraid to dose now with what Pinoyboy said about the vals melting.

[sampster5000]

You're looking at low to medium light with the t8's I would say. You dont need the excel unless you're seeing algae. That is when I start to dose excel on my low tech tanks. I could be wrong but I thought yellowing of plants was a lack of macro nutrients? Possibly Potassium? I would dose macros when you see yellowing. You already have your traces with Flourish. Make sure not to add more Iron than needed. It is apart of Flourish as plants dont need so much of it.

[llb30]

ok great thanks.... ill dose just the flourish then and nothing else. I'm hoping the root tabs will improve the plants as well. I put a lot of them all over the tank were there are planted plants.

Now for my ferns? i have java, needle and lace and they are all turning brown, is that normal or do I need to keep dosing the tank to help them? They are all tide down to drift wood and some are even wrapping their roots around the wood. Could it be that this is a new tank and they just need time to adjust? I've had them for made 3 weeks.

[mistergreen]

It's probably lack of usable carbon and nutrients. If you have a lot of plants, they're competing with each other for carbon and nutrients. The root tabs should help. Excel couldn't hurt either although some say excel will melt vals.

[sampster5000]

I had a java fern that took months to start growing. Not sure why. I thought I had too much light but many grow java fern in very high light.