Why my plants are dying

[Alexey]

My plants aren't doing well. I use root fertilizer and the water quality seems fine. But they're loosing leaves, struggle, and eventually die.

What could be the reason? Please help!

[DiscusLover]

On 1/16/2023 at 5:56 PM, Alexey said:

My plants aren't doing well. I use root fertilizer and the water quality seems fine. But they're loosing leaves, struggle, and eventually die.

What could be the reason? Please help!

If they have been recently added it will take a couple weeks for them to establish themselves in the tank and regrow. Most likely the leaves you see are melting and new stems should grow.

[Mmiller2001]

You have to fertilize the water column regardless of root tabs.

[mynameisnobody]

How long has the aquarium been set up for? What are the inhabitants? How long have the plants been in the aquarium? How much do you dose? There are so many factors, try to be as specific as possible. When all else fails, look up the symptoms your plants are showing in comparison to the coop blog on plant deficiency. It’s very helpful. 

[PaigeIs]

Good question @DiscusLover.  How long have you had the plants?  Melting is common when plants are added to a new aquarium.  It looks like you have a crypt and some bacopa. I also see what looks like bamboo.  Is that correct?  You just have to be patient. Trim the dying leaves, new ones will grow.  Crypts are not super fast growing, but they do bounce back.  Watching the plants "die" is something everyone experiences when they first get into planted tanks.  Don't despair, think is it as a dramatic plant tantrum.

If these are established plants that suddenly started to die, something else is going on. Have you looked into the growing conditions favored by the plants?  Do they like the conditions in your tank?  Not just water parameters, but also light, type of substrate, etc.  You have some algae, so there is some nutrition in the water column but is it enough for the stem plants? Also, what do the leaves look like when they die off?  Are they melting away, or do they turn yellow first, get little holes?  All of these clues can help figure out what's wrong.

 

 

Edited January 17, 2023 by PaigeIs

[Alexey]

On 1/16/2023 at 7:32 PM, Mynameisnobody said:

How long has the aquarium been set up for? What are the inhabitants? How long have the plants been in the aquarium? How much do you dose? There are so many factors, try to be as specific as possible. When all else fails, look up the symptoms your plants are showing in comparison to the coop blog on plant deficiency. It’s very helpful. 

The tank is 60 gal. Running for ~8 years. The fish are Barbs, Tetras, Angelfish. The plants in the pictures are 4 weeks old. But it happens to all plants I've ever planted. Some of them loosing leaves, others getting yellow, brown and rotting away. Some stay alive, but in miserable shape, and the new leaves aren't growing. Basically I've never succeeded to keep my plants alive or at least doing well... 

[Alexey]

On 1/16/2023 at 7:34 PM, PaigeIs said:

Good question @DiscusLover.  How long have you had the plants?  Melting is common when plants are added to a new aquarium.  It looks like you have a crypt and some bacopa. I also see what looks like bamboo.  Is that correct?  You just have to be patient. Trim the dying leaves, new ones will grow.  Crypts are not super fast growing, but they do bounce back.  Watching the plants "die" is something everyone experiences when they first get into planted tanks.  Don't despair, think is it as a dramatic plant tantrum.

If these are established plants that suddenly started to die, something else is going on. Have you looked into the growing conditions favored by the plants?  Do they like the conditions in your tank?  Not just water parameters, but also light, type of substrate, etc.  You have some algae, so there is some nutrition in the water column but is it enough for the stem plants? Also, what do the leaves look like when they die off?  Are they melting away, or do they turn yellow first, get little holes?  All of these clues can help figure out what's wrong.

 

 

For the 8 years my tank is running I've never succeeded to keep my plants in proper shape longer then a few weeks. I have very generic led lighting. Can that be a problem?

[mynameisnobody]

@Alexey what is your dosing schedule? 

[Alexey]

On 1/17/2023 at 3:12 PM, Mynameisnobody said:

@Alexey what is your dosing schedule? 

Well. I must admit. I've used fertilizer sporadically. And it was liquid. For those plants in the pictures I put root capsules when I planted them ~3 weeks ago. 

[mynameisnobody]

@Alexey well the good news is you now know why your plants are dying. The bad news is you must fertilize or they will wilt, melt, and die off. I use the coop root tabs religiously for my crypts and they love it. I also use easy green once a week. 

[Alexey]

On 1/17/2023 at 5:23 PM, Mynameisnobody said:

@Alexey well the good news is you now know why your plants are dying. The bad news is you must fertilize or they will wilt, melt, and die off. I use the coop root tabs religiously for my crypts and they love it. I also use easy green once a week. 

Cool! I'll do it. What about the lighting? Any suggestions?

[mynameisnobody]

@Alexey buy the coop light. make your life easy and only buy coop stuff until you are more experienced. They basically have done all the testing, experiments, so you can rest assured that if it isn’t the very best thing on the market then you it probably has too many bells and whistles and becomes impractical anyway. 

[Alexey]

On 1/17/2023 at 8:38 PM, Mynameisnobody said:

@Alexey buy the coop light. make your life easy and only buy coop stuff until you are more experienced. They basically have done all the testing, experiments, so you can rest assured that if it isn’t the very best thing on the market then you it probably has too many bells and whistles and becomes impractical anyway. 

Where do I get reliable coop light? This Amazon stuff is 90% fake... Any suggestions?

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/17/2023 at 10:45 PM, Alexey said:

Where do I get reliable coop light? This Amazon stuff is 90% fake... Any suggestions?

it's be directly from Aquarium Co-Op right now.

On 1/17/2023 at 4:18 PM, Alexey said:

Well. I must admit. I've used fertilizer sporadically. And it was liquid. For those plants in the pictures I put root capsules when I planted them ~3 weeks ago. 

As Mmiller had mentioned, you really have to dose the water column in addition to root tabs.  It's the type of thing where you want to give the plants time to acclimate to your tank and their new surroundings but you should be seeing some growth.  You're giving them nutrients, but you want to give them something available in the water as well.  This also gives them nutrients you might not have in the root tabs. 

Be sure to dose easy green once a week and try to keep a regular schedule with it. 🙂

[Andy's Fish Den]

The second plant you pictured is bamboo, the leaves have to be above water. Just have them lower part of the stem and roots in the water. Stem plants get a lot of their nutrients from the water column, so be sure to use a liquid fertilizer. Crypts will melt a lot of times when you plants them, but will regrow. Since the tank has been up for 8 years, I would suspect that there is plenty of fish poo nutrients, unless you are a serious gravel vac user, and along with root tabs there should be plenty of nutrients for the roots. My next suggestion would be lighting like others have said. The generic LED lights that come with tanks or you buy in the big box stores are not that good at growing plants. Get one of the new coop lights, I haven't tried one yet, but I would have to believe that with all that Cory and the group at the coop have put into it, that it will work great. 

[Alexey]

On 1/18/2023 at 3:55 AM, Andy's Fish Den said:

The second plant you pictured is bamboo, the leaves have to be above water. Just have them lower part of the stem and roots in the water. Stem plants get a lot of their nutrients from the water column, so be sure to use a liquid fertilizer. Crypts will melt a lot of times when you plants them, but will regrow. Since the tank has been up for 8 years, I would suspect that there is plenty of fish poo nutrients, unless you are a serious gravel vac user, and along with root tabs there should be plenty of nutrients for the roots. My next suggestion would be lighting like others have said. The generic LED lights that come with tanks or you buy in the big box stores are not that good at growing plants. Get one of the new coop lights, I haven't tried one yet, but I would have to believe that with all that Cory and the group at the coop have put into it, that it will work great. 

Thank you all for the replies! Much appreciated! I'll stick to your suggestions and visit Co-Op for a good fertilizer and light. 

[PaigeIs]

Best of luck.  It can be a frustrating process.  I wasted a lot of money on plants before I finally found a dosing schedule that worked for me and the plants as well as a good light.   The co-op light is a great choice.  I started out with a cheap Hygger light that did a good job when all I had were low/medium light plants.  I won't say I recommend the Hygger light, but I do think it's a good budget option for.  I still use one my daughters 10g tank.  

[Alexey]

Guys, I got a new light from aquarium coop, liquid fertilizer, two weeks, no change. The plants are still miserable and deteriorating 😕. What else can I do?

[PineSong]

Don't lose hope! You're on the path now. Some plants are harder to grow than others--it'd be helpful to have a list of all your plants to make recommendations.

Good that you got the liquid ferts. How much are you dosing and how often? I dose 2x per week and this has helped my plants.

If it was my tank I would start by cutting the plants back so they can put their energy into better root growth and creating healthy leaves rather than trying to save the old unhealthy growth.

For the tall stem plants  (in the first and second plant photos) I would cut them down to 2 or 3" above the gravel. The parts that I cut off I would let float for a few days or a week and then if they have started to grow roots I would plant them back next to the original plant. For the plant in the last photo, I would cut off about half the leaves right at the base. 

It would be helpful to see a whole tank photo. The more plants you have, the better they will thrive--though I know it's hard to spend money on plants when you feel like they might not thrive.

Here is a photo of one of my tanks. I cannot grow tall stem plants like the plants in your first two photos. I have been "successful" with plants by figuring out which plants take off in my tanks rather than struggling with plants I like but cannot get to cooperate. Since  you just started liquid ferts, it's too soon to say what you can and cannot grow, so I recommend the above and give it 8 weeks or so.

 

 

[Alexey]

I have Bacopa Caroliniana, Cryptocoryne Lutea, Baby Tears (all leaves are gone), Anubias nana, Java Fern Microsorium pteropus. I clean my gravel every 3 weeks with the Python vacuum cleaner. Recently I read in the blogs that a fish food can affect the plant, so I switched to Fluval Bug Bites. The pictures are attached. Any help will be appreciated. 

[Tam]

I'm by no means the most experienced with keeping plants but I've struggled with keeping certain plants thriving myself so I've gone through a lot of trial and error, specifically with stem plants that I could never get growing well in my substrate. In my personal experience at least I couldn't get them growing well with just root tabs and inert substrate and found that a nutrient rich substrate is what finally got them going. I've very recently hit a bit of a stride in general with my plants so I thought I'd chime in and ask how long you keep your light on for? Previously I had a hard time keeping mine on for more than, say, 6 hours tops without algae taking over, but now that I've finally managed to keep it on for 8 my plants are already doing much better, growing more and larger leaves, having better coloring and looking healthier in general. I would also recommend getting some sword plants because they were the only heavy root feeders that did well in my tank when everything else was struggling. From all the research I've done baby tears also are a difficult plant to keep without high light and co2.

[JoeQ]

Too much to comment on but this link will probably help.  

this tank has major weaknesses which most likely can't be fixed by adjusting your lighting or modifying your fertilization. 

[Lennie]

In addition to all the the comments and recommendations above, I would give different plants a chance. We all have different water parameters and tank conditions, and tons of stuff we don't even test the water for, and from my own experience, a plant may grow great on your tank and may barely live in mine. People say java fern and amazon sword are easy. I successfully killed java fern and my amazon sword looks like dwarf sagittaria whatever I try to. Soil bottom, root tabs, water column fertilizers, plant light. I've tried everything. Meanwhile, my Echinodorus Leopard has an amazing growth. Like ??????😐

I remember hearing something like "for every plant that looks great in your tank, you will have 3 dead ones." 

It feels so true. Plants being labelled as easy ones are definitely hardier and have a better chance of doing better in low tech setups compared to something requires a high tech setup. But it is always a hit or miss for you own specific tank and the only way to know is trying.

Also, I know it can be economically challenging. But I feel like densely planting results in a better result, especially when you include fast growers to the mix . Fast growers help to fight algae build up meanwhile your other plants are melting and adapting. If I were you, I would try to plant with a combination of fast growers, maybe floating plants for example to block some light for slow growers, and plants you wanna try. Most of the fast growing plants are really easy to multiply, so you can reach a dense look by taking cuttings gradually over time, after the plants settle for a while.

Personally I always start with 6 hour light when I have new plants, and increase it very slowly gradually. and I never go beyond 8 hour lighting, even for higher setups. Try and find what works for you, which will take some time to observe. Btw, if I were you, I would not dose recommended amount of fertilizer directly in the current situation of the tank. Your tank is not really planted that much, so lots of fertilizer would benefit to algae as long as your plants cannot effectively use it. Lower the dose and observe if they show any sign of lacking nutritients. It is quicker to observe in fast growers, but it may take weeks for slow growers.

Even duckweed can't make it in some tanks. Don't be disencouraged and try different stuff imo

Edited February 5, 2023 by Lennie

[Alexey]

Thanks all! Will keep working on it.