When will leafs stop melting

[The Don]

hi guys, after my change of lighting and a re arranging of the tank. Now it's a waiting game seeing how the t5 lighting fairs and whether plants improve with this lighting compared to the old diy LEDs. Ok so it's still early days, initially as warned algae appeared so I under went with a vigorous pruning clearing most leafs with bba algae. But I'm definitely seeing new growth from plants that never grew before but one donanated plant from a friends tank prior to the change of lights has never seems to stop shredding it's leafs to the point I'm wondering if it's worth chucking? Plus on another note does anyone else suffer from their corys constantly feeling the need to dig out any new planted cuttings or fert tabs as I do and the little balls are always floating with the cuttings and leafs

 

[Bhu]

Cory's do love to dig and rummage around in the substrate. mine did stop rooting out my carpet plants after a while which was a relief. As for the plants melting, they will do this until they are happy or dead which ever comes first 😉 id work on your flow and co2, making sure that the liquid ferts are at the right level.

 

[The Don]

Haha they clearly don't eat the root tabs just enjoy exposing them! I haven't started any liquid fertilising yet Would you recommend the lush ferts I've seen linked here? The flow of the tank is steady I have a spray bar at the surface not really flowing too strong but enough for the Rock shrimps to be fanning directly underneath

 

[Bhu]

Hi Don, yes that is probably why the plants are receding. Id go with the EI method as sold by this sites sponsor here...
http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/fertilisers/dry-chemicals/starter-kits/ei-starter-kit.html
All you will need and will last for ages.
What co2 injection are you using?

 

[The Don]

Apologises for the late reply, I've had an outbreak of what looks like whitespot while treating a couple of the neon tetras with fin rot and cotton mouth. After using a full course of pimafix I think changing the landscape/lighting was a bit much for them and pretty much every tetra were riddled and flicking themselves on the sand and generally going mad so I've had to try and catch the worse of them and quarantine them while treating. Was such fun destroying all my landscaping trying to catch them.. I still have about four sneaky tetras in the main tank who avoided capture but will keep an eye on them. As for the co2 question I've never used it nor ferts, this is the first step of upgrading my very low tech tank with the lights as the first step.

 

[Bhu]

I think that's the key to your problems. The ferts are essential and co2 for some plant varieties. Im no expert on all the different plant types but the one melting is probably due to not enough co2 in the water for the demand put on the plant by the light.