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Trying to get plants to grow.

A

Alan D Ball

Seedling
Joined
22 Nov 2011
Messages
7
Hi.
I have just set up a 4ft x 2ft x 2ft tank.
I have quartz gravel for substrate, bog wood, temp of 28, softish water 6.0 ph, co2 running for 8 hours a day,6 x t5 tubes 4 x white marine 14000 54w and 2 x blue plus 54w from iquatics (great company, very helpful,good prices on the lamps and tubes and a good price for next day delivery), i am running a Aquamanta EFX 600 external filter (maidenhead aquatics own brand). The lighting, first four tubes are on from 1pm til 9 pm and the other two come on from 1.30pm til 10.30pm
I add in daily 8ml of tropica aquacare plant nutrition + liquid, 8 ml weekly of easycarbo and weekly ferropol 100ml.
This has now been setup for about two months now and the plants seem to be withering away. The crypts have gone all fluffy and dyeing, the anubis arent doing to well either, the vallis are struggling as well. the only two plants that have done well and I think it is only because of the lighting is the Japanese Red Tiger lilly plant and aponogeton which are from bulbs.Also the java fern isnt looking good either.
Not sure where im going wrong.
Before this i had the same equipment setup in a 2ft x 2ft x 2ft tank and had the same results.I just cant seem to do planted aquariums. My boy have there own tanks, no equipment, just put the plants in and hey presto they grow and grow and grow. It would be great to have someone who could point me in the right direction.
Many thanks.
Alan.

Great website. Got it at Aquatics Live show at Olyimpa 19/20th nov 2011.
 
That seems like a lot of light, maybe try dropping it by a few hours a day and using less tubes. High lighting will fuel demand for nutrients and co2, of which you don't seem to have much of, especially with a substrate that contains no nutrients whatsoever.

Have you heard of the Estimative Index?

P.S Welcome! Don't worry, I was a plant killer at first but this forum has transformed me 😀
 
Hi Morgan
At the moment I dont have any pictures, but will get some to show soon.
Also I havent heard of the Estimative Index. Whats that about.
 
I'm not sure about that filter output but a 4x2x2 is going to need a lot of flow.

Some plants dislike easycarbo and vallis is one of them.

14k lamps and blues, is that not salty gear? I'm no wizard with lights but I think 6500 - 10k is a better range although light is light. But yes others have stated, you have a lot.
 
I'd agree with what's just been said In that you definitely need more flow in that tank by either a powerhead or an additional filter. You say you run co2 8 hours a day, at what point do you turn the co2 on and what colour is your drop checker 2 hours into your photo period?
It is a fair bit of light, I run just over 3 watts per gallon on a 5 foot and I need lots of flow, co2 and ferts. I'd definitely look at going down the estimation index route, seems daunting at first but is quite straight forward once you get your head round it. The sponsors on here sell ei salts, and should you need any help with quantities etc then I'm sure any one of us can help, I'll gladly work it out if need be.

Drop your lighting down to say 2 or 3 of the tubes, then concentrate on getting your flow sorted, along with co2 at a nice level and dose enough ferts. Then when you see your plants growth improving and you have the dosing etc sorted, should you wish to up the light slightly then do so whilst also increasing co2.

Hope this helps mate and welcome to ukaps.
 
Once you've had a read about EI dosing you can use this calculator to work out how much you need to dose.

http://blog.fluidsensoronline.com/calcu ... ive-index/

I'd highly recommend buying their EI starter pack, it seems expensive at first but buying dry saves you an absolute heap in the long run. I've barely made a dent in mine.

To summarise from what you've told us so far:

Less light.

More ferts.

Possibly more flow.

Some more info on your co2 might be helpful aswell, but I think your biggest problem is way too much light.
 
One thing I manged to glean from the aquatics live show and in particular the talk by George Farmer was to dose daily rather than weekly. 'better to eat little by little than one huge meal' I think was te phrase or something very similar. Perhaps attempt this along with the lighting as other have pointed out.

The greatest piece of advise I ever had was to remember excess of one or more things in your tank will ultimately become harmful to what you strive to achieve. We are striving to create an equilibrium between co2, light, water condition, flow, and nutrition within the substrate.
 
Hi All.
Thanks for all your responses.I had a feeling that I was going to open up a can of worms for myself and I think this is it.
Its strange that you all point to the lighting issue and filtration as well.
When I asked questions at the show Aquatics Live, (Aquajardin) said that the lighting and filtration was ok and no probs they also sold me the easycarbo. I have now taken the two blue tubes out so it now leaves me with just the four white marine 14k tubes. I have taken on board that this is still too much so I will at the weekend take them all out and replace them all for proper tubes to promote the plant growth. The filtration is also an issue for me. I have four discus in the tank with a few corys,golden nugget, royal panache and a green phantom plec so I dont want to over do the filtration as the fish are going to be blown away.The filter will do Max Aquarium volume (up to) 600l and Maximum of 2700 l/hr. Take away 1 mtr under the unit and media I could be looking at worse case 2000 l/hr, still not too bad I think, total of 5 turnovers an hour. So now im totally not sure what way to go with this.Its like having 10 books open about the same subject all with different answers.
Co2 is on auto timer on at 12 pm an hour before the lights come on and off at 20.30 and I have now started to use fert daily at 8ml per instructions for daily feeds. The ph drop checker is between light green and yellow.Again I think this is ok.
Ummmmmmmmm do some more reading and see how it goes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for all the advice.Alan
 
It is extremely important to get the C02 enriched water flowing over all the plants, as a guide this requires about 10 x the tank volume every hour.
Two full length T5s will work fine (for the time being at least) set them to come on for 7 hours a day & get the gas on at least two hours before the lights & off one hour before lights.
Really concentrate on water flow & sufficient C02.
 
Hi Foxfish.
I have now adjusted my co2 timer. I will come on at 12.00pm and off at 23.00 an hour before and two hours after. have still left the lights at the moment ( not enough hours in the day) Have looked at other solutions for more turnover.A friend has sold me a Fluval 4 plus internal to help out. I do have an external co2 diffuser but at the moment my external filter hose tails are 28mm and the connectors to the diffuser is 16/22 mm I may have to purchase another external filter to connect it to. I am worried about the amount of flow for my discus and soon will have some wild Peruvian angels to go in.Not sure how they will cope.
Have taken a look at your links and fantastic pictures and great pond. You must be proud of yourself. Alan
 
Hi Alan, just to qualify the gas routine - you should get the C02 to come on two hours before the lights come on & go off one hour before the lights go off 🙂
If you try to look at lighting this way = the less light to get results the better - then that is good.
Some of the most spectacular tanks featured on the forum use surprisingly low amounts of light!
For the last few years I have stuck to - 2 x T5s for 6-7 hours a day but I went through a very bright learning curve at one time LOL ... good luck & keep us informed.
 
Right thats done. Co2 on at 12.00pm and off at 20.30, lights on at 14.00 and off at 21.00. I will see how it goes for a while and go from there.
Thanks again for the advise.
I have also looked at the Estimative Index link but will take one step at a time.Just keep plodding on with the ferts that I have for now.
Alan
 
If you are worried about flow disturbing your fish then fitting spray bars to the filter out lets will help as it will distribute the flow over a wider area! It will also help distribute the CO2 better!
 
Hi all
matador1982 said:
The greatest piece of advise I ever had was to remember excess of one or more things in your tank will ultimately become harmful to what you strive to achieve. We are striving to create an equilibrium between co2, light, water condition, flow, and nutrition within the substrate.
Click to expand...
Not sure I agree with that statement 🙁
The only excesses you need to worry yourself about are Light and CO2. Too much light and you have no margin for error and need a super strict maintenance regime. Too much CO2, you gas your fish.
Excess of everything else mentioned does not cause any problems in a planted tank, unless you keep ultra sensitive species.
 
CeeJay said:
Hi all
matador1982 said:
The greatest piece of advise I ever had was to remember excess of one or more things in your tank will ultimately become harmful to what you strive to achieve. We are striving to create an equilibrium between co2, light, water condition, flow, and nutrition within the substrate.
Click to expand...
Not sure I agree with that statement 🙁
The only excesses you need to worry yourself about are Light and CO2. Too much light and you have no margin for error and need a super strict maintenance regime. Too much CO2, you gas your fish.
Excess of everything else mentioned does not cause any problems in a planted tank, unless you keep ultra sensitive species.
Click to expand...

I'd agree with this. If excess nutrients were a big problem then EI wouldn't work.
 
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