Having a hard time keeping plants healthy

[Xr4tiCrew]

Trying to figure out why I’m having such a hard time keeping plants healthy. I have a 20gL with Aqua Natural Midnight Pearl gravel, 25% water change weekly dosing easy green once a week (just started dosing Easy Iron this week) running a CoOp light 8 hours a day three clicks down from full power. The city I live in has extremely hard water and I have a water softener. Here are my current parameters. Assuming my KH is to high?

[Mmiller2001]

No GH because of the softener. Dose the softener use salt or the potassium alternative?

[Xr4tiCrew]

On 1/10/2024 at 9:18 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

No GH because of the softener. Dose the softener use salt or the potassium alternative?

It uses salt. 

[Mmiller2001]

So it’s removing Ca and Mg and adding salt. All bad for plants.

[Xr4tiCrew]

On 1/10/2024 at 11:56 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

So it’s removing Ca and Mg and adding salt. All bad for plants.

So from my kitchen faucet where the softener is bypassed here are my readings. Should I be using this instead? 

[Mmiller2001]

You could mix bypassed water with distilled water to lower the bypassed GH  and you would be in a better place. That would lower that real high GH and eliminate the sodium. It’s extra work but the plants will be much happier. You could increase water change amount but go longer between intervals to make the extra work not as “ tedious ‘. Say 50% change a month. I personally would do 25% each week for 4 weeks then after go with 50% once a month.

[Xr4tiCrew]

On 1/11/2024 at 7:19 AM, Mmiller2001 said:

You could mix bypassed water with distilled water to lower the bypassed GH  and you would be in a better place. That would lower that real high GH and eliminate the sodium. It’s extra work but the plants will be much happier. You could increase water change amount but go longer between intervals to make the extra work not as “ tedious ‘. Say 50% change a month. I personally would do 25% each week for 4 weeks then after go with 50% once a month.

What impact will this have on my fish? Will it be too big of a shock to them?

[Mmiller2001]

25 percent a week for 4 weeks should be fine. Just make sure the mix creates good numbers.

[Xr4tiCrew]

On 1/11/2024 at 4:37 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

25 percent a week for 4 weeks should be fine. Just make sure the mix creates good numbers.

Appreciate the input. What parameters should I be shooting for exactly?

[Mmiller2001]

On 1/11/2024 at 5:45 PM, Xr4tiCrew said:

Appreciate the input. What parameters should I be shooting for exactly?

What fish do you have?

[Xr4tiCrew]

I have the following: 

5 Neon Tetras

6 Ember Tetras

7 Rummy Nose Tetras

10 Galaxy Rasboras

1 Honey Gourmai

3 Otos

3 Habrosus corys

2 salt n pepper corys 

2 Amano shrimp

 

 

 

 

 

[Mmiller2001]

On 1/11/2024 at 6:40 PM, Xr4tiCrew said:

I have the following: 

5 Neon Tetras

6 Ember Tetras

7 Rummy Nose Tetras

10 Galaxy Rasboras

1 Honey Gourmai

3 Otos

3 Habrosus corys

2 salt n pepper corys 

2 Amano shrimp

 

 

 

 

 

GH between 3 to 5 degrees and KH of 3 to 0 degrees would be fine.

[Xr4tiCrew]

On 1/11/2024 at 6:42 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

GH between 3 to 5 degrees and KH of 3 to 0 degrees would be fine.

After some testing this is going to be a bit challenging to get the mix of bypass water and distilled just right. I did 1/2 a cup of distilled and less that a 1/4 cup to get the GH even close to 5 degrees. The KH hardly went down. 

[Mmiller2001]

Do you have a tds meter by any chance?

And how many degrees was the GH of the bypassed water?

[Xr4tiCrew]

It was between 150-300 PPM. Really hard to get exact based on the color of the strip. I also have the API liquid test if that is more accurate.  I am not opposed to buying a tds meter if they are not that $$$. 

 

 

Edited January 12 by Xr4tiCrew

[Mmiller2001]

On 1/12/2024 at 2:59 PM, Xr4tiCrew said:

It was between 150-300 PPM. Really hard to get exact based on the color of the strip. I also have the API liquid test if that is more accurate.  I am not opposed to buying a tds meter if they are not that $$$. 

 

 

I’d just do a 50 50 mix and go with that. 8 degrees GH isn’t a deal breaker.

[tike]

What specific plants are you trying to grow? What makes you think they are not doing well? leaf die off, melting...etc.

Edited January 12 by tike
needed more info

[Xr4tiCrew]

All the above. The only plant that is doing ok is my red dwarf lily. Everything else either melts away dies or grows extremely slow. 

 

I have a mix of plants

Java Fern

Val

Java Moss

Red Flame Sword

Chain Sword

Mayaca Fluviatilis

Pogostemon Stellatus

Crypt Green and Red ( not sure if the Red is every going to come back from melting)

 

I have spent way too much on plants, mostly due to replacing them as they die off. 

[tike]

First ...learn requirements for plants you are keeping. Stem plants such as Pogo, Mayaaca require good macro and micro nutrients in the water. Crypt, Sword Val are root feeders and need some sort of substrate additive like plant tabs as well as a substrate depth of at least 1-1/2". Java fern/moss aren't picky at all with their conditions. I am not too familar with the contents of easy green. I use a different product.

[Xr4tiCrew]

Yes, and I feel like I have met the requirements of these plants based on their needs. I am using easy green, root tabs and easy iron. None of which seem to really help. Hoping that by bypassing my water softener it will improve the plants health. 

 

 

Edited January 13 by Xr4tiCrew

[tike]

Could you attach so pictures of your issues?

[Mmiller2001]

On 1/12/2024 at 5:02 PM, tike said:

Crypt, Sword Val are root feeders

Absolutely not true.

 

On 1/12/2024 at 5:11 PM, Xr4tiCrew said:

es, and I feel like I have met the requirements of these plants based on their needs

You have almost no GH and have salt in the water which damages plants.

For reference, GH 5.2 KH near 0, in pool filter sand and no root tabs. Get the water right with excellent husbandry and you will be in a much better spot.

[Xr4tiCrew]

On 1/12/2024 at 7:50 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

Absolutely not true.

 

You have almost no GH and have salt in the water which damages plants.

For reference, GH 5.2 KH near 0, in pool filter sand and no root tabs. Get the water right with excellent husbandry and you will be in a much better spot.

I’ll be doing a water change tomorrow with half distilled and half of my bypass water. 🤞I’ll keep that up for a month and see how it goes. Thanks again. 

[Mmiller2001]

On 1/12/2024 at 7:54 PM, Xr4tiCrew said:

I’ll be doing a water change tomorrow with half distilled and half of my bypass water. 🤞I’ll keep that up for a month and see how it goes. Thanks again. 

Absolutely, Keep us updated. Do your best to keep up the weekly water changes but I get that's a lot of work to get distilled and mix. The best option is to get a RO/DI system so you can just make water at home and then build GH/KH with cheap salts, but it does depend on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Here's a tank by E. Kreikes 2018 in 8dGH and 8dKH water.

Edited January 13 by Mmiller2001

[Pepere]

On 1/12/2024 at 10:06 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

I’ll keep that up for a month and see how it goes. Thanks again. 

I agree with @Mmiller2001on the water change issue, but I would encourage you to allow more than a months time for changes to become obvious to you.  After doing weekly 25% changes fora month you will have adjusted your tank water down to  better parameters.  At this point it will take your plants time to reprogram new leaves to optimize for these conditions…figure on 2-3 weeks. At that point you will want to be evaluating the new growth on the plants.  Old leaves do not reprogram nearly as well to optimize for conditions…  

Once you have good parameters and start seeing the plants respond well to them, keeping those water conditions stable is key to good healthy growth. Fluctuating conditions, be it GH, KH, fertilizers, lighting, co2 levels have the plants expending energy to alter the makeup of the  leaves for new conditions… Energy spent toward this is not available for plant growth per se…  An interesting example of this phenomenon is shown in a tool scientists are using to determine ambient co2 levels in periods of ancient history.  Scientists can study fossil imprints of leaves under a microscope and can determine a rough estimate of the co2 levels the terrestrial leaf grew in by the density of stomata on the leaves.  They corroborate this by comparing to same species being grown in greenhouses now with the ambient co2 levels being enriched at different levels to study the changes in the leaves…

Remember, any top offs of water should be distilled or reverse osmosis, not softened or bypass…. At my local grocery store they have a vending machine to allow you to buy water that has been filtered by reverse osmosis..  you can fill 5 gallon jugs in it.  That may or may not be more convenient than gallon jugs.

 

so, a month to adjust the water, and another 2-3 weeks for the plants to adjust to new conditions, while keeping those new conditions stable, and thenyou should be able to perceive positive results. Another 6 weeks from then as old leaves have largely been replaced with new ones and good growth you should be seeing the full benefit from the change..

 

a big difficulty with growing plants is impatience. We make a change and do not see improvement within a week or two so we make another change,… then the plants need 2-3 weeks to alter themselves to the new changes… and we get frustrated that the change hasnt work so we figure we need to alter our fertilization schedule again etc….

learning that plants reprogram to optimize for new conditions and that this primarily happens in new growth and takes 2-3 weeks was a game changer for me…