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No idea what to do - poor plant health and algae

Hi all
I would really appreciate if everyone gave their honest opinion about how these plants look. Do they look better or am I being a bit biased? To me they look a lot greener and are definitely growing larger. The leaves of the daughter plants on the frogbit are larger than the leaves on the mother plants. Exciting stuff.
 

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Hi all,
greenbliss said:
Do they look better or am I being a bit biased? To me they look a lot greener and are definitely growing larger. The leaves of the daughter plants on the frogbit are larger than the leaves on the mother plants.
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Yes, they look pretty healthy. That amount of growth (and <"intensity of green coloration">) is a good indication of healthy plants.

cheers Darrel
 
Ok, thanks everyone for your input. I guess I did have an NPK shortage in the end. I'll just keep up this dosing schedule for now and see how it goes.

I honestly want to kick myself now since it turns out it was such a simple issue...
 
Aphids are driving me mad currently. Out of any plant they could attack they are only on the plants in my aquarium?? What can I do other than flick them off the plant leaves or submerge the plants? I have had limited success with maltodextrin but that just seems too polluting to use in an aquarium. They KEEP ON coming back somehow. They are also way too small for my fish to really be interested in, which is really annoying.
 
I'm still having major issues with this aquarium over a year later. I'm almost ready to throw in the towel. It really frustrates me as this aquarium was nice at some points and I've had other planted aquariums which gave me no bother, whether CO2 injected or low tech. I'm going to give it one more try, changing one thing at a time then waiting to see what happens.
 
I do. I had tanks set up using capped pond soil, in my experience they tend grow nice in the beginning an then develop problems. I know there are people that make it work, but maybe the way to go is to get the soil from the outside, rather than commercial with additives. I had problems with PO4 building up stupidly every few weeks. I would need to change 80% of water twice to bring it back to acceptable level. I could not stop the cycle - blue green algae on everything, po4 very high, then I bring it down with massive water changes, it gets better only for few weeks. I broke down that tank. I only knew it was the soil as I had other tanks with just the different substrate. Also the water test kits. They dont need to be precise as some claim.. In my case the readings were on other ends of the scale, so test did the job to tell me what the issue was.
 
I'll see what I can do and if maybe being more consistent with care needs again will help, if not I'll probably end up redoing the tank with something like sand, aquasoil or tesco cat litter. I do remember seeing a guide on UKAPS where someone used the exact same westland pond plant potting soil but iirc they mixed it with peat which I did not. Maybe that caused an issue? But I wouldn't know why that is anyways...
 
I might really soon upgrade and get a larger filter, as well as a CO2 setup. Also maybe some moler clay cat litter or some other relatively inert substrate. I really just want to grow plants and not have to deal with all the fuss, it’s ok if it’s hard work but I just want an aquarium that rewards me for taking care of it. Really demotivating to have an algae filled mess. Just really focus on flow/distribution and see if I can get things going well, then try adding CO2 and more light slowly.
 
Hi everyone

I am getting back into fishkeeping after a long time and wonder if theres threads where we talk about climate change, agriculutre, the food supply and so on?

I think my fish tanks were failing because I was tired all the time and had no energy to take care of them and the culprit seems to be modern agricultural food supply? and environment related stuff like pesticides??
 
Take a look at threads Off Topic, Might find something to comment on or start a discussion yourself "Save the Planet Recipes" might interest you
 
I am really just completely baffled as to why the tanks are doing so poorly.

Laetacara recently dropped dead from dropsy. Lots of Cherry barbs too. Water was good and clean and I didn't overfeed. The opposite probably but they weren't emaciated..

Can supernatural causes or so on cause aquariums to do badly? I know it sounds like lunacy but when my aquariums and plants started not growing and doing badly I experienced strange paranormal events in my life. Scientifically I've tried it all and the plants really should have been growing with all the remineralising and fertilising I had been doing. Yet when I first started all I did was use some ready made fertiliser and had a crappy little internal filter and fed the fish a good diet and plant growth was quite literally perfect for all the easy low tech species.

Anyone got any input on such a thing? I mean really with everything I tried it just doesn't make sense does it? I dont have any pictures of the old scape but plant health wise it was really perfect with very little input.
 
greenbliss said:
Can supernatural causes or so on cause aquariums to do badly? I know it sounds like lunacy but when my aquariums and plants started not growing and doing badly I experienced strange paranormal events in my life.
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I dont know, but I don't think so. I think the two things are unrelated.

Why don't you restate your issues and send a few pictures so we can see what you are experiencing?
 
Well its just poor plant health no matter what I do. Funnily enough the fish were completely fine until recently. Honestly the Laetacara were spawning and in shining colours a few weeks ago and dropped dead now. Its the same thing as in the pictures I posted when I started this thread. Nothing new. Last time the tank did well was around 2019.

What I find interesting is how I'm doing less, really just feeding the fish and not fertilising and the vallisneria are starting to grow somehow after years of being dormant somehow... One thing dies and another is starting to grow. Meanwhile when I was fertilising and doing obsessive water changes they were just completely frozen in time... I mean vallisneria is a weed isn't it? It shouldn't be doing so badly... Very odd but I'm interested in whats going to happen to the vallisneria and other plants over the next few weeks?

I'm honestly feeding them really cheap food from pets at home now too.. Not anything fancy. I might start a daphnia bucket come spring.
 
greenbliss said:
Well its just poor plant health no matter what I do. Funnily enough the fish were completely fine until recently. Honestly the Laetacara were spawning and in shining colours a few weeks ago and dropped dead now. Its the same thing as in the pictures I posted when I started this thread. Nothing new. Last time the tank did well was around 2019.

What I find interesting is how I'm doing less, really just feeding the fish and not fertilising and the vallisneria are starting to grow somehow after years of being dormant somehow... One thing dies and another is starting to grow. Meanwhile when I was fertilising and doing obsessive water changes they were just completely frozen in time... I mean vallisneria is a weed isn't it? It shouldn't be doing so badly... Very odd but I'm interested in whats going to happen to the vallisneria and other plants over the next few weeks?

I'm honestly feeding them really cheap food from pets at home now too.. Not anything fancy. I might start a daphnia bucket come spring.
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If you would not mind posting a few photos, that would help a little.
 
Bradders said:
If you would not mind posting a few photos, that would help a little.
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You are right it would help a little
Andy Pierce said:
I can say with absolute certainty that it is entirely natural causes that make aquariums do badly. That is really good news - when you figure out what the underlying issue is and fix it, you're back in business.
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I've tried it all though. All that is left is to try doing nothing. Seems to be working considering the vallisneria has become NOT dormant after so many years... its odd. Why now? Why not when I was water changing like a lunatic and dosing fertilisers and buying expensive fish food made from 'better' ingredients??
 
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Jungle Val is literally the easiest plant i have ever grown. When i started out new, with a plain river sand substrate, 2 t8s and nothing else, my vals were still growing like crazy. They covered the surface rapidly and blocked light for other plants.

They love hard water with high carbonates.

Have you tried some other plants that basically grow in all conditions?

If you can get your hands on some hygrophila corymbosa (siamensis var even better) , it grows well in every condition and fast enough to outcompete algae. This competed with the jungle val for the crown of the easiest plant to grow. Its myvh easier than even polysperma, which itself is a pretty easy plant.

I would suggest getting the easiest mix of fast growing plants to 'reset' your tank.

H.corymbosa, H.polysperma, H.difformis, L.repens, V.americana, E.densa, B.caroliana etc.

A few Anubias or even Lagenandras if you go fancy to balance the stem plants.

These plants grow fast and generally will outcompete algae. If the older leaves start to get algae, start trimming aggressively.
 
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