# not able to grow healthy plants



## amirrezaz (10 Sep 2015)

I have been trying to grow healthy plants for couple of months but I was not successful. I'm kind of frustrated as I did everything I could, I did re-escaping, re-planting, tried different fertilizers, different CO2 injections, added an extra filter but no success yet. The plants do not grow well and leaves edge become brown and then dark. it looks like a deficiency rather than algae.

The following is my final setup followed by some pictures.

Tank size: 120 x 45 x 45 (240 litre)
Light:  Arcadia over tank luminaire with 4 x T5 54w
1 x Tropical  (54w)  and 1 x freshwater pro(54w) (7 hours a day) starts 4pm to 11pm
1 x Freshwater pro (54w) and 1 x Plant pro(54w) (4 hours a day) starts 6pm to 10pm

Filter: 2 x 2217 Eheim filter, 2000 l/h in total. one biological and one mechanical. out flow lily pipes in front and back in opposite directions with different diameters to not interrupt each others flow.
CO2: 2KG pressurised CO2 injection with Aqua Medic reactor 1000, connected to mechanical filter as I think it has more flow. More than 7 8 bubble per seconds using gUsh glass bubble counter, Drop checker is between Green and yellow. starts from 2pm to 10pm.
Fertiliser: EI Dosing. Macro and Micro liquid solution in 500ml bottles and dosing 50ml 3 days a week and do the water change on a day 7.
Macro Solution: 500 ml tap water with
10 x 5/8 tsp Potassium Nitrate (KNO3)    
10 x 3/16 tsp Monopotassium Phosphate (KH2PO4)    
10 x 5/8 tsp Magnesium Sulphate (MgSO4)    

    Micro Solution: 500 ml tap water with
10 x 3/16 tsp TNC Trace    


All dry powders bought from aquarium plant food.​
KH: 13. GH: 17 using not expired API test kit, Temp: 26c
Fish and invertebrates: 10 giant Amano Shrimp + 5 Octo + 20 Teras



 
Didiplis Diandara is the most successful one. They grow fine, but still some of the leave edges are getting brown.



 
Staurogyne repens leave edge are getting brown and then dark, even the new plant start getting brown edge after 2-3 days after planting. Some of the Eleocharis Mini leaves are green and the rest are getting dark. I think the grow is not fast enough as well.



 
Hydrocotyle tripartit old leaves edge and the loose root are getting brown and new one get brown after a while.

I know the main problems can be poor CO2 injection and water flow but I think I have enough water flow with two filter and enough CO2 as my drop checker is between green and yellow and I see oxygen bubbles come from the plants.

so I'm thinking to try two other options that I have not tried yet. I'm not sure if they help.

Increasing the EI dosage:  but normally by EI dosing, plants do not get more than what they want?
Using RO water: maybe my KH and GH is not ideal? maybe I have some harmful minerals in my tap water? I have seen in a forum that Tom Barr mentioned that they do care about the high KH as it affects the CO2 absorption but I don't know if my KH is high enough? 
Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Amir


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## Vito (10 Sep 2015)

Hi Amir, I would normally say up the co2, but at 7-8 bubbles per sec you should have sufficient co2, so it could be a problem with the reactor as everything else seems fine as per your specs. Also try placing your drop checker closer to the bottom to see if the readings are the same to ensure you have sufficient flow of co2, as most plant growth deficiencies are a cause of not enough co2. 
Good luck


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## Martin in Holland (11 Sep 2015)

I agree with Vito. I also would suggest not using all 4 of your T5's at one time, 2 tubes is more than enough. Many times people are confused about light and CO2 when you actually don't need so much light, this will lower the need for CO2 to plants.
Try to up your CO2 and lower your light and see if that helps.


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## Edvet (11 Sep 2015)

When in doubt: do a pH profile. This will tell more about your CO2 efficiency, you are using a lot of light over 45 cm.


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## zgmarkozg (11 Sep 2015)

Hi Amir,
familiar scape 
how often are water changes? I would say that the water column overloaded with nutrients and should unload with more frequent and larger water changes.
Herbs do not seem hungry but burned. try ; every second day to change 30-50% water for 10 days.


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## amirrezaz (11 Sep 2015)

Thanks you guys for your replies.

Vito,
I just added three drop checkers in three different places, I will update you about the their colours.

Edvet,
Would you please let me know about PH profile test ? shall I check it before and after CO2 injection ?

Martin,
I will lower the tank lights to two T5 and increase the CO2 a bit and see how plants react.

zgmarkozg,


> familiar scape


Yep, it's Norbert Sabat, the tree 


> how often are water changes? I would say that the water column overloaded with nutrients and should unload with more frequent and larger water changes.
> Herbs do not seem hungry but burned. try ; every second day to change 30-50% water for 10 days.


I'm following EI dosing recommendation, so I do 50-60% water change every week. so are you saying that because of EI dosage I'm having overloaded nutrient ? shall I reduce the dosage then ?

Any more suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,
Amir


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## Edvet (11 Sep 2015)

pH profile: use a pH measuring device (pen or meter) and take a measurement every hour from when your CO2 starts till lights out. This will tell us more about what you're CO2 does.

https://www.google.nl/#q=ph+profile+ukaps


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## zgmarkozg (11 Sep 2015)

amirrezaz said:


> I'm following EI dosing recommendation, so I do 50-60% water change every week. so are you saying that because of EI dosage I'm having overloaded nutrient ? shall I reduce the dosage then ?



that recommendations are when everything is ok. try to do this for a 10 days or two weeks. Do not reduce the dosage, u will reduce it with water changes. monitor the situation and you will see the results. This is my recommendation only. what soil u have in there- amazonia aquasoil? how old setup is? what is photoperiod from the begining? maybe u need to raise it. 
sry for my english.


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## accordioner (11 Sep 2015)

Are the bio balls in the reactor? I had the same problem with empty reactor: the flow was good, Drop checker was between Green and yellow, but co2 was blown out of the reactor and plants where melting... When i put bak the bio balls in the reactor: flow was little less, Drop checker was between Green and yellow, but co2 dissolved better, in one day the plants looks better and more pearling...


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## amirrezaz (11 Sep 2015)

> that recommendations are when everything is ok. try to do this for a 10 days or two weeks. Do not reduce the dosage, u will reduce it with water changes. monitor the situation and you will see the results. This is my recommendation only. what soil u have in there- amazonia aquasoil? how old setup is? what is photoperiod from the begining? maybe u need to raise it.
> sry for my english.



I'm using Amozonia Aqua soil, it's around 4 months old. I did the re-scape with the same soil around 1.5 month ago and I added extra filter and used AquaMedic reactor.  
The beginning photoperiod  was 2*54w T5, 7 hours a day. the problem was the same, brown edges for leaves but I have not had enough CO2 on that time. 
But since my initial planting I have done some planting afterwards with the photo period I mentioned in the spec earlier (2 * 54w for 7 hours, 2 *54w for 4 hourse in between). the Hydrocotyle tripartit in the pictures is around 3 weeks. The Staurogyne repens is around a week.

Regarding your suggestion to do the water change every other day, if it's because of overloaded nutrients what's the source of these nutrients ? is it because of dosing ? or my water ? shall I just change almost all of the water and start again  ?

Thanks,
Amir


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## amirrezaz (11 Sep 2015)

> Are the bio balls in the reactor? I had the same problem with empty reactor: the flow was good, Drop checker was between Green and yellow, but co2 was blown out of the reactor and plants where melting... When i put bak the bio balls in the reactor: flow was little less, Drop checker was between Green and yellow, but co2 dissolved better, in one day the plants looks better and more pearling...



Yeah I kept the bio balls in the reactor as I thought it helps dissolving. before the reactor I tried injecting the CO2 with big gUSH pollen glass diffuser. the results was the same.

Thanks,
Amir


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## alto (11 Sep 2015)

amirrezaz said:


> the Hydrocotyle tripartit in the pictures is around 3 weeks. The Staurogyne repens is around a week


That brown is likely "diatoms" - otocinclus are excellent at helping with this, you could add a school of 10 or so to the tank, and should see significant change daily

Shrimp? again these will help greatly with controlling/limiting algae, I'd add in at least 30 amano ... I suspect that smaller shrimp may be hassled by your fish.



zgmarkozg said:


> try ; every second day to change 30-50% water for 10 days.


I second this advice.



amirrezaz said:


> Filter: 2 x 2217 Eheim filter, 2000 l/h in total. one biological and one mechanical. out flow lily pipes in front and back in opposite directions with different diameters *to not interrupt each others flow.*


Check this! I'm not sure when you say opposite directions - you don't want opposing flows.


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## zgmarkozg (11 Sep 2015)

amirrezaz said:


> I'm using Amozonia Aqua soil, it's around 4 months old. I did the re-scape with the same soil around 1.5 month ago and I added extra filter and used AquaMedic reactor.
> The beginning photoperiod  was 2*54w T5, 7 hours a day. the problem was the same, brown edges for leaves but I have not had enough CO2 on that time.
> But since my initial planting I have done some planting afterwards with the photo period I mentioned in the spec earlier (2 * 54w for 7 hours, 2 *54w for 4 hourse in between). the Hydrocotyle tripartit in the pictures is around 3 weeks. The Staurogyne repens is around a week.
> 
> ...


Owerload nutrient is from aquasoil and fertilization (how often was watere changes in the begining). Do that water changes like i wrote erlier (u can change 30% every second day for 10 days) and raise photoperiod  on both console for one hour, u can dose a bit of easy carbo, hydrogen peroxide (3%), alge exit or some similar "alge medium". U have only 4 hours full light with all 216W. Dosing full co2, and full EI on low light, and plants cant draw all nutrient with that short time.


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## amirrezaz (12 Sep 2015)

alto said:


> That brown is likely "diatoms" - otocinclus are excellent at helping with this, you could add a school of 10 or so to the tank, and should see significant change daily
> 
> Shrimp? again these will help greatly with controlling/limiting algae, I'd add in at least 30 amano ... I suspect that smaller shrimp may be hassled by your fish.
> 
> ...



I'm not sure if they are brown diatoms as they are kind of part of plants and I cannot remove them.
The opposite directions don't disable each others flow. one of them is on the front and the other is on the back and they make a circular flow. 



zgmarkozg said:


> Owerload nutrient is from aquasoil and fertilization (how often was watere changes in the begining). Do that water changes like i wrote erlier (u can change 30% every second day for 10 days) and raise photoperiod  on both console for one hour, u can dose a bit of easy carbo, hydrogen peroxide (3%), alge exit or some similar "alge medium". U have only 4 hours full light with all 216W. Dosing full co2, and full EI on low light, and plants cant draw all nutrient with that short time.


Although your suggestion is opposite of the other suggestions to increase the lights but I think it's more logical. I think I will follow your instruction.

Thanks,
Amir


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## Julian (14 Sep 2015)

I've been struggling with the same plants in my own tank for about 9 months.

I do not think increasing the amount of light will help your situation, based on the amount of algae on your hardscape, it will only make the situation worse


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## zgmarkozg (29 Sep 2015)

how is the situation now?


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## amirrezaz (29 Sep 2015)

zgmarkozg said:


> how is the situation now?



Thanks for asking, I really appreciate that you care.

Well, it didn't go very well, after increasing the lights the situation got worse, I have had more algea on plants, glassware and decoration. I did water change every other day and treat the water with Algea Exit but It didn't help. But the good thing is that I found that brown leaves edge are diatoms as this time it was much worse, and I could take them off by rubbing the leaves. so this weekend I did deep clean of filters, tubes and glass wares. I took out the stones and clean them. I took out Hydrocotyles, clean and re-plant some of them and trim the Eleochrais mini extensively. I did almost 100% water change. I reduced the light to 2 x 540w for 7 hours and treat the water with Algea Exit. I'm having plan to do the 50% water change every other day as you suggested and see if I can get rid of the diatoms or not. if I can't I'm thinking of using RO water. 

Thanks for chasing up,

Amir


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## zgmarkozg (29 Sep 2015)

Sorry to hear that, but with 1 hour raising the photoperiod cant do that for 10-15 days.
It is great that u clean all the algea from the tank and clean the both fillters. 
Now the water column is reseted and it will be much better. 
Keep us posted...


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## REDSTEVEO (30 Sep 2015)

amirrezaz said:


> 1 x Tropical (54w) and 1 x freshwater pro(54w) (7 hours a day) starts 4pm to 11pm
> 
> 1 x Freshwater pro (54w) and 1 x Plant pro(54w) (4 hours a day) starts 6pm to 10pm



Hi Amir,

I am not sure how you are getting on at the moment with your tank and how the plants/algae are doing. The layout with that piece of wood looks amazing and it deserves to be looking better than it is. It looks like you have been following a lot of advice and doing everything by the book on the filtration, Co2, and EI fertilisation, so it shows you have done your research on this site which is good...but...

A few things I noticed from page 1 of your journal.

1. You have your lights on for 7 hours a day which normally should be okay. But I notice that these don't come on until late, like 4pm and 6pm. I assume you have the timers set to these times so that you can _enjoy _looking at your beautiful looking tank when you come home from work? Okay, but this means that the plants in your tank are subject to the ambient daylight in the room from when the sun rises, then your lights come on at 4pm and 6pm which extends the lighting / photo period until 11pm at night. Which means the plants are subject to light for quite some time, say about 17 hours albeit it is only daylight for part of that time say 10 hours.

This tells me that your plants are stressed, being overloaded with fertilisers and too much light. The plants need a resting period which is as important as the lighting period. Looking at the plants in your tank, mostly mosses and grasses, they don't look like the large leafy type which would require high volumes of light or fertilsers. Edvet is right you only need 2 x 54 watt for this tank and even that could be too much if they are both on for 7 hours. If you are going to stick with the lighting period of 4pm to 11pm you need to do something about the light the tank gets from ambient daylight, certainly if the sun is shining into the tank from a window. If it is you might want to try covering the tank with a dark blanket, similar to a black out curtain.



amirrezaz said:


> KH: 13. GH: 17 using not expired API test kit, Temp: 26c



2.  The second thing I noticed was the KH and GH readings, I think these are both a bit on the high side, especially the KH. I would take steps to try and reduce both of these by a few degrees, say a KH of 6-7 and a GH of around 10 - 12 maximum. The higher the KH and GH the more Co2 you are going to use up and the plants are not getting any benefit from it during the day because there are no lights on until 4pm or 6pm. The plants need the light to utilise the Co2.

You could start using RO water but I would test the parameters of your tap water for KH and GH first. I have got a HMA filter and an RO filter. I use the HMA filter most of the time, and only add RO water when I think it is neccessary to reduce or lower the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in the water. By adding GH buffers and KH buffers, plus all our EI supplements the TDS in the water can easily reach 500 plus, when really we should be aiming for somewhere around 200 to 300 TDS. I have got discus fish in my tank so I try to keep it a bit lower. It is quite a balancing act, if the KH and GH falls to really low levels, the ph will drop, you will get all sorts of false readings, then the plants start to melt and so it goes on. If you do start using RO water be careful with it to begin with and don't forget you are supposed to re-mineralise the RO water with some mieral additives, I use SERA Mineral salts and it has never let me down yet.

3.  The last piece of advice I can give you is to do this, RESET your water column completely which will remove any fertilsers you have been adding, keeping an eye on KH, GH and PH.
To do this try:
First Day: 1 x 80% water change
Second day nothing
Third Day: 1 x 50% water change
Fourth day nothing
Fifth Day: 1 x 50% water change
Sixth day nothing
Seventh Day: 1 x 50% water change

Do not add any fertilisers of any description during this time. Your ADA Aquasoil is only 4 months old and will still have more than enough nutrients for what you need. Trim off any dead leaves, remove plants that look like they have completely had it, and gradually add more plants to replace them.

Once you have reset the water column you can observe closely the effects it has had, then reconsider your fertilisation regime. Start by halving the dosage and gradually increase it but only if the plants look as if they need it.

Lastly I notice you have got BBA on the rocks, try scrubbing the rocks if you can take them out of the tank and spray with a weak solution of Flourish Excel.

I hope this helps, and look forward to seeing the same layout with big improvements!

Cheers,

Steve


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## REDSTEVEO (1 Oct 2015)

Amir,

The following table shows correlation between pH and KH for a given CO2 value. KH is easily measured using drop tests available at aquarium shops. Your local water board probably has some data as well.  

CO2 (mg/l) in relation to Carbonate Hardness (°d) and pH-Value

Measure your Carbonate Hardness and match with a medium range CO2-content (green band), e.g. 20 mg/l. Then, read off the corresponding pH value and adjust your dosage accordingly.

Have alook at this site for a copy a of a very useful table:

http://blog.extraplant.com/dosing-co2.html

Steve


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## Edvet (1 Oct 2015)

Watch out with that table, lots of acids in the tank influence those values. Just use a pH pen and see how much your pH drops. Try to get it in the region of 1 point drop. Even then the distribution can be flawed.
This table causes people to state they have 30, 40 or even 50 mg/l even though that's very unlikely or almost impossible .


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