Plants slowly dying, and I don't know why.

2716 Views 11 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Pea_Soup, Oct 6, 2016

Pea_Soup

Discussion Starter · Oct 3, 2016

I planted my 10 (future) betta tank a couple months ago. I started with dosing just regular flourish, once a week, on water change day. Since then things have gone downhill.

Stats: 10 gallon tank, ecocomplete substrate with osmocote+ sprinkled under it, finnex stingray 20" 8 hour photo period. Dosing EI weekly after water changes 2x per week. I use seachem prime for my water conditioner.

First thing to go was the dwarf sag, within days of planting the tips of the leaves turned yellow, and slowly melted down to transparent.

About 3 weeks in came the diatoms, brown stuff on EVERYTHING... I tried to wipe the leaves off on a regular basis, but the bacopa was too difficult to clean up.

The bacopa died from the bases up, first dark green, then brown, then rotting sludge. I have a few stems left, but I think they will be gone soon too.

The only thing that seems to be doing well is my crypt (not sure the kind) it's been happily putting out new leaves since day one.

Fauna is 5 black skirt tetra (temporary until it's suitable for a betta) 2 amano shrimp, 1 nerite, and a few pond snails.

Water parameters before most recent water change:

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 40ppm
KH: 2dkh
GH 4dgh
PH: above readout for low and below readout for high??? so... 7.4-7.6?

What am I doing wrong?

Pictures of the destruction: Sad sad aquarium - Album on Imgur

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Bananableps

· #2 · Oct 3, 2016

What's your carbon source?

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Django

· #3 · Oct 4, 2016

The GH at 4 is low - should be 7. You have a choice of trying to make a go of it as the tap water is or adding Seachem Equilibrium as indicated on the label, calculating the right amount for the water you change. At least that's the way I use it.

You should be using IE divided by 4 or 3, calculated for your sized tank, for a low-tech planted tank (no infused CO2).

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Pea_Soup

Discussion Starter · #4 · Oct 4, 2016

I was dosing excel, but stopped when everything started dying off. No CO2 supplements.

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natemcnutty

· #5 · Oct 5, 2016

That light should be around 50 PAR which is quite a bit for that long of a photoperiod on a newer tank. I honestly don't think CO2 is the issue since none of those require it, and GH is most definitely not the problem either although a little bit of gh booster won't hurt. My thought is you might be torching the plants with too much light and not enough P and/or K. The fish are obviously generating good N for you, but I wonder about being limited on other macros.

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Pea_Soup

Discussion Starter · #6 · Oct 5, 2016

natemcnutty said:
That light should be around 50 PAR which is quite a bit for that long of a photoperiod on a newer tank. I honestly don't think CO2 is the issue since none of those require it, and GH is most definitely not the problem either although a little bit of gh booster won't hurt. My thought is you might be torching the plants with too much light and not enough P and/or K. The fish are obviously generating good N for you, but I wonder about being limited on other macros.

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Dosing Schedule is the following:
Day 1 Water Change, Dose Macros
Day 2 Dose Traces
Day 3 Rest
Repeat.

My Dosage was figured to the Rotala Butterfly EI Lowlight/Weekly calculator.

I use two 200ml bottles of distilled water and dose the following:

Macro Bottle (10ml dose)
KNO3: 12.34g
K2HPO4: 1.39g
K2SO4: 16.87g

Micro Bottle (5ml dose)
Plantex CSM+B 4.64g

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natemcnutty

· #7 · Oct 5, 2016

Ah, scratch that thought then. I was thinking you may have done quite a bit less than that. How much O+ did you use in the substrate? I'm at a loss too because your parameters and average dosing numbers are all really similar to mine (although I am more heavily planted and only do WC every two weeks), and my moneywort has no issues. Even if the O+ was leaving terribly, I would think your fish would suffer and the frequency of your WC would clear that up pretty quickly

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Pea_Soup

Discussion Starter · #8 · Oct 5, 2016

well, I didn't measure the O+ :/ If I had to guess I'd say maybe a 1/4 cup ~ 1/2 cup of the stuff spread evenly under the substrate. I tried to mimic what I saw on an ADU Aquascaping video on youtube. I just ordered a ton more plants. My hope is that if I get enough plants in it things will stabilize. I just ordered some Seachem Equilibrium to get my GH a bit higher, and I'm going to try the tiny Fluval 20g CO2 system. (I know it's probably a waste of time/money. I don't want to put a big CO2 tank up on my kitchen bar.)

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natemcnutty

· #9 · Oct 5, 2016

I think your parameters and everything look fine, and even a small amount of CO2 is helpful. I doubt it was the O+, but that is the only thing that stuck out to me as a possible issue. Then there's always a question of plants not being healthy enough to adapt, buy the initial pictures look ok to me.

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Hilde

· #10 · Oct 5, 2016

Could you post a pic of the tank and the dying plants?

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jeffkrol

· #11 · Oct 5, 2016 (Edited)

Hmmm.. Possibly growing to death..
Looks a lot like my current 55.
due to a bunch of factors, lighting "upgrade" and CO2 injection is on hold.
Plants started out lush and growing extremely well..
Plenty of fish for ferts.. ect.

Problem of algae on leaves started popping up as the once healthy plants started "leaking"..
From my latest looks into algae causes, dying leaves release ammonia this allowing spores to germinate..
Long story short, starts to become a spiral of.. dead leave=algae=more dead leave..

Finally got my controller up (well a badage one) and am cutting light down. Also got the parts for the CO2 to start injection.
Will need to cull and replace a lot of plants that fortunately I've go growing in the 40b..

Bottom line is it seems apparent to me that it is relatively easy to "grow them to death"..w/out a lot of work..

Side note: This is not a time to stop fertilizing. You need to get them back to full growth..

your best option (my opinion) is to cut down the amount of light but not the photoperiod..
There are a few ways to do this..
Simplest would be black screen to cut intensity.
simple but a bit of knowledge and work involved.. add a dimmer..

Easy enough to put in between the power brick and the light head. Note of course if it is a new light it will void the warranty I suspect.

your diatoms are a bit troublesome. Normally only see them in new tanks..
AS a side curiosity note: Feel the texture of the glass inside the tank..IF it feels sandpapery you got a lot of algae on it. Sometimes it is very hard to see at this stage.

Bump:

Hilde said:
Could you post a pic of the tank and the dying plants?

They did, at this link:

http://imgur.com/a/VANLQ

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Pea_Soup

Discussion Starter · #12 · Oct 6, 2016

jeffkrol said:
Hmmm.. Possibly growing to death..
Looks a lot like my current 55.
due to a bunch of factors, lighting "upgrade" and CO2 injection is on hold.
Plants started out lush and growing extremely well..
Plenty of fish for ferts.. ect.

Problem of algae on leaves started popping up as the once healthy plants started "leaking"..
From my latest looks into algae causes, dying leaves release ammonia this allowing spores to germinate..
Long story short, starts to become a spiral of.. dead leave=algae=more dead leave..

Finally got my controller up (well a badage one) and am cutting light down. Also got the parts for the CO2 to start injection.
Will need to cull and replace a lot of plants that fortunately I've go growing in the 40b..

Bottom line is it seems apparent to me that it is relatively easy to "grow them to death"..w/out a lot of work..

Side note: This is not a time to stop fertilizing. You need to get them back to full growth..

your best option (my opinion) is to cut down the amount of light but not the photoperiod..
There are a few ways to do this..
Simplest would be black screen to cut intensity.
simple but a bit of knowledge and work involved.. add a dimmer..

Easy enough to put in between the power brick and the light head. Note of course if it is a new light it will void the warranty I suspect.

your diatoms are a bit troublesome. Normally only see them in new tanks..
AS a side curiosity note: Feel the texture of the glass inside the tank..IF it feels sandpapery you got a lot of algae on it. Sometimes it is very hard to see at this stage.

Bump:

They did, at this link:

Sad sad aquarium - Album on Imgur

I've got some Frogbit coming tomorrow, along with some more dwarf sag, some wisteria, java fern, pennywort, and moneywort. My plan of attack is fill it with plants and hope some live!

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