# HELP with growing plants



## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Hi

I have 1 year old established 30gl planted tank. All my plants are low light, they are:
Java moss
Java fern
Amazon sword
Kriptocorn
For the past year I did not have success growing my plants even upgrading my light 3 months ago to Aquaticlife 30" with two 24" 24W 6400K fluorescent daylight light bulbs that I bought in one of the plant growing stores. I keep them on for 6 hrs strait as if I keep them for more I have algie on my plans. I have 10Gl planted tank where I successfully grow my plants for 3 years now (same ones, when they grow big I move them to 30GL) with two scue in spiral 9W daylight 6500K fluorescent bulbs in it. But in my 30Gl tank plants getting yellow or brown and get holes in it (and specialty amazon sword and java fern). The only plant that is growing there is Kriptocorn. I can not figure out why my plants are not growing I also doze Flourish excel and Flourish Iron 9ml each once a week, when I do a water change. Any help is appreciated.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Excel is bad for vals, maybe some other plants also.

6 hours isnt very long, I would do longer

we all get some algae on our tanks, part of life.

Do you test your nitrates? High nitrates I believe can cause more algae


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## Greg_o (Mar 4, 2010)

What kind of substrate are you using?


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

and if gravel are you cleaning the gravel alot? you should not clean the gravel too much if you have a planted tank


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## DazedSmurf (Jan 23, 2013)

ppaskova said:


> Hi
> 
> I have 1 year old established 30gl planted tank. All my plants are low light, they are:
> Java moss
> ...


Leave the lights on for 9 to 10 hours a day, also ditch the flourish products they suck had really bad luck with them and can never get a stable aquarium going look up pps-dosing its using dry ferts you mix and dose daily it keeps your posphates and nitrates right where they need to be and as for the browning its due to magnesium and potassium deficiency using pps-pro will elliminate that issue. at first pps can be hard to set up but dosing is very easy and if by the end of the week your nitrate and posphates are too high do a water change and reduce the dosing by a 1\4 at a time till you find the mark hope this helps


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## mkblitz (Oct 12, 2011)

I'd get a DIY CO2 and see if that does the trick. Seems like you have low-adequate light, around the same ratio as me. If I add one bottle of CO2 I get decent growth, 2 bottles and I am trimming plants near the top every 2 weeks


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

OK. I understand every bodies advice but:
1. I'm not going to do DIY CO2 as all my plants are low light plans and do not need it.
2. In my 10Gl tank with the similar setup of light and time of light and also dosing 2Ml of excel and Iron weekly and my plants growing like crazy including some med light ones.
What I do not understand why excel is bed for plans as it always helped me to reduce the agile. Also increasing the time will increase the agile but will not let my plants to grow better I tried it before, I had 8hr light before.
Also I do water change and gravel cleaning every week is this could be the problem why my plants don't grow so well ? I do exactly the same in my 10Gl tank, cleaning gravel every week but there plants are OK but in my 30gl they are not. May be because when I do the gravel cleaning I do it too close to the roots or so ?


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## Mlevi (Jan 28, 2012)

Compare all the factors...light, substrate, dosing, etc. See if there's a diff between the two tanks anywhere, in terms of either that stuff, or the actions. The only diff I see so far, is the type of light. While both may be in the 6500K range, even within' that, there might be differences across the spectrum. I'm just brainstorming here...but if you have the exact same substrate, dosing ratio, water changes etc, then whatever is different, is likely the cause of the different results. For example, does the 10G get sunlight from a window or something along those lines?

Quite an interesting predicament. I'm curious to find out the cause. I hope that the experienced minds here will help determine, and the rest of us (like myself) can benefit.


Al.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Good call about finding the difference between the tanks. I would consider the lighting on the 10 gallon to be high light or at least med-high.

How tall is the other tank?


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

I went and searched some of your old post to read and if i read correctly you are using your fixture without the leg support right on top of your tank? I only have 2 weeks of experience but from my one observation with my hagen single glo fixture is that if i let it sit directly on top of my 48 by 12 footprint tank the light dispersion is very focused in the middle of my tank were i position it. so the front and back of my tank were getting much less light. Once i installed my bracket legs and had it sit about 4 inches above my tank the dispersion of light was more even. So lighting could be a contributing factor. owever, i might be wrong since like i said i've only started two weeks ago. Goodluck though and hope you find out the cause soon


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Thanks guys. Yes the light is the difference between the two. The 10Gl gets total of 18W per 10Gl and 30GL (Which is standard 29Gl Tetra one) gets only 48W per 29Gl. Also the light I'm using there not the Original or not the GLO-Life from BA but the one from the plants stores (sunlight or so, the one I've red people using on the forum here from those specialty plant growing stores). Also you are correct my fixture sits on top of the tank without the legs due to the tank being in the leaving room and kids playing there I can not keep the tank top open or I get a lot of unwanted decorations there. Also my 10Gl does not get any sunlight at all as it is in the basement but 30Gl does as it is in the leaving room. My plants in the 30GL tank actually mostly planted on the middle right under the light with exception of criptocorn and java moss which is on the side. Another interesting observation is that hen I had my old regular T8 Life GLO single light 20W fixture there and increased the light to 10 hrs the plants were doing not bed but fish was not doing very well. Now it is other way around. My readings on the tank are (tested with API liquid kit):
Ammonia - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0
PH - 7.2
I just increased the light time to 8hrs. So any more advice is still appreciated.


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

My Plants arent doing so well also. and my readings are the same zero across the board. I am going to increase my bioload to get at least 10-20ppm of nitrate readings. from what i have read nitrates are essential for plant growth. They need nitrogen to form plant proteins.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

xriddler said:


> My Plants arent doing so well also. and my readings are the same zero across the board. I am going to increase my bioload to get at least 10-20ppm of nitrate readings. from what i have read nitrates are essential for plant growth. They need nitrogen to form plant proteins.


Interesting. My bioload is increased I have over 40 fish in this 30GL tank. And my nitrate readings was 10-20ppm. And my plants were growing not bad with only 1 T8-20W Life-GLO lamp. But my fish was not doing so well and I was loosing a lot of fish. It was recommended to me on this forum to upgrade my light to the one I have right now to bring my readings to 0. After I followed the recommendation my fish became much better an I only lost couple in the past few months but my plants are now in reverse of what it use to be. So how to find right balance ?????


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

maybe not 20ppm of nitrate is needed i think that is extreme sorry but 5-10 i think is the best range if i am wrong please correct me anyone else because like i said im new and just going by reading stuff on the internet


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## malajulinka (Mar 29, 2008)

I found it helped with algae to put my lights on a timer with a "siesta" period. So they come on in the morning for 5 hours, shut down for five hours, then come back on in the evening for 5 hrs (when I can enjoy them!).


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

If nitrates are 0, that could be the problem, plants use nitrates to help them grow. Slow down your water changes a little, don't clean the gravel.


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## GAT (Oct 8, 2011)

Can you add root tabs? I had troubles with plants before but they took off once i added few root tabs.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

GAT said:


> Can you add root tabs? I had troubles with plants before but they took off once i added few root tabs.


I did before, when I had old light in my tank and it did not work. I'll try again and see if it will help.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

pyrrolin said:


> If nitrates are 0, that could be the problem, plants use nitrates to help them grow. Slow down your water changes a little, don't clean the gravel.


I'd love to do that but due to my bio-overload I'm not sure it will be good idea for a fish, would it ?


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

just let the nitrates go up to 20, just need to be under 40 to be safe, its not like ammonia and nitrites


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

One more thing I forgot to mention that may make a difference between two tanks. Both tanks have Aquaclear filters. The 10GL one has AC20 in it and my 30Gl has two, AC30 and AC50. In all my filters I use zerocarb cartage that is mix of ammonia remover and carbon. I have heard before that carbon sometimes is counterproductive to plants. I'm not sure if more carbon in my 30Gl tank vs. 10Gl tank maybe one of the contributing factors as well.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

if you are using the ammo carb in all 3 aquaclear, then you are way over doing it and wasting money imo

I use a few AQ filters myself. Most of the time I just have the sponge and bio media. I toss in carbon if needed.

If you need to use carbon, just put it in the AC50. The other two filters only need sponge and bio media.

the ammo carb stuff is probably not helping the plants.

you just saved a bundle on your car insur, er fish tank supplies, what are you going to do with the extra money?


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