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Plant help

J

jp303

Member
Joined
22 Oct 2008
Messages
37
Location
Berkshire
Hi all,

I set this tank up at the end of January. It is my first planted tank and was pretty excited at the start but now the issues are taking over my enthusiasm.

I haven't had any issues with the fish, no diseases and no deaths. The cherry shrimp are also loving life and reproducing like their lives depended on it.

I wasn't sure whether to post this in the algae section or plant as I have issues with both. I have a bad green algae problem. I take out as much as I can every water change (weekly) but I cannot get rid of it. Obviously something isn't right...

The plants also aren't doing great. Brown patches, some holes and poor growth. Again I am new to this so obviously doing something wrong.

I dose easy carbo daily and tnc complete weekly.

I have led lighting which came with the tank. I emailed aqua one to ask about it as it can't be dimmed. They told me it was 115 par at 30cm and 50par at 60cm.

Any help would be amazing and let me know if you need more info. Photos are attached.

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Hi!
This is the worst nightmare of any aquarium. Is difficult to say what to do first. I would do so :
1. Clean as much as possible and get out the plants that are in very bad shape; add many stem plants, with fast growth.
2. Make a massive change of water and change fertilizers; use a basic one and supplements like Ferropol and Potassium
3. Add one Amano to each 10-20 litters of water. Amano are best algae eaters. RCS thrive just because algae presence.
4. Check the filtration and the water flow; both should be very good.
5. Decreasa the light program, no more than 6 hours per day.
The key for controling algae is the ballance between light, chemistry of the water and plants.
Maybe other colleagues will add more to this but I think these steps are urgent.
You should add more details about filtration, light ptogram, plants, ...
Good luck!
 
I had exactly the same thing starting out stick with it!
Where did the plants come from maybe that was the method by which the hair algae came in, which is what happened to me
Do you control the lighting period? I reduced mine to 6 hours a day with a 2 hour break in the middle
I reduced feeding my fish to once every couple of days
I reduced the intensity of my lighting down a couple of clicks on the remote (not scientific but worked)
I increased the number of plants to compete with the algae
Introduced Ottos and Shrimp
In short this all came good and all of the algae has gone, it took a couple of months
thanks let me know how you get on
CV
 
Thanks for the responses both.

I currently have the light set up for 7 hours. I will reduce down to 6 as requested. Unfortunately it doesn't dim so that isn't an option but I can set up a two hour break with the timer.

The capacity of the tank is 135L and the external filter is an Ocellaris 850 which came with the tank which filters
850L/hr. I clean it and the pipes every few weeks.

In terms of plants I have a couple of Bucephalandra some Anubias, Rotala Rotundifolia (not doing great at all), few types of crypts, a java fern, monte carlo and Pogostemon Erectus. Is the fact these are growing poorly due to the algae out competing it or is it down to me not dosing something etc?

Thanks,

Joe
 
All plants are with medium growth. You need some stem plants, fast growing, like Limnophila, Hygrophyla, Ludwigia, ...
And a dedicated fertilization formula.
 
Silviu Man said:
How much biological filter medium you have in filter? Why are you cleaning it so often?
Click to expand...

Hi, the pipes are getting dirty pretty quickly so I give them a clean to keep the flow good. I just rinse out the filter with the old tank water too. nothing heavy.

The filter has 3 compartments.

1) Wool and black sponge
2) Blue sponge and sintered glass noodles
3) Blue sponge and sincere glass substrate
 
Silviu Man said:
All plants are with medium growth. You need some stem plants, fast growing, like Limnophila, Hygrophyla, Ludwigia, ...
And a dedicated fertilization formula.
Click to expand...

I had some Ludwigia Repens in there but it just stopped growing and then melted away so I took it out. I will get some more.
 
OK, you are close with capacity but the content of the filter is far from optimal. I suggest to add an internal prefilter (I have a Eheim but I use only one segment) on the IN of teh filter and to replace all sponge with biological medium (Siporax, Matrix, etc) except the sponge before the pump. In my e901 filter I use one basket with sintetic glass balls, one with Siporax and one with Matrix; last one is with sponge. I clean prefilter each time I change the water but external filter and the pipes, only once in 2-3 months!

Please read again the above advices and take them one by one, as a plan.
In less than two months your aquarium will look very nice.
 
Sorry, it's just my english ! I want to say substrate, not gravel.
OK, you may also use fertilizers for roots, that are pushed in the substrate, close to the plant roots.
 
Holes in leaves - snails.

I believe your Java Fern is getting way too much light, and that's why the leaves have those black spots on them.

What type of substrate are you using?
What are your water parameters?
You should try breaking TNC complete weekly dose in a daily or at least 3x a week doses instead of bombarding the tank with nutrients once a week. How much are you currently dosing?
Dosing Easy Carbo on a 135L tank is not really effective
As an alternative for not being able to dim the lights you can get as many floating plants as you can to provide some shade.

Most of your plants are slow growers, so you'll have a hard time fighting algae while you're still learning how this aquarium plants thing works, specially without a dimmable light unit and some CO2 (I've been there not that long ago).

At the first glimpse from the pictures, you probably have a few nutrient deficiencies to deal with.
disease-graphic.png

Also, the water lettuce aren't looking so bad, which means that the other plants are needing a bit more CO2 as well.

But all of these advice maybe pointless without knowing a bit more about your tank.

Edit: Final advice is to remove all damaged leaves you can from the plants, since they are stressing the plants by stealing nutrients from healthier leaves.
 
In my opinion you are running a high tec tank without gas co2! You need to severely reduce lighting output and photoperiod or simply add a gas co2 setup and aim for a yellow DC towards the end of your photoperiod. Fine tune from there and try to increase the co2 until fish gasp or you can't see because the plants are pearling too much ;)

Seriously though, liquid co2 is ok in a low light setup, but adding lights like that is just going to create an unmanageable tank until you add co2 injection.


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Franks said:
In my opinion you are running a high tec tank without gas co2! You need to severely reduce lighting output and photoperiod or simply add a gas co2 setup and aim for a yellow DC towards the end of your photoperiod. Fine tune from there and try to increase the co2 until fish gasp or you can't see because the plants are pearling too much ;)

Seriously though, liquid co2 is ok in a low light setup, but adding lights like that is just going to create an unmanageable tank until you add co2 injection.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Also to add. Buy some lush Max dry fert from eBay (complete dry fert) mix and inject 5ml per day and that's your plants food taken care off. It's £5 and should last you around 12 months. I run a 150L in the manner. Really high lighting.


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Franks said:
In my opinion you are running a high tec tank without gas co2! You need to severely reduce lighting output and photoperiod or simply add a gas co2 setup and aim for a yellow DC towards the end of your photoperiod. Fine tune from there and try to increase the co2 until fish gasp or you can't see because the plants are pearling too much ;)

Seriously though, liquid co2 is ok in a low light setup, but adding lights like that is just going to create an unmanageable tank until you add co2 injection.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Hi,

Thanks for the response. I have now ordered the ferts you suggested.

I was aware the lighting was high and could cause issue without CO2 but I tried to avoid CO2 due to cost of getting it set up and ongoing. The aim was to try and keep things as cheap as possible and I got a good secondhand price on the tank, so went with it.

What's the advice for cheap CO2 injection? I guess the other option is replace the lighting, but again, it isn't cheap. I tried a few dimmers on the lights but they are non-dimmable LEDs it seems.
 
Hi jp303,
Which Aqua tank do you have? mines an Aqua-1 170L it's beed nothing but trouble, the light controller never worked right, it would switch the lights on or off as it wished, this was replaced but still had similar problems, the heater failed within the 12 months, LFS replaced it and that failed too, way before the year was up..... It must have been the prototype?? But it is still my bigest tank, untill I can get a Juwel Rio 180 etc. Aqua never replied to any of my emails, or acknowledged any problems. Avoid at all cost! unless things have really changed since then!

Mel.
 
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