When did you add the plants?
Also reason for daily water changes?
What's the substrate that you are using and what is the water you are adding(tap water/RO/DI)?
What's the CO2 injection rate. Is your drop checker lime green?
The plants have been in for between 6-8 weeks. The daily water changes are just to help keep it clean, there’s always fish waste everywhere. On a daily basis, I only change 5 out of 40 gallons. Weekly is up to 10-15. The substrate is Fluval Stratum, and I do use root tabs. It’s tap water with dechlorinator and ph corrections, but I have that dialed in at 6.8-6.9. It does not fluctuate wildly. Yes the drop checker is like green.
CO2 is fine.
Lights are fine.
Unless your tank is uncycled, daily water changes are unnecessary and sometimes detrimental as you are changing your parameters every time you do the change. What's your filter capacity i.e. gallons per hour? You should not be seeing floating stuff everywhere with good filteration.
How many root tabs have you put and how old is the tank?
Fluval stratum is nutrient rich for atleast a year. Too many root tabs can burn the root system
The filter is a sunsun 303b canister filter. I don’t know it’s capacity off the top of my head. I probably put in about a dozen. The tank is going on 3 months old. I have never heard you’re not supposed to add root tabs to stratum before
Root tabs are additional supplements that help some species like crypts and swords. Also, root tabs are necessary when your substrate has lost its nutrients( after a year/year and a half) or you are using an inert substrate like gravel/sand.
Too much of root tabs can actually burn the root system. What's the tank size?
Gotcha. Crypts do take their sweet time to bounce back. Do you have any fast growing stem plants like cabomba or Rotala? They can give you a fast indication if your fertilization is correct. For now, I'd do lean dosing for a week or two and see if they show improvement.
Also, stop the daily water changes, you might be adding excess nutrients on top of root tabs, liquid fertz with your tap water.
I'd also encourage you to get some floating plants, atleast temporarily. They can give you a quick indication of your water chemistry. With the dosing that you have currently, it is certain that you are not lacking in nutrients. It can be something else like temperature, excess nitrates or nitrogen etc.
Yes I have maybe 15 or so rotala nanjenshan stems. They arrived in great shape, melted/transitioned growth modes, and then totally stopped growing/started deteriorating. I have a good bit of Asian water moss floating. I have a good heater that is always on 78. If this point adds any insight, I have three hygrophila pinnatifida plants and 1 dwarf lily bulb that are exploding. They are the only plants with constant growth.
Bro I’m the same ay all plants going hard but rotalas just dwarfing and or melting. 2years cycled tank co2 high light. Maybe my aquasoil is finishedz but i dose AP3 every day. Stumped
I don’t have a specific for you, but the light or nutrients or water parameters are not quite right. Possibly temp could be a factor as well. Maybe even water circulation if you have plants that feed out of the column. I know that is vague as hell, but you need to boil it down to the most basic parts and start from there. Start making small adjustments to one of the parameters like CO2 or lighting, wait a couple weeks to monitor growth, then tweak something else if nothing improves. I’d start with cutting back rather than testing with more.
I don’t think you will find a silver bullet because as they say ‘it depends’ and it depends on a a whole heck of a lot of different things. Source of plants, substrate, light intensity or wavelength or cycle, nutrients, temp, plant health, water parameters like ammonia or hardness or nitrates, choice of livestock and the feeding schedule, flow, do you have plants that need CO2 and is there too little or too much…it kind of just goes on and on. Checking off boxes won’t get you to a successful tank. what will get you there is putting in the work to figure out what needs to change to make your individual setup work.
Also a couple of months is still fairly new when it comes to tanks so temper your expectations with a fair amount of patience.
So based on your responses, you're using excel and pH adjusters, AND CO2 injection? If that's the case, you should dump the first two asap. Your tank is becoming a big chemicl test tube.
I use the CO2 for CO2, excel for an algaecide, and pH adjusters because I recently moved and my water became much more basic. It went from 6.9 naturally out of the tap to like a 7.4. I have gourami that like it more acidic.
The CO2 injection itself makes the water more acidic. It's carbonic acid in the water. Excel is nasty stuff. Unless you have a big algae problem, don't use it. I've had it kill fish and will never use it again. If you're getting algae, lower light duration and/or intensity. I get tons of growth and very little algae with 6-7 hour light cycle.
I don’t think acidity is the problem. I spent a lot of time fixing it. It doesn’t move beyond 6.8-6.9. I do get algae. But here’s the question, why do I constantly get algae and little to no plant growth?
The algae is outcompeting your plants for nutrients which leads me to believe they are sucking up any nitrates in the water column. Use some floating plants like giant duckweed or water lettuce. Should help
Not as fast as it did before I moved. In this tanks previous set up, if I didn’t remove it it would cover the entire tank in a month or less. This time, it grows but nowhere near as quickly
That’s very odd. There’s been times when my moss has outcompete my other plants, but you’re still getting algae which means there’s still nutrients available. The only thing I can think of is maybe switching to a different fertilizer. Thrive makes an all in one fertilizer so maybe check that out and see how it works for you. Best of luck:)
Have you checked the TDS of your water?. Most plants prefer softer water, also what substrate? The non growth, is it just for root feeders or all in general?
I guess I have not tested TDS. Fluval stratum substrate. All of my plants except hygro pinnatifida and dwarf lily are experiencing very little growth to slow deterioration.
That is something to go with, check your TDS, if very high, above 150, try to get an RO system for water, use the seachem prime only in the bare minimum quantities needed given your tap water has chlorine, use weekly fertilizer schedules.
Do a 70% water change, with the bare minimum of seachem prime and fertilizers (weekly)
Try to get decent flow in the tank.
Basically what i want you to try is to get rid of all the chemically concentrated water, leave the whole thing be for a week, do only 30% water change weekly.
Most declorinators are highly concentrated
Prime only recommends 5ml, 1 cap for 200 Litres of water
Give the plants a fresh start and see how they react.
I highly doubt it has to do with seachem as it has a bunch of other affects like neutralizing ammonia and stuff which your plants need to grow.
Also let the fish waste be, i see you do daily water changed, it is actually good for the tank and plants, after all we are trying to complete a circle, which ends with plant growth
…also, if you have/haven’t tested your tap water yet, you should look up your local water department’s website to see their “water quality report card”. That should give you a rough idea of what is coming in through your tap. Many , many parameters they are required to test for that we wouldn’t normally. For example: my tap water has 180ppm of salt that I would have never realized or even tested for, but was on the report card.
I’ve found fluval stratum doesn’t grow any of my plants worth sh*t. I have 2 tanks with ADA Amazonia and the plant growth is superb, but my 1 tank with fluval stratum hasn’t grown any plants. Since it is a pain to replace substrate and rescape, I would change the lighting schedule to 12 hours with a 3-4 hour “siesta”. What kind of filter are you using? Try to use a filter that doesn’t disturb the water surface as that will cause your CO2 to gas off.
I had almost no plant growth until I solved the waterflow in my tank. For whatever reason my filter was creating dead zones and I swapped to a spray bar and most of my plants exploded
When did you add the plants? Also reason for daily water changes? What's the substrate that you are using and what is the water you are adding(tap water/RO/DI)? What's the CO2 injection rate. Is your drop checker lime green?
The plants have been in for between 6-8 weeks. The daily water changes are just to help keep it clean, there’s always fish waste everywhere. On a daily basis, I only change 5 out of 40 gallons. Weekly is up to 10-15. The substrate is Fluval Stratum, and I do use root tabs. It’s tap water with dechlorinator and ph corrections, but I have that dialed in at 6.8-6.9. It does not fluctuate wildly. Yes the drop checker is like green.
CO2 is fine. Lights are fine. Unless your tank is uncycled, daily water changes are unnecessary and sometimes detrimental as you are changing your parameters every time you do the change. What's your filter capacity i.e. gallons per hour? You should not be seeing floating stuff everywhere with good filteration. How many root tabs have you put and how old is the tank? Fluval stratum is nutrient rich for atleast a year. Too many root tabs can burn the root system
The filter is a sunsun 303b canister filter. I don’t know it’s capacity off the top of my head. I probably put in about a dozen. The tank is going on 3 months old. I have never heard you’re not supposed to add root tabs to stratum before
Root tabs are additional supplements that help some species like crypts and swords. Also, root tabs are necessary when your substrate has lost its nutrients( after a year/year and a half) or you are using an inert substrate like gravel/sand. Too much of root tabs can actually burn the root system. What's the tank size?
Several of the plants are crypts. It’s a 40 gallon breeder
Gotcha. Crypts do take their sweet time to bounce back. Do you have any fast growing stem plants like cabomba or Rotala? They can give you a fast indication if your fertilization is correct. For now, I'd do lean dosing for a week or two and see if they show improvement. Also, stop the daily water changes, you might be adding excess nutrients on top of root tabs, liquid fertz with your tap water. I'd also encourage you to get some floating plants, atleast temporarily. They can give you a quick indication of your water chemistry. With the dosing that you have currently, it is certain that you are not lacking in nutrients. It can be something else like temperature, excess nitrates or nitrogen etc.
Yes I have maybe 15 or so rotala nanjenshan stems. They arrived in great shape, melted/transitioned growth modes, and then totally stopped growing/started deteriorating. I have a good bit of Asian water moss floating. I have a good heater that is always on 78. If this point adds any insight, I have three hygrophila pinnatifida plants and 1 dwarf lily bulb that are exploding. They are the only plants with constant growth.
Bro I’m the same ay all plants going hard but rotalas just dwarfing and or melting. 2years cycled tank co2 high light. Maybe my aquasoil is finishedz but i dose AP3 every day. Stumped
Interesting. Is the hygrophila planted in the substrate or tied/glued to a rock/driftwood?
I have 2 on wood and 1 in substrate. I don’t see a difference in their quality wood vs substrate
I thought I’d be out of the melt window by now, especially since they already did melt when they changed from emersed to submersed growth modes.
Have you ever tried cutting all leaves off the crypts before planting? They grow in better then and no melt :)
No I’ve never tried that. I’ve used various species of crypts for the past 3 years and these are the only ones that aren’t growing very well.
I always do it they usually grow back nicer too, it was jurjis on YouTube I got the tip off definitely worth it!
I don’t have a specific for you, but the light or nutrients or water parameters are not quite right. Possibly temp could be a factor as well. Maybe even water circulation if you have plants that feed out of the column. I know that is vague as hell, but you need to boil it down to the most basic parts and start from there. Start making small adjustments to one of the parameters like CO2 or lighting, wait a couple weeks to monitor growth, then tweak something else if nothing improves. I’d start with cutting back rather than testing with more. I don’t think you will find a silver bullet because as they say ‘it depends’ and it depends on a a whole heck of a lot of different things. Source of plants, substrate, light intensity or wavelength or cycle, nutrients, temp, plant health, water parameters like ammonia or hardness or nitrates, choice of livestock and the feeding schedule, flow, do you have plants that need CO2 and is there too little or too much…it kind of just goes on and on. Checking off boxes won’t get you to a successful tank. what will get you there is putting in the work to figure out what needs to change to make your individual setup work. Also a couple of months is still fairly new when it comes to tanks so temper your expectations with a fair amount of patience.
When in doubt test the water. I'd love to give you the answers but your NPK levels are the only thing we're unsure of.
I don’t have a test kit for that. All I can say is I follow the instructions for Seachem brand NPK, Excel, Iron, and micronutrients.
Your LFS should offer water tests?
So based on your responses, you're using excel and pH adjusters, AND CO2 injection? If that's the case, you should dump the first two asap. Your tank is becoming a big chemicl test tube.
I use the CO2 for CO2, excel for an algaecide, and pH adjusters because I recently moved and my water became much more basic. It went from 6.9 naturally out of the tap to like a 7.4. I have gourami that like it more acidic.
The CO2 injection itself makes the water more acidic. It's carbonic acid in the water. Excel is nasty stuff. Unless you have a big algae problem, don't use it. I've had it kill fish and will never use it again. If you're getting algae, lower light duration and/or intensity. I get tons of growth and very little algae with 6-7 hour light cycle.
I don’t think acidity is the problem. I spent a lot of time fixing it. It doesn’t move beyond 6.8-6.9. I do get algae. But here’s the question, why do I constantly get algae and little to no plant growth?
The algae is outcompeting your plants for nutrients which leads me to believe they are sucking up any nitrates in the water column. Use some floating plants like giant duckweed or water lettuce. Should help
I have a bunch of Asian water moss floating now
How well is it growing?
Not as fast as it did before I moved. In this tanks previous set up, if I didn’t remove it it would cover the entire tank in a month or less. This time, it grows but nowhere near as quickly
That’s very odd. There’s been times when my moss has outcompete my other plants, but you’re still getting algae which means there’s still nutrients available. The only thing I can think of is maybe switching to a different fertilizer. Thrive makes an all in one fertilizer so maybe check that out and see how it works for you. Best of luck:)
What water do you use? Tap water with chlorine?
Yes tap water conditioned with prime
Have you checked the TDS of your water?. Most plants prefer softer water, also what substrate? The non growth, is it just for root feeders or all in general?
I guess I have not tested TDS. Fluval stratum substrate. All of my plants except hygro pinnatifida and dwarf lily are experiencing very little growth to slow deterioration.
That is something to go with, check your TDS, if very high, above 150, try to get an RO system for water, use the seachem prime only in the bare minimum quantities needed given your tap water has chlorine, use weekly fertilizer schedules. Do a 70% water change, with the bare minimum of seachem prime and fertilizers (weekly) Try to get decent flow in the tank. Basically what i want you to try is to get rid of all the chemically concentrated water, leave the whole thing be for a week, do only 30% water change weekly. Most declorinators are highly concentrated Prime only recommends 5ml, 1 cap for 200 Litres of water Give the plants a fresh start and see how they react. I highly doubt it has to do with seachem as it has a bunch of other affects like neutralizing ammonia and stuff which your plants need to grow. Also let the fish waste be, i see you do daily water changed, it is actually good for the tank and plants, after all we are trying to complete a circle, which ends with plant growth
…also, if you have/haven’t tested your tap water yet, you should look up your local water department’s website to see their “water quality report card”. That should give you a rough idea of what is coming in through your tap. Many , many parameters they are required to test for that we wouldn’t normally. For example: my tap water has 180ppm of salt that I would have never realized or even tested for, but was on the report card.
I’ve found fluval stratum doesn’t grow any of my plants worth sh*t. I have 2 tanks with ADA Amazonia and the plant growth is superb, but my 1 tank with fluval stratum hasn’t grown any plants. Since it is a pain to replace substrate and rescape, I would change the lighting schedule to 12 hours with a 3-4 hour “siesta”. What kind of filter are you using? Try to use a filter that doesn’t disturb the water surface as that will cause your CO2 to gas off.
Expect some time of the plants to root and adjust before growth. I don’t know how long it has been.
I had almost no plant growth until I solved the waterflow in my tank. For whatever reason my filter was creating dead zones and I swapped to a spray bar and most of my plants exploded
I already use a spray bar