Browning plants, what am I doing wrong!

[cyhiemstra]

I recently started a new planted tank , 30L nano (Dennerle Complete plus kit) with all the included parts, gravel, substrate, filter and nutrients. The plants in the tank are Hemianthus Callitrichoides, Myriophyllum Grossense and Eleocharis Acicularis. It has been going for about 4 weeks with consistent growth but for the past week and a half I have started having problems with my plants browning and cannot figure out what I am doing wrong.

The first 2 weeks were great, everything growing very well and I was using the included Dennerle nutrient drops and dechlorinator to prep the water. I decided after week 1 to add ammonia to 4-5ppm to get the tank cycling. Then the last 3 weeks look a bit like this: Did a 50% water change to refresh the tank. I also switched to Sera Florena (0-0-4) weekly dosefor nutrients, continued to add Ammonia when readings went down to 0ppm, and recently Easylife Carbo daily dose as well. During this time my light was admittedly on for quite long periods of time (14hr, 16hr) as it wasn’t on a timer. I had an explosion of algae at the end of week 3 (before the carbon and sera switchover) which I resolved with doing a good clean (scrubbing the dragonstone and 50% water change). Around this time the plants started getting quite bad. Lots of browning.

I am halfway through a cycle with ammonia dropping within a few days of application, while Nitrites are up at 8ppm over the past 2 weeks. Nitrates remain at 40ppm which matches the tapwater.

I have made a list of details of the tank to find possible problems, Im very keen to hear your thoughts on this:

Temp is 20-21C/68-70F with no heater
Plants may not reach substrate (lots of gravel came with the kit)
Nutrients?
Carbon is causing a film on the surface – is it too much? Im using recommended dosage on the bottle
Too much light
Is the algae killing the plants
pH goes up from 7.6 tap water to 8.4-8.5 in the tank (consistently) , from the stone?
Is the chlorine level too high, do the drops im using not work (LFS said that should be fine)
Is the water flow too high (under water with no surface disturbance)

Today I noticed the stone has a lot of little crawlies on it, micro dot like insects walking around and white squiggly worms a few mm in length.

Ive attached a bunch of photos for illustration, hopefully it will help.

Many thanks for reading, I hope someone can help!

 

[Reuben]

I'm sure one of the more experienced members will be along soon, but I think I can help you with this!

have made a list of details of the tank to find possible problems, Im very keen to hear your thoughts on this: Temp is 20-21C/68-70F with no heater Plants may not reach substrate (lots of gravel came with the kit) Nutrients? Carbon is causing a film on the surface – is it too much? Im using recommended dosage on the bottle Too much light Is the algae killing the plants pH goes up from 7.6 tap water to 8.4-8.5 in the tank (consistently) , from the stone? Is the chlorine level too high, do the drops im using not work (LFS said that should be fine) Is the water flow too high (under water with no surface disturbance)

Your problems will rapidly diminish if you reduce your lighting, - both photo period (go to sub 6hrs) and intensity. The surface film is caused by lipid (fat/oil) and nutrient ejection from the plants breaking down. PH doesn't matter to much. Nutrients will not cause any issues if light and Co2 are correct. In this case it would appear light is the main 'problem'. The browning looks like a diatom issue -which indicates too much light/poor plant health. If you drop lighting levels AND do large regular water changes you should see a raping turn around in the next couple of weeks. Just make sure you add nutrients and Co2. Surface disturbance is a good thing in terms of flow as it introduces o2.

Today I noticed the stone has a lot of little crawlies on it, micro dot like insects walking around and white squiggly worms a few mm in length

This sounds a bit like planaria or hydra but I'm not sure.

I think the best things to concentrate your efforts on are keeping the water very clean (lots of water changes to remove metabolic/organic wastes) and reducing your light.

Hope that's of some help.

 

[Reuben]

Oh, and stop adding ammonia, I would not recommend it in a planted start up, your plants are already more effective at nitrogen cycling than the bacteria population you are trying to build will be. Concentrate on good plant health and clean water.

 

[Ian Holdich]

This is diatoms...probably caused by light and ammonia. The test kits are (unless they're lab grade) are all but useless in a planted tank.

As above, you need to stop adding ammonia.
Have a read here
Cycling a planted tank | UK Aquatic Plant Society

 

[Reuben]

large regular water changes you should see a raping turn around in the next couple of weeks.

Oh dear, too late to edit, but that should read rapid obviously, RAPID...

 

[ian_m]

Looks like diatoms, new tank syndrome. I had them couple of weeks after starting, wipe off the best you can, I used a square of filter floss, remove leaves that it won't come off and do water changes. Best of all, I put some Ottos in and they scoffed the lot in a day for two.

Can also reoccur with a mature tank couple of days after doing major plant rearrangements.

 

[ceg4048]

add ammonia to 4-5ppm

Plus

light...on for ...14hr, 16hr

is a recipe for disaster. Tanks, especially planted tank do not require ammonia to cycle. You are doing more damage than good by adding toxic substances to your tank. The tank produces enough toxins that you need to remove. Suggest that you abandon this approach.

Temp is 20-21C/68-70F with no heater

This is actually a good thing and mitigates the damage.

Plants may not reach substrate (lots of gravel came with the kit)

Irrelevant

Nutrients?

Wrong!

Carbon is causing a film on the surface – is it too much?

Wrong. You are not using enough.

Too much light

Definitely!

Is the algae killing the plants

YOU are killing the plants. The algae are simply mopping up.

pH goes up from 7.6 tap water to 8.4-8.5 in the tank (consistently) , from the stone?

Irrelevant.

Is the chlorine level too high, do the drops im using not work (LFS said that should be fine)

Irrelevant.

Is the water flow too high (under water with no surface disturbance)

Wrong. There is a 99.5% probability that there is not enough flow and that the distribution is poor.

You need to perform a lot more large water changes, STOP ADDING AMMONIA TO YOUR TANK, reduce the intensity and length of time the light are on, improve flow and distribution and add more CO2.

Cheers,

 

[Reuben]

This is actually a good thing and mitigates the damage

Can you explain this a bit further? Will it just slow the biological processes down or something?

 

[cyhiemstra]

Wow guys thanks for all the support! I intended to get some email alerts so would have checked in a lot sooner! Will absorb all this and come back with q/c

 

[ceg4048]

Can you explain this a bit further? Will it just slow the biological processes down or something?

Yes, algae love warmer temperatures. Their metabolic rate increases more so than higher plants it's an advantage for them. When things cool down plants are not bothered too much and algae lose an advantage. Also, gases such as CO2 and O2 have better solubility in cooler water.

Cheers,

 

[cyhiemstra]

Thanks for all these replies, super helpful. So to recap, the ammonia and long lenghts of light are me shooting myself in the foot, i have read in a lot of places that even plants like ammonia but im going to take whats here as key info because it makes sense. Also glad to read that pH and temps arent causing me any problems, thats great bcs I wouldnt necessarily want to go into trying to alter those. Ditto for the gravel depth. Ill spend more time reading up and following the individual forum links (each one of those links refers to more links in each page) to further understand the relationship between the components: O2, CO2, Ammonia, substrate nutrients.

For now im reducing light to 5-6hr/day, continuing the carbon and weekly nutrients, and ill be doing a mega tank clean with water change today, scrub off all the diotomes off the surfaces and trim away all the brown leaves. Im going to consider a first fish as well, of the cleaning variety. I have also adjusted the filter output to just under the surface pointing up so as to create a nice turbulent surface. If i understand it correctly the rest should start going naturally.

One last Q. primary school teaches us we breathe out CO2, plant takes it in, and makes O2 for us. I wasnt aware plants needed O2 as well. Is there a chart somewhere, like an infographic of some sort that describes what happens when each component is supplied into the tank in excess (such as in my case the light - or even CO2)?

 

[cyhiemstra]

Also, i have about 5 responses saying ammonia is terrible in the planted tank - but all the forums still say to put it in? why?

 

[Reuben]

Im going to consider a first fish as well, of the cleaning variety.

I'm sure you are already aware, but having been there myself I would be cautious about adding fish such as ottos to help with the diatoms you have. Yes, they will eat them which is good, but having diatoms is a signal that all is not well, and in my experience the plant health will not improve until the underlying cause of the diatom problem is fixed.

So to sum up, get algae eating fish, but do still tackle the cause of the problems.

Also, i have about 5 responses saying ammonia is terrible in the planted tank - but all the forums still say to put it in? why?

Well, you can also find lots of information saying nitrate and phosphate cause algae, but as you will have seen on this site, they do not. I would guess that advice about adding Ammonia relates to non planted tanks then is applied to them too. The application of Ammonia in my experience was a bad idea. I did the same thing as you when I started my planted tank and also had problems with diatoms that persisted for a long while. It is not the method I would use now, clean water, plants well supplied with nutrients and Co2 seems a better method to get things running well. Here's a thread covering diatom problems I had Diatom dilemma... | UK Aquatic Plant Society

Thanks

 

[cyhiemstra]

Reuben that was very interesting read thanks for that link. You seem to be a few steps ahead of me and glad to know it's not just me in my confusion.

I've done a severe rank clean - toothbrush scrubbing my stone and diatoms, mega water change and scrubbed down the glass, also trimmed out dodgy leaves as much I could.

My new strategy will be ditching the ammonia and even the test kits for a while, while I observe my plants doing better, at 5-6hr of light each day. I also went ahead and did a day of darkness, all which helped my tank a lot.

My next question is about feeding and carbon . If I keep light under control the next step is finding that sweet spot. I wonder how I do this though,. For carbon I need to get ahold of bromo with the 4k solution for my drop checker. But for nutrients, my bottle of sera florena suggests 5ml a week, do u just up this to more frequent or introduce 1-2ml which would be slightly overdosing every second day instead of the once a week?

Thanks you guys are great

 

[cyhiemstra]

Tank, not rank.. Lol.. Although I appreciate the intensity of your "raping turn around"

 

[Reuben]

Tank, not rank.. Lol.. Although I appreciate the intensity of your "raping turn around"

It was a bit embarrassing that one...

 

[cyhiemstra]

Ok ive gone from medium level confidence on this to a total lack of control. Since that post ive continued to add the Dennerle drops as fertz that came with the set, but since today I have finally managed to start the EI starter kit, and I am really hoping for the best this time. Algae is all under control except for the diatoms which exploded again when i was away for the weekend (left behind a new co2 diy with very low surface agitation and lights on 6hr for 3 days)

In the meantime this disaster of HC that just wont grow, while the MyrioPhyllum is making it through but very slowly and definitely struggling. I have my DIY co2 set up day/night at no ridiculous rate, with medium surface agitation and a green drop checker, but signs of progress are still missing. My lighting has been at 5.5hr for about a week now, Ive stopped with the easycarbo as well, im careful not to overload on anything. Technically the EI should begin to do more good from today but Im just so confused whats causing brown leaves like this?








do i stand a chance for these to actually grow out??

Also introducing this colony who seem in love with the pvc suckers and the diffuser:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

and finally for good measure some stats:
KH 14
GH 21
pH 7.6
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 40ppm (matching tapwater)

I cant believe im not cycled but i never observed a nitrate spike, ( i did observe nitrites go up and down) im in 6 weeks now. Last final niggling feeling is that the filter media (floss) just isnt right but in the insane amount of reading I have done, this shouldnt be much of an issue for this tank.

 

[ceg4048]

Did you read the last sentence in my post #7 above? ANY structural flaw in a submerged plant is due to poor CO2 (assuming that it is not a result of predation). It was very unwise to stop the addition of liquid carbon and this has absolutely nothing to do with EI or nutrients. You are not adding enough CO2 or your flow/distribution to the substrate is sloppy. That's what the disintegrating plants are telling you. Your DC should be lime green or yellow when the lights come on. That photo shows a very dark green, so you are immediately in trouble.

Please stop reporting nitrogen test kit readings because they are completely inaccurate and are also completely irrelevant. You have wasted your money buying them and you are wasting your time by using them. Stop doing useless things and pay attention to the things that matter most - CO2, flow and distribution. If you can accomplish that then your plants will survive and the diatoms will go away.

Cheers,

 

[cyhiemstra]

Yea ceg I certainly did! My logic must have been flawed but I swore that I observed the easycarb to have negative effects on the hc(reading confirms this could be possible) and I definitely didn't cut the co2 out, I replaced it with a Diy system which would be easier to observe and better for the plants.

Second flaw is that I understood the green drop checker = good. To be honest it is dark because I added a little extra bromo to be able to see it, it's certainly not in the blue spectrum of green.

I had already taken care of the lighting hours, which is what led me to the 3rd component, to assume that the fertilizer (I have no description of what is in it) was the issue.

I think what I've understood now is there is a tipping point. The fundamentals are that optimal lighting and co2, along with good distribution, leads to growth. After this the actual makeup of the fertilizers are more to do with the health of the plants as they grow. Then what you say makes sense.

The only odd thing is the myriophyllum, which goes into growth spurts and then craps out. It is by far the hardiest plant in my tank, but it could still be due to co2.

So concluding, I'm supplementing co2 Diy with liquid carbon, and I've moved around the co2 diffuser and drop checker and spray bar and will keep a careful eye on the distribution.

 

[ceg4048]

HC loves liquid carbon, the dosage would have to be super high to cause negative effects. More than likely you were not adding enough EasyCarbo.

...I understood the green drop checker = good...

A better rule of thumb is that a green DC color is meaningless if your plants are browning and melting, because browning and melting is only ever caused by poor CO2 uptake. Whether that is due to poor injection rate, insufficient liquid carbon addition, excessive light intensity, inadequate flow or poor distribution is the puzzle that must be solved for every tank. The DC can only verify the truth. It cannot determine it. This is one of the reasons I keep harping on the concept of not trusting test kits to tell you the truth. Browning is due to poor CO2, regardless of any test kit. You've got to believe that and when you believe it, then you will search for the "WHY" of poor CO2. Test kits will not solve this problem.

The easiest thing to do is to add more Easycarbo and to increase the injection rate. These actions guarantee an increase in CO2 availability and saves the lives of the plants. So you have to ignore the green is good mentality and increase the CO2 first and foremost. Then you try to figure out the other items in the list in the above paragraph, so that when you improve those items it will enable you to reduce the CO2 input to more reasonable levels. That way the tank is comfortable for both plants and fish.

A more detailed set of explanation in the thread What causes leaves to melt, and what to do now? | UK Aquatic Plant Society

Cheers,