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Plants are dying......

tremper

Members
I have a 150g tall tank (3’ tall) that is a plant killing machine. I’m sure I’m doing everything wrong so here it is.

Stocked with:
10 Cyprichromis Utinta Blue Tail
3 Altolamprologus Calvus Black Zambia
4 Neolamprologus buescheri "Zaire Gold"
Pair of occies
4 Placidochromis VC10
Couple of small albino plecos
Ramhorns snails (doing fine)

Lightly stocked mostly tang tank with what I am assuming is horribly insufficient light. Tank has two lights, one a convention 48” fluorescent strip light with a non cool light (took it to aquarium depot and they put something plant friendly in it) and a Coralife F/W T-5 Aqualight Double Strip Light-48" with new power glo and life glo bulbs. Plants are suggested low light plants, anubias, java ferns, and vals. (Vals were actually doing well, sending out runners, but eventually they all just melted away after about 3 months. Java ferns leaves eventually turn black and disintegrate, and anubias yellow up and die). Substrate is conventional gravel, no soil, and no plan to add soil.

I purchased quite a few plants at Aquafest, and over the past few weeks, things are again deteriorating. Lights are on timers at about 12 hrs a day.

At aquafest I won a grab bag of goodies which included a “plant pack” trio which included flourish, flourish iron and flourish excel. I added the appropriate amounts for a 150g and nothing has improved. In fact, I believe the shock of all of the bonus nutrients might have done more harm than good.

Finally, I picked up a “aquatic plant food tablets” at a petsmart somewhere meant for outdoor plants. Somehow had asked if I was using plant tabs. These things are horse sized nutrient pills which I have yet to put into the tank. Any advice on these tabs?

Any advice on the tank in general? More lights?

Temp is about 78, all water parameters are good and the snails are thriving
 

rsretep

Members
hey tremp

how many watts on those bulbs total...you should have anywhere from one to two watts per gallon (150-300w) for those low light plants...and some people talk about depth of tanks also...
 

chris_todd

Members
Your situation is not hopeless, you *can* grow plants in that tank, but you have three primary challenges:
1) Deep tank (light intensity diminishes greatly with depth in water);
2) Ordinary gravel as a substrate, which is inert and provides the plants no nutrients they can absorb through their roots; and
3) No source of CO2.

Plants need light, CO2, and other nutrients (primarily Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium, as well as Iron, Magnesium and others in much smaller amounts) to grow. All three need to be there in balance, or one of them will become a rate limiting factor. For example, adding 2000W of light without providing CO2 and nutrients will only bake your fish, not make your plants grow.

Flourish comprehensive provides your basic nutrients, Flourish Iron provides Iron in a form most plants can easily consume, and Flourish Excel provides carbon in a form plants can use as a CO2 substitute (it's also pretty good at killing algae). So dosing those at recommended values is a good start (though on a tank that big, you'll go through a lot in short order).

It sounds like your plant list is appropriate - you need slow-growing, low light plants (ferns, anubias, and vals are all good, but many crypts are good too). There are precious few stem plants that will work in that setup. You might try swords as well - they can survive OK in low light conditions, though they really thrive in high light. And in a tank that tall, you can handle the large swords.

As for the melting, did the vals melt after you started adding Excel? Excel will do that to vals.

Did you actually plant the anubias and ferns in the substrate? That is, did you bury the rhizome (a horizontal root-like structure from which both the leaves and roots emerge)? If so, that could explain their melting - don't bury the rhizome, just tie the plants to driftwood or rocks.

The anubias turning yellow is likely a sign of iron deficiency, IIRC. Dosing Flourish Iron will help with that.

What brand of root tabs did you get? Are they specifically meant for aquarium plants? You could try inserting one or two into the gravel near the roots, but I'd be hesitant to combine that with water column dosing. Perhaps other GWAPA members could chime in there.

I would suggest that the cheapest and easiest thing to do is this: plant your rooting plants (vals, crypts, etc.) in plastic or terracotta pots that have a nutritious substrate in them (ecocomplete or flourite are the two most commonly found in LFSs), and set those pots in the tank. Tie the anubias and java ferns to driftwood or rocks (cotton thread or "floral wire" works fine). Continue the recommended dosing of Seachem products. Don't change the lights until you have a month or two to see how things do. You almost certainly need more light (and in particular, lights with more efficient reflectors - that's a big deal), but you risk algae problems if you up the lights without other things in balance. And the plants don't need 12 hours of light, so I'd suggest getting two timers, so you can do a "noon burst" - use one light fixture that's on for 12 hours for observing your fish, and turn on the other one (preferably, the brighter one, with bulbs with a color index of between 6500K and 10000K, aka "plant bulbs") for about 3 hours in the middle of the day.

And by all means, join the GWAPA forum and come to a GWAPA meeting! :)
 

tremper

Members
THx for the responses....... I went with the plants listed in original post hoping to avert all of the necessary extra effort. I understand that the depth of t 150tall severly affects the amount of light making it down to the bottom of the tank.

Heres a question. If my plants wont grow in the soiless substrate, why will they survive mounted to a rock or a piece of driftwood?

I guess the obvious improvement required is additional lighting. Right now the total wattage output is only 140 watts.

Puting the plant in pots is not treally the visual I'm looking for. I guess I'll give the additional lights and water supplements a try and if that doesnt work we're back to a plantless tank.

Thanks for the advice. So who has a reasonably priced 48" light strip they're willing to part with?!?!
 

chris_todd

Members
Heres a question. If my plants wont grow in the soiless substrate, why will they survive mounted to a rock or a piece of driftwood?
I was only speculating about why your anubias and java fern were dying; burying the rhizome can do that. If you weren't burying the rhizome, then my suggestion is moot.

I guess the obvious improvement required is additional lighting. Right now the total wattage output is only 140 watts.

Puting the plant in pots is not treally the visual I'm looking for. I guess I'll give the additional lights and water supplements a try and if that doesn't work we're back to a plantless tank.

Thanks for the advice. So who has a reasonably priced 48" light strip they're willing to part with?!?!
You can get 48" T-12 shop lights really cheap at home improvement stores. They have lousy reflectors, but it's by far the cheapest way to get more light on the tank.
 

tremper

Members
missed the rhizome point. nope wasnt burying them, just the roots, but eventually the leaves brown down or algae up.

Those shop lights really arent what im looking ofr. I travel all the time and only have the one tank which is located in the living room so it has to look spot on, not like something that should be out in the garage.
 

msjinkzd

invert junkie
you could check out www.ahsupply.com for a retrofit kit for your tank. the 4x55w might work for you to retrofit your existing fixtures and still gain more light with a higher quality reflector.
 

Lively

Members
If you opted for potted plants, maybe you could sink them into the substrate and hide the upper part of the pots with rock or decor?
 

ingg

Members
It is the height of the tank. Things get.... interesting.... after 24" of depth.

You'll need to push more light. Here's why.

Plants need two colors of light to grow. One red band, one blue band. Red light fades quickly in water depths - ever wonder why saltwater lights are blue? Because all that is left for the corals are the blue bands of light, it is all they ever get in nature.


The tank will be somewhat problematic to lightly plant, as you need to have fairly intense lighting to get anything to the bottom, but don't plan to plant heavily enough to deal with the intense light....going to be a bit of a delicate balancing act.




I'd suggest googling "Odyssea fire" before considering one of their fixtures. ;) Sometimes an extra $50-60 is worth it.

http://catalinaaquarium.com/ are the people who made the T5HO fixtures people saw at Aquafest. They make a pretty good fixture, decent reflector, good ballasts with 5 year warranties. I'd try replacing the standard T12 fixture with maybe a 3 or 4x54 4' T5HO fixture. Meaning 3 or 4 bulbs, of course.

(Don't do the silver one, spend the extra $10 on the black one. It is vented along the back side and the bulbs are spaced wider for better reflection of light. The silver one is not vented along the back, and houses the ballasts along the side, which "squishes" the bulbs together close, less effective reflectors.)

Combine it with the Aqualight fixture (very nice little fixtures, but just not very powerful) and you should have enough light by using the two in some combination at that point for low light plants.


The horse pills are for the vals. ;) Stick the tab under the gravel under a plant that root feeds - like vals, crypts, or swords. Anubias and Java Fern are water column feeders, don't worry about root tabbing them.




EDIT IN:

PS You'll notice I only suggest T5 fixtures for folks. I'd highly suggest avoiding compact flourescents. Here is why:

Compact flourescents run hotter.
They also lose color hue faster.
They also lose Lumens (intensity) faster.
They need bulb replacement twice as often due to all of above.
They cannot utilize reflectors as well as T5's.

No, they aren't completely awful, and they do work. But if you are buying new.... then buy the better technology. T5HO is the better technology by far.
 
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ingg

Members
It is generally the magnetic ballasts they were using - PC's smoked out, too, in a literal sense. New Compact and T5's are all Electonic Ballast now I think from them... so now they typically just die instead. ;)

There is a GWAPA member who went through multiple fixtures in under 2 years' time from them. All blown ballasts, all shoddy wiring. He doesn't buy them now and would never again I'm pretty confident in saying. A buddy in Houston smoked the ballasts in under a year, will never buy them again.

In a direct comparison to say a Catalina or CurrentUSA light, they have shoddier ballasts, shoddier wiring (overall, some come out fine, others bare wires touching things like reflectors and housing), poor reflector design/bulb spacing, poor heat dissipation - but they do have some nifty legs for lights that I wish others would copy, gotta give them that!


Your mileage may vary depending on your needs and your budget (and again, most of their fixtures do come out better from a safety perspective with e-ballasts nowadays, as long as bare wires aren't hitting something bad). Some folks are indeed completely happy with them, and some put up with having to crack them open and double check them for safety.

Best way to describe them I ever saw was - It is a roll of the dice. You can get a fixture that'll last years, or one that'll burn out in 9 months.

I've seen so many reports of failed fixtures in so many places from so many different people, that I tend to believe it is indeed a roll of the dice. I hate gambling. ;)

Serious note, I just won't work with a company that can't get their own tolerances to the point of reliably producing a decent quality and warrantied product. And I'd never advocate it without knowing the person well, so can't in this case. (Like Kevin for instance - dude can take one apart and replace a ballast in a matter of minutes, I have zero doubts. Okay, maybe work for him.)

I won't say Catalina has a perfect production record - they don't, and almost no one does - but I can tell you first hand they fix any warranty issues quickly, politely, and completely. Speaking of...when it comes to Odyssea, what warranty? ;)
 

tremper

Members
thx everyone. been traveling for about 16 hrs now and am sitting in a restaraunt in vancouver.....

I'll look into improving the lights when i get back home.
 
I know this is a very old post, but I thought i would add something concerning the water parameters since this is a cichlis forum.

Living in the DC area we have very hard water (duh), great for african cichlids, not so great for plants. I have been working on getting my vallisneria going to soften the water as I have read that it can break the carbonate bond and use that as a source of carbon. In the past this would explain why Val was the only plant that would grow in my Mbuna tanks. If you can get some long pieces of Giant Val, you help with the lighting problem also as the plant will come up to the light. (it can grow 3+ feet tall)
 
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