# Probelm with shallow tank



## yanns (Oct 25, 2016)

I have 2 tanks side by side using the same light, water, EI dosing, excel, everything pretty much the same, and one tank the plants don't do well in. One on the left is a 13 gallon very shallow turtle tank with Flourite and the tank on the right is a standard 10 gallon with cheap sand. The tank on the left with the flourite has not been able to grow anything but java moss and duckweed whereas the tank with crappy sand is doing great. Java fern, pennywort, mini water lettuce, hygro, it all would die slowly. Water in both tanks is 7.4 ph, kh 5. Both have good current. Only difference is TDS in tank on left is 500 and tank on right is 250, and the water height. Tank on left has a mississippi map turtle (no he doesn't eat them) some endler guppies, amano shrimp and a dwarf gourami, tank on right has guppies, and an apisto. The tank is kinda empty but i attached a pic to see them setup. Any ideas? Thanks!!


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

There is a fairly substantial difference between your tanks - it's the light; your fixture is MUCH farther away from the surface of the shallow tank than from the 10G. I'm fairly sure that's a big part of the problem. 

Because of the fixture's height, a great deal of its light has been widely scattered before it ever gets to the shallow tank surface, never mind the bottom. The angle of the reflectors of the LEDS themselves has quite an effect on this. Other issues are the actual LED bulb, quality, colour, colour temperature and/or wavelength.

Generally, the further the light is from the water, the less intense the light is when it does get there.

Your duckweeds are growing because they float, which puts them closer to the light. I suspect they aren't growing nearly as fast as they're capable of doing, though.

I think the only plants that might succeed in the turtle tank as it is now may be a few of the undemanding moss species; maybe a Marimo ball; possibly java fern if it's been mounted on wood to put it closer to the surface; Anubias; perhaps green Crypt Wendtii. Some of the Vals and Swords might do ok, but not the small, carpeting species.

Was that LED fixture made specifically for planted tanks? Was it an expensive one?

It's unfortunate, but too many LED fixtures, even those supposedly designed for the purpose, just don't grow many plants well. There are a great many variables that affect how an LED performs in this application and the useful ones are rather costly. 

Do you know all the plant species you have in the 10G? It would be useful to know which ones are doing best. Do you know roughly how much of the 10G's surface is covered by water lettuce and roughly how much of the turtle tank is covered with duckweed?

Generally, java fern tolerates pretty low light, but is also affected by current and how it's positioned. There are dozens of species of Hygro; some are sort of easy, many are rather challenging. Hygro difformis ( water wisteria), often said to be low light, does much better under reasonably good lighting than under low lighting, at least IME. Do you know which Hygro it is? 

I assume the pennywort is Hydrocotyle leucocephala, aka Brazilian pennywort? It is usually not too demanding, but will quite often drop the lower leaves, keeping only those near the surface. How's yours looking? 

The water lettuce, like duckweed, really does best under fairly strong light but it can do Ok because it's closest to the fixture and therefore getting more light than anything else is. 

If there is too much water lettuce or some other floater, it can end up shading plants below it enough to starve them of light.

If you could put another fixture over your turtle tank it could help quite a bit. Even a simple clamp lamp with a 13W spiral flourescent bulb, (6500 K), close to the surface, would grow a lot of nice plants. Fortunately, your turtle is one of the species that won't become a huge salad eater as it grows older .


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

yanns said:


> I have 2 tanks side by side using the same light, water, EI dosing, excel, everything pretty much the same, and one tank the plants don't do well in. One on the left is a 13 gallon very shallow turtle tank with Flourite and the tank on the right is a standard 10 gallon with cheap sand. The tank on the left with the flourite has not been able to grow anything but java moss and duckweed whereas the tank with crappy sand is doing great. Java fern, pennywort, mini water lettuce, hygro, it all would die slowly. Water in both tanks is 7.4 ph, kh 5. Both have good current. Only difference is TDS in tank on left is 500 and tank on right is 250, and the water height. Tank on left has a mississippi map turtle (no he doesn't eat them) some endler guppies, amano shrimp and a dwarf gourami, tank on right has guppies, and an apisto. The tank is kinda empty but i attached a pic to see them setup. Any ideas? Thanks!!


Why is the TDS so high on the left tank?

How do the plants in the left tank die? Do they just wither away, or do they get overtaken by algae?

How long has either tanks been set up? More importantly, how old are each of the substrates?

Do you have anything else in the substrate beside the flourite and the sand?


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## default (May 28, 2011)

Going to point out one thing, every tank is different, you could have the exact same set up side by side and you'll still have different readings and parameters - so regarding your set ups, they differ quite a bit so of course they'll be very different, so your issue may not be your lighting.

Explaining and posting an image of how the plants look would definitely help. Turtles are in general, very harsh on aquatic plants, there are some species that can withstand their destructive nature, but some aren't able to withstand the stress.


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## yanns (Oct 25, 2016)

Thanks for the very informative replies! It is a beamswork 6500k plant light, but like you said the light is spreading a lot before the water. The plants would both get algae and wither away. very stunted growth it looked like. I'm thinking now it's the light. The substrate is only about 8 months old. I actually had one of those 13w cfls with a 6500k bulb in the closet so i put that on over the anubias and java moss that's in there now. I'm guessing the tds in way higher in the turtle tank because turtles are messy plus the calcium blocks, plus alot of evaporation and i use RO water for that but it still has a bit of stuff in it. The turtle can disrupt the plants for sure but at least he doesn't seem to eat them.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

yanns said:


> Thanks for the very informative replies! It is a beamswork 6500k plant light, but like you said the light is spreading a lot before the water. The plants would both get algae and wither away. very stunted growth it looked like. I'm thinking now it's the light. The substrate is only about 8 months old. I actually had one of those 13w cfls with a 6500k bulb in the closet so i put that on over the anubias and java moss that's in there now. I'm guessing the tds in way higher in the turtle tank because turtles are messy plus the calcium blocks, plus alot of evaporation and i use RO water for that but it still has a bit of stuff in it. The turtle can disrupt the plants for sure but at least he doesn't seem to eat them.


It could be a combination of the light and the TDS. The calcium blocks would definitely change water chemistry.

To answer your original question, I would say the two tanks are quite different from each other. You will need to experiment to find out which plants do well in your turtle tank. I would also suggest rearranging your light setup, as "sharing" it between two tanks results in a lot of wasted light.


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