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Cannot Grow Plants

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Daveshep

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Joined
18 Nov 2023
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3
Location
Caistor Market Rasen
I have a 20 gallon aquarium with an under gravel filter coupled with a Fluval 3.0 Plant light.
My plants when first bought Hygrophilia, Bacopa ,Amazon Sword and Vallisneria seem to put on a small amount of growth then stop growing and after a period of time the leaves start turning yellow and decompose.
I have tried TNC fertiliser and Profito at the recommended dosage for my tank but the plants have failed miserably.
My under gravel filter is a Penn Plax bought from Amazon which has a turnover rate of some 30 gallons per hour, is this too much ?
My lighting schedule is for 8 hours daily following the Bentley Pascoe recommended settings for new plants.
My water supply in Lincolnshire is very hard and I have the benefit of a water softener.
I have used a combination of hard and soft water to no avail and have reverted to hard water only, my plants neither appeared to suffer or progress with this experiment.
My aquarium does receive a fair amount of daylight which I reduce by covering the front panel during the day.

I would appreciate and pearls of wisdom and experience from the membership.

Regards
Dave Shepherd
 
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Hi Dave, can you start with uploading some pictures of your aquarium? What kind of softener do you have; is it the salt ion exchange softener? Water from that is not usable for aquarium. You would need a RO filter plugged after softener - that's the what I'm doing.

Please also have a look, there should be a bullet point template of what information to include, when asking for help.

Matt
 
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Thanks for the prompt relies, just to clarify I am using standard hard tapster now ( 240 ppm hardness )
I have dumped what remained of my plants and am starting again, I am going to try some root tabs as per noodlesuk mentions
 
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Do you have enough water flow in the tanks? You mentioned a UGF at 30gph but you did not mention any other sources of water flow.
The recommended turnover rate is 10x the volume of the tank, so it this case you should ideally have 200gph of turnover, using water pumps/and or filters
 
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Hi all,
Welcome to UKAPS.
Daveshep said:
I am using standard hard tapster now ( 240 ppm hardness )
Click to expand...
Honestly hard water isn't a deal breaker <"Some handy facts about water"> & <"What is this tanganyika plant?">, it is actually much more suitable for the tanks than water <"softened by ion exchange">.

Have a look at @akwascape's low tech tanks linked in <"Choosing my first set of fish for hard, alkaline water">

This is the map of water hardness for England, so you definitely aren't alone.
_england-wales-jpg.jpg


Daveshep said:
My under gravel filter is a Penn Plax bought from Amazon which has a turnover rate of some 30 gallons per hour, is this too much ?
Click to expand...
I'm not too bothered about flow and I use a lot of epiphytes and floating plants and the UG filter isn't a problem for these.

When you have time read through <"What is the “Duckweed Index” all about?">, it should cover everything you need to know.

cheers Darrel
 
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Daveshep said:
My water supply in Lincolnshire is very hard and I have the benefit of a water softener.
Click to expand...

If you actually used water from a Sodium Chloride (NaCl) based softener fed by hard water (high content of Calcium and Magnesium) I would suggest that is the reason why your plants are struggling and withering. If your water is say 16 dGH predominantly from Calcium you will end up with about 140 mg/L (140 ppm) of Sodium from the ion exchange. If you can replace the Sodium Chloride with Potassium Chloride (KCL) you will instead of Sodium get Potassium which - while not ideal in this amount either - is harmless to your plants. I would just use the straight (unsoftened) tap instead - most plants especially in the Easy Category will grow just fine even in rock hard water.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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John q said:
@Oldguy can probably dispel the myths of ugf, I ran one for 6 months and the pants were fine. Most folk's haven't..
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I ran under gravel filters with success in my large cichlid tanks back in the day (few or no plants)… mostly to prevent buildup of waste and toxic gasses. Large cichlids are big on excavation and large scale remodeling projects… and incredibly messy fish :lol:

Cheers,
Michael
 
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I would like to ask pictures of your tank. There are couple of factors for successful plant growth:
1) Light
2) Fertilizers
3) FLOW!
4) CO2
5) Substrate
6) Maintenance

You said that you have 20 gallon tank and 30 gallon turnover, it should be at least 6 times so 120 gallon turnover.
Please give us more info such as:
1) How old is tank?
2) Are you injecting CO2?
3) What is your fertilizer schedule?
4) What is you water change schedule?
 
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Hi all,
hypnogogia said:
There seem to be sizeable areas with no public supply, which I find surprising
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I've wondered about that as well. The map originated at DEFRA, so I assume it is correct.

I think probably "public" is the important bit and it means that the water supply doesn't come from Yorkshire Water etc., not that there isn't any mains water.

<"What are Private supplies? - Drinking Water Inspectorate">

cheers Darrel
 
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dw1305 said:
I've wondered about that as well. The map originated at DEFRA, so I assume it is correct.
Click to expand...
Could those white areas be supplied by private wells ? - I assume not many people would be living there... For instance, 15% of the US population rely on private wells for drinking water - mostly in rural areas. And get this, those wells are not regulated by the US Federal Safe Drinking water Act and often not even by state laws - source

We actually have a dormant well on our property. We never had it measured, but its likely hard water with plenty of toxins from the completely unregulated heydays of the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company also known as 3M. Instead, we rely 100% on treated (and regulated) city water.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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LFNfan said:
Never knew that, although have used a few of their products over the years.
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It’s a massive conglomerate with a presence in over 70 countries making over 60000 different products … not many on the planet can go through a day without using a 3M product either directly or indirectly.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Many thanks for your valuable comments, I seem to have cracked the plant growing with a Fluval 3.0 plant lighting system and the use of a carbon water filter used for water changes of 25% from my hardwater tap supply, plants growing very well with my undergravel filters
Cheers
Daveshep
 
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