Monte Carlo leaves turning (dark)brown!

[khoapham99]

Hi everyone! I'm having a problem with my carpeting plant: Monte Carlo.
Problem: Many leaves turn brown and do not have a healthy green color. There are still new nice, green leaves and most of the plants show good signs of photosynthesis (little oxygen bubbles appear on leaves).

• Tank spec: 40x23x25 (cm).
• CO2: 2 bps, 8 hours a day, one hour on/off before light is on/off. CO2 drop checker shows green.
• Light: Chihiros WRGB2 30cm at 50% power, 8 hours a day.
• Age: 3 weeks.
• Temp: around 26-28 Celcius.
• How the problem appeared: During the first week, I bumped a lot of CO2 with 50% light power, but the light was much lower (closer to the water surface) than it is now. This caused a boom of brown diatoms and Monte Carlo's leaves started turning brown. My first attemp was to add some red nose shrimps with a bunch of Nerita snails to help cleaning the diatioms and it worked. However, brown leaves remain and are showing signs of slow-paced spreading.

Given the information above, I want to ask everyone here about the root cause and a way to improve the situation as I'm still not so sure if diatom is the main culprit here.
I attached some images for more visual information.
Thank you everyone!

 

[PARAGUAY]

It's a new set up so this is fairly normal algae and diatoms as the aquarium matures things should get better, water changes are necessary .Are the carpet plants tissue cultured? Looking at the photos looking fairly healthy

 

[Spartacus]

Hello khoapham99 and welcome to UKAPS 😊

I am still learning so take my input with caution but I wonder if the temperature is on the high side? I see you are from Vietnam so I assume high temperatures are normal.

I’m from Scotland so we don’t have that issue! 😊

I have watched many a green aqua / MJ aqua scaping video and they have mentioned around 23c.

Like I say I could be mistaken but just trying to help 😊

Thanks,

Murray

 

[PARAGUAY]

I think it's been mentioned before on UKAPS ideally 22 to 24 but I think in warm climates in other countries they have to accept the warmer temperatures,bit like UK in a heatwave and couple of posts mentioning this .Plants should be OK l would think

 

[Courtneybst]

I wouldn't worry too much. 3 weeks is still very young in terms of tank stability. The Monte Carlo will adjust and grow well with time.

Like others have mentioned, I would lower your temperature to around 23-24 degrees. The higher temperature will increase the plant's metabolism and right now you want things slow and steady.

In the initial stages I also only run my light for 6 hours. It's up to you of course but it works for me. Also a WRGB2 at 50% is nothing to be scoffed at - that's a lot of light, period. But especially for a new setup (and I don't even know how far it is from the surface).