Kalisian Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 Hey Fellow Keepers! I have a 40 gallon community tank with a few plants that are not doing so great my scarlet temple is turning brownish and shriveled and my italian val is not great near its tips. I'm using easy green(might be underdosing it) any advice would be nice thx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalisian Posted January 2, 2023 Author Share Posted January 2, 2023 I should probably also mention im new to live plants Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaniV Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 How long have you had them? I've had my plants for about 2 months, and I've recently started increasing my Easy Green doses to 3 times a week instead of 2. Since then, some of my plants like my Amazon Swords have experienced improvements. I've also heard root tabs are good too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 2, 2023 Share Posted January 2, 2023 Welcome to the forums. Do you have any root tabs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalisian Posted January 3, 2023 Author Share Posted January 3, 2023 I have had my plants for about 2ish months,I just bought today some tabs and easy iron the hope being they show improvement Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick_G Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 (edited) Scarlet temple does like high light and ideally co2. Give it some time to adjust to your tank and keep the dying leaves trimmed. That’ll give it a fighting chance. The Scarlet temple and the hair grass are relatively hard plants to grow. You’ll need to find a balance of enough light to keep them growing, but not enough light to encourage algae growth. The Val also looks like it’s in an adjustment phase. Make sure your Easy Green dosing is keeping Nitrates above 20 ppm and give it some time. I notice that your Anubis looks like it’s buried in the gravel. It should be attached to a rock or wood or the rhizome will rot. You can use thread or super glue. Edited January 3, 2023 by Patrick_G 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 On 1/2/2023 at 4:04 PM, Kalisian said: I have had my plants for about 2ish months,I just bought today some tabs and easy iron the hope being they show improvement I wouldn't dose in iron just yet. Between lighting and fertilization there's some stuff going on to review prior to that step. Can you talk us through what you're doing weekly for the tank in terms of maintenance, dosing, etc. Go ahead and add in your root tabs, being new to planted tanks is tough, but we're all here to help! 🙂 Red X = locations where I would be adding tabs right now (first one I usually go pretty heavy) Purple plant looks like Hairgrass in the back, I would move it to the front until you get it to grow in. On 1/2/2023 at 12:31 PM, Kalisian said: For your stems, you'd want to spread these out a little bit. Same with the water sprite if it's also bunched up. Just give each stem a little bit of space, 3/4"-1.5" between each plant. On 1/2/2023 at 4:17 PM, Patrick_G said: I notice that your Anubis’s looks like it’s buried in the gravel. It should be attached to a rock or wood or the rhizome will rot. You can use thread or super glue. Good catch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalisian Posted January 3, 2023 Author Share Posted January 3, 2023 (edited) Thanks to all that gave some information its all super helpful for me! As for my weekly cleaning I'm currently changing about 10 gallons Monday and Friday with a monthy gravel vac, I dose my tank water conditioner, easy green twice a week, and now root tabs my current parameters are PH 7.0 Ammonia 0-.25ppm Nitrite 0ppm Nitrate 40-50ppm Temp 80degree I'll probably move the grass in back like suggested Edited January 3, 2023 by Kalisian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalisian Posted January 3, 2023 Author Share Posted January 3, 2023 Where should Nitrates be at for a planted tank my Nitrate is at around 50 is that to high Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rube_Goldfish Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 50 ppm nitrates should be good, unless you have very sensitive animals in the tank. Can you turn the heater down a few degrees? All else being equal, plants grow better in somewhat cooler water (74-76 instead of 80). If you have to have it that warm for a fish that needs it, we can work around it, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 On 1/2/2023 at 5:27 PM, Kalisian said: Where should Nitrates be at for a planted tank my Nitrate is at around 50 is that to high 20 is the norm. 40 on the high end. I try to keep mine between 5-15. I want the bioload low, nitrates from dosing. On 1/2/2023 at 5:10 PM, Kalisian said: easy green twice a week Are you dosing a full dose twice a week? You might just be overdosing a slight amount. I would start with one dose, once a week, or 1/2 a dose every 3-4 days. Especially when new, plants take time to condition and settle in. Using just root tabs up front is a great technique to help them settle in a little bit easier. At least for the first week. Once you start seeing algae, it's usually a sign of too much nutrients or light, especially if you're seeing it on new growth. Not seeing any growth is it's own issue. So, trying to figure out which one of those is going on, that's sort of the crux here. Is it an issue if you try to change more water during your changes? say, 40% instead of the 25% you're changing now? That might help get the nitrates down and that one shift, keeping everything the same might be enough to clear up the algae and get things going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalisian Posted January 3, 2023 Author Share Posted January 3, 2023 (edited) The current stock in this tank is an angelfish 10 tetras neon/cardinals 3 bristlenose plecos 3 kulihi loaches and snails On 1/2/2023 at 5:37 PM, Rube_Goldfish said: 50 ppm nitrates should be good, unless you have very sensitive animals in the tank. Can you turn the heater down a few degrees? All else being equal, plants grow better in somewhat cooler water (74-76 instead of 80). If you have to have it that warm for a fish that needs it, we can work around it, though. The current stock in this tank is an angelfish 10 tetras neon/cardinals 3 bristlenose plecos 3 kulihi loaches and snails and a hillstream loach if lowering the temperature doesn't effect fish health im all for it Edited January 3, 2023 by Kalisian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalisian Posted January 3, 2023 Author Share Posted January 3, 2023 On 1/2/2023 at 5:45 PM, nabokovfan87 said: 20 is the norm. 40 on the high end. I try to keep mine between 5-15. I want the bioload low, nitrates from dosing. Are you dosing a full dose twice a week? You might just be overdosing a slight amount. I would start with one dose, once a week, or 1/2 a dose every 3-4 days. Especially when new, plants take time to condition and settle in. Using just root tabs up front is a great technique to help them settle in a little bit easier. At least for the first week. Once you start seeing algae, it's usually a sign of too much nutrients or light, especially if you're seeing it on new growth. Not seeing any growth is it's own issue. So, trying to figure out which one of those is going on, that's sort of the crux here. Is it an issue if you try to change more water during your changes? say, 40% instead of the 25% you're changing now? That might help get the nitrates down and that one shift, keeping everything the same might be enough to clear up the algae and get things going. I'll do 40% water change to adjust the Nitrates abit down and do only 1 dose of easy green to and adjust over the weeks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rube_Goldfish Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 On 1/2/2023 at 9:34 PM, Kalisian said: The current stock in this tank is an angelfish 10 tetras neon/cardinals 3 bristlenose plecos 3 kulihi loaches and snails The current stock in this tank is an angelfish 10 tetras neon/cardinals 3 bristlenose plecos 3 kulihi loaches and snails and a hillstream loach if lowering the temperature doesn't effect fish health im all for it I'd wait until @nabokovfan87 or some of the other experts to weigh in on the temperature thing; I've been double-thinking (that's a thing people say, right?) it ever since clicking Submit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalisian Posted January 3, 2023 Author Share Posted January 3, 2023 On 1/2/2023 at 6:59 PM, Rube_Goldfish said: I'd wait until @nabokovfan87 or some of the other experts to weigh in on the temperature thing; I've been double-thinking (that's a thing people say, right?) it ever since clicking Submit. Fair enough the tank stays around 77-79 on average 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 I'm definitely not an expert! Not even close compared to some of the other skillsets and experience levels we have here! Temp should be fine for the fish. 78 is pretty common. I don't think that alone is a cause of benefit for this type of algae. On 1/2/2023 at 6:40 PM, Kalisian said: I'll do 40% water change to adjust the Nitrates abit down and do only 1 dose of easy green to and adjust over the weeks Just change one factor. Leave every the same. So start with larger water change. Just verifying that you're not overdosing. We'll see after a few weeks if the increased change in volume works out to reduce algae (it should). If it doesn't, we wouldn't necessarily say ho back to the smaller WCs, but would simply try to reduce light or dosing at that point. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalisian Posted January 4, 2023 Author Share Posted January 4, 2023 So and update and question, I did a 40% water change and re planted the scarlet temple abit more spaced but my nitrates are still pretty high does it go down slowly or maybe the wood leeches out Nitrates idk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 4, 2023 Share Posted January 4, 2023 On 1/3/2023 at 8:20 PM, Kalisian said: So and update and question, I did a 40% water change and re planted the scarlet temple abit more spaced but my nitrates are still pretty high does it go down slowly or maybe the wood leeches out Nitrates idk Test your tap water for nitrates. Just give it 24-48 hours and change water again until you're able to get them down. Wood will not leech nitrates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalisian Posted January 5, 2023 Author Share Posted January 5, 2023 So an update and question: its been a couple days I spreaded out the temple and starting to see some color come back to it and the Italian vals are getting better also nitrates starting to go down to more manageable amount so my question now is, how do I trim the plants being new I dont know where to ideally cut to increase health and control growth any youtube links or advice is appreciated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 5, 2023 Share Posted January 5, 2023 Corvus has a ton of great videos on technique. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now