Struggling Plants?

[iAerospace]

Hey everyone! I will preface by saying I’m a noob and I set up my first 20 gallon, 5-6 weeks old. Hard water, 300ish GH, 280 KH, 8 ph, 0; chlorine, ammonia, nitrites, 5ish nitrates as of now. Some top fin light/hood combo, I got it with the tank. No CO2. When I started cycling, put in 4 small Java fern and one bacopa c. and put in a regular dose of ferts. Bacopa turned brown and died within 3 days. Javas were hanging in there but got some brown spots around the tips and edges. When I added 1 betta and snails I added 2 mini Anubias kirins, 1 anubias gold coin and water spangles. It’s been about 2 weeks since then and the tips of my javas are brown and crispy and have a bunch of babies hanging on them, a couple stray holes. Kirins seem mostly fine, maybe a few lighter leaves, one gold coin leaf had some brown damage and yellow on it and the water spangles got smacked when I set the timer incorrectly and no light over a weekend. There is some new little pods that are green and shiny but most the big ones are mostly brown. For the last week I’ve been dosing potassium and a little iron. I’m alternating between 75% dose ez green and flourish; ez on Tuesday, flourish on Saturday. Potassium each time, iron once. I also moved my light/hood up 6 inches. Moved down light time to 8 hours but some algae would be nice for the snails. Is there anything else I should be doing? I’m not expecting instant results but I don’t want anymore landslides of plant death. Also should I just remove the brown spangles and cut any other leaves to save nutrients? I feel like I’m dosing quite a lot and don’t want to overdo it, but I want to get ahead of it. 

Sorry for the paragraph. I just wanted to pack as much info as I could. I’m having fun experimenting and learning but when a plant dies so fast it’s hard to test anything. Thank you so much for your time!

[Patrick_G]

Congratulations on setting up your first planted tank! It doesn’t seem like you’re doing anything wrong. Your hard  water is going to make growing plants more difficult, but it’s not impossible. Some plants, like your Java fern will go through a period of conversion where they transition from air grown to submerged. You might lose some leaves but new ones will start growing. You can clip off the dying leaves and keep the little plantlets. My best advice is to try a bunch of different plants and concentrate on the ones that thrive in your tank. The initial few months can be frustrating but as the tank gets seasoned things get easier. 
You might consider replacing the light, but that might be a different thread! 

[Tanked]

On 9/29/2022 at 9:30 PM, iAerospace said:

Bacopa turned brown and died within 3 days.

Welcome to the sometimes frustrating world of planted aquariums.  You will find that sometimes even easy beginner plants won't grow for you.  I 've never tried to grow Bacopa C. , but it seems odd that it died in only 3 days.  Someone will straighten me out on that.  Hopefully you left it alone for a while, as I have had supposedly dead plants come back from the rooted base.

[meadeam]

I have similar water to OP, a little less KH and pH.  I've been able to grow everything but carpeting plants due to my lack of high-light.  My plants tend to be leggy, because they're growing in a tall-ish tank, but they do grow.  When I inject CO2, bacopa and penny wort will grow right out of the top of the tank, and lilies completely take over what's left of the surface.  Plants have a way of making you think they aren't doing much, and then one day you realize you have an untamed jungle.