# please help



## fly4awhiteguy (Dec 27, 2011)

Good morning 
I am hoping someone can help me with a problem i have been having, but first ill give a little background on my tank.. It is a 20g, moderately planted with crypts, crypt parva, hemianthus baby tears, sunset hygros, some java moss attached to driftwood, and some floating water lettuce. I am using 2" of flourite under 2" of gravel as my substrate.The tank is lit with a t5ho 4x 25w,and the light stays on for 8.5 hr a day. I fertalize with tropica aquacare once a week, and have a DIY CO2 setup.my water parameters are: ph 7.4, ammonia 0.25,nitrites and nitrates are both zero...For livestock i have....
10x neon tetras
6x bloodfin tetras
2x diomand tetras
3x baby clown loaches (1")
3x guppies (1m/2f)
3x harloquin rasboras
2x electric blue rams (1m/1f)
2x chinese algea eaters (2.5")
1x dwarf gourami
4x algea eating shrimp (i have not seen these guys for about 2 weeks- mabey they turned into fishfood)
Now to the problem... I recently got the t5, before i was using a 14w plant bulb in the stock aquarium hood, my plants didnt grow like crazy, but they were healthy. Since i have changed the light a week ago i noticed some BBA 4 days ago, i wasnt too alarmed since i have had this problem before, but today i woke up and when the light came on, all my plants were wilting/sagging, and there baby tears are all turning brown.. Im not sure what to do, because i thought a better light would stimulate more growth.. Can anyone offer me some advice?  I do pick through the floating lettuce so that it does not get dense enough to bloc the light.

Thx.


----------



## rubadub (Sep 12, 2010)

not enough nitrogen
ur basically starving the plants now
more light = more nutrients 
either dose ur ferts more often or cut back on the light

0 nitrates is bad for a planted tank since plants feed off nitrates and turn that into nitrogen

i'd recomend dosing macro ferts as well
(Potassium, Phosphates, and Nitrogen)


----------



## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

A few things come to mind. You have a lot of light for a tank without CO2 injection. Four inches of substrate seems a little much especially since you have 2" above the Flourite. As well, the tank is rather heavily stocked, and has a few fish that will grow far too large for the tank.
The big thing though is that you have ammonia present, and your nitrate number is at 0. The plants you have listed are not especially heavy feeders, and with the fishload it is hard to imagine the plants consuming all the nitrate.


----------



## fly4awhiteguy (Dec 27, 2011)

I just added a co2 injection system to the tank.. Hopefully this helps


----------

