[Crude]

Heya, this tank is about 10 months old. In the last two months or so, my anubias has started to deteriorate. Any thoughts on what is causing this?

I’m currently dosing Excel at the recommended dosage, and easy green at half. Lighting is a single AI Prime and the plants are all various species of anubias and Java fern.
Appreciate any help! Thanks!

 

[ktarv199]

Okay to beat someone else to what I already know they’re going to ask... what do your water specs look like?

And side note to that. Im assuming it’s easy green from aquarium coop? If so I personally have had issues with it. I was struggling with deteriorating plants and black bearded algae. And if I didn’t do water changes every single week then algae would take over the tank. I switched to another supplement and all my problems slowly went away.


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[pauld738]

And what settings on the AI prime?

That is a massive amount of light for Anubias and ferns.

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[Crude]

Obvious questions I probably should have addressed in the original post . Sorry.

Ive messed around with the lighting a lot once this started. Currently I’m at:

Currently 0ppm Nitrate, 0ppm Nitrite and 0.5ppm Ammonia.

Water temps dropped quite a lot during cold temperatures and a power outage earlier this week. May have killed off some of my bacteria, but the issues with the anubias preceded that.

And side note to that. Im assuming it’s easy green from aquarium coop? If so I personally have had issues with it. I was struggling with deteriorating plants and black bearded algae. And if I didn’t do water changes every single week then algae would take over the tank. I switched to another supplement and all my problems slowly went away.

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Correct, aquarium coop. I’ve had more black beard algae and long strings of green hair algae than ever before, too. A few weeks ago I stopped using it and dropped the lights to zero for a few days. Algae cleared up a bit, but again the issues with the anubias preceded the algae growth.

 

[pauld738]

It looks like typical nitrate deficiency but with fish in the tank I'm wondering if your nitrate test is off?

The plant load in the tank doesn't look sufficient enough to drive nitrates from food/fish waste down to zero. But maybe? Are you doing large water changes?

I had Anubias get covered in algae and leaves die off all of a sudden in shrimp tank I have where the nitrates dropped to zero. I thought my son was dosing Ferts for that tank but he wasn't. Once we resumed normal dosing new leaves popped out with good looking growth and color. But that tank is decidedly different from yours.

Not necessarily saying you need to switch but I'm using Nilocg Thrive S, since I have shrimp. Nilocg has other lines that have more nitrates which, if you were to switch, might be better in your case (?) since you're adding a carbon source via Excel.

Of course it would be nice to rule out any Gh issues as well.

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[Savetheplants]

And what settings on the AI prime?

That is a massive amount of light for Anubias and ferns.

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Anubias are tanks. I have inflicted months long periods of low light without CO2 and poor fertilizing on my plants and the Anubias, Java Fern and Java Moss have survived. My guess is you might not have enough Potassium. Whenever I'm in a period of poor tank maintenance and I've noticed holes in leaves, a generous dose of Potassium has always corrected the problem. Also that bright light puts things into overdrive. So you need a high octane dosing regimen to go along with it. Turn down the lights if you can. The Anubias won't mind.

 

[Crude]

Thanks all!

I don't have a hardness test kit, but do know that our Houston water is very hard. Tap water in the 120-140 ppm range.

On the lighting, other than the dim "moon" light that comes on in the morning and evening, my lighting never passes 50% intensity and only from 3PM-6:30PM.

Any suggestions on how to tailor the schedule to be more appropriate? I promise I've searched but there aren't a lot of examples for such low plant tanks with the AI Prime.