Hi everyone,
I bought a used 55 gallon freshwater tank a couple of months ago. It came with 2 medium to large angelfish as well as a community of tetras, albino corys, and 2 bristlenose plecos. It also came with a lot of Anubias species, crypts, an Aponogeton, and some driftwood. I'm new-ish to aquariums (had one in high school) and new to aquarium plants.
Aside from some MAJOR crypt melt that I had after I got the tank (they were out of the water for a few hours and really wilted), I haven't had many problems with the plants. They've been putting out new leaves regularly. I have been using Aquarium Co-op root tabs. I think the crypt melt caused a spike in ammonia and later on, nitrates--my nitrates were around 80 ppm a couple weeks ago, and my pH has been as low as 6.4 (my tap water, and another aquarium, are around pH 7.5). The crypts and Anubias had been doing fine but I have been having issues with getting newly planted Val and Pogostemon (from Aquarium Co-op) to grow or not lose leaves. I thought maybe the low pH and high nitrates might be affecting the new plants, so I'd been doing 30% water changes every 2-3 days to bring down the nitrate levels and raise the pH.
However, after a few days away last week I came home to see that many of the leaves on the crypts and Anubias were starting to turn brown/black, starting from the tips and edges. The crypts were just given root tabs so they *should* be good. I occasionally dose with a bottle of SeaChem Flourish that I got from the previous owner. I had bought some Easy Green but haven't used it yet because of the high nitrates in the tank. My light is a generic looking Aqueon light that came from the previous owner; it's been used to grow these plants for a long time.
Could the high nitrate level caused the browning of the leaves? My nitrate levels have been 20-40 ppm for the past week now. I'm not sure if the browning leaves are the delayed result of the 80 ppm levels from 2 weeks ago, or if something else might be causing it.
I'm a little concerned because the Anubias in particular have never showed problems until now. I don't want to have my plants die on me. Any suggestions?
Thanks!