Need some help guys/gals. As the title says, my plants are not looking so good currently. 29 gallon tank with Flourite substrate capped with regular Petsmart gravel. I got tired of the flourite dust storms everyday. Using a Fluval 3.0 Plant 24” light set on the Planted preset setting. Fluval AC70 with sponge filter, carbon and bio max media. Tank is currently about 3 months old. Fish are in QT and only 1 Mystery Snail in the tank.
pH 6.95 - 7.0
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 5ppm
I’m currently dosing Seachem products.
2.5 ml Seachem Flourish Exel every 2 days
2.5 ml Seachem Flourish every Friday
2.5 ml Seachem Flourish Iron every Friday

According to a chart I seem to be low on Mg so today I dosed 10ml of BRS Magnesium Sulfate/chloride mix.
I’m not sure what else I’m doing wrong.

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Did you not rinse Fluorite before use? That course of a gravel is going to do very little to cap in the dust storm. You need 1-3mm sized blast sand type gravel.

With that few plants that are barely even growing you only need 1/3 amount of dosing your doing.

The turbidity of your water is preventing most of your light from even reaching those plants way at bottom. All your doing is feeding your algae with your dosing. Plants can’t get light they need they have no need for dosing but algae is going to love it.

No need for carbon in planted tanks except for a quick 2-3day clean up.

Bump: Did you not rinse Fluorite before use? That course of a gravel is going to do very little to cap in the dust storm. You need 1-3mm sized blast sand type gravel.

With that few plants that are barely even growing you only need 1/3 amount of dosing your doing.

The turbidity of your water is preventing most of your light from even reaching those plants way at bottom. All your doing is feeding your algae with your dosing. Plants can’t get light they need they have no need for dosing but algae is going to love it.

No need for carbon in planted tanks except for a quick 2-3day clean up.

Did you not rinse Fluorite before use? No
That course of a gravel is going to do very little to cap in the dust storm. You need 1-3mm sized blast sand type gravel. Actually it capped it very well, the color of the water used to be a murky brown color and now it's even more clear than in these pics.

With that few plants that are barely even growing you only need 1/3 amount of dosing your doing. Got it.

The turbidity of your water is preventing most of your light from even reaching those plants way at bottom. All your doing is feeding your algae with your dosing. Plants can’t get light they need they have no need for dosing but algae is going to love it. I got a little bit starting on the gravel and some on the log, I'll cut down on the dosing some.

No need for carbon in planted tanks except for a quick 2-3day clean up. Got it



In case your wondering, I'm not new to fish tanks. Far from it actually. This however is my first Planted tank and for the past 25 years or so I've dealt with nothing but Marine tanks.

This was my previous tank


and this is my current tank, work in progress