Frustrating Results

[TheSinisterSOB]

Hello,

I have a 125g dwarf pike community tank. Its planted with anubias, vallisneria, wendtii, and dward tiger lilly's.

The problem I'm having is the anubias are starting to get frayed leafs, and the vallisneria are turning brown and frail before going limp. The wendtii is doing well, and the lilly's are growing just fine. I am experiencing green and brown algae, but nothing that isnt understandable due to excess light.

My nitrates and nitrites are down at the 0ppm, and I haven't tested my phosphates. I have regular gravel without any nutrients in the substrate, but from what I've heard all of these plants should be able to live off the nutrients from the fish waste.

Would anyone be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong, and why these two species of plants are starting to wither and fade?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Tropicalfish34]

Actually a small dose of fertilizer every week or so would give you better results also those particullar plants are low light plants so adding some floating water plants would be a good idea.

 

[jcardona1]

My nitrates and nitrites are down at the 0ppm

Well there's your first problem. Nitrogen is one of the basic building blocks of all life, plants are no exception. In an aquarium, plants get their nitrogen in the form of nitrates. No nitrates = no plant food. A healthy planted tank needs nitrate levels of 10-15ppm.

 

[TheSinisterSOB]

Actually a small dose of fertilizer every week or so would give you better results also those particullar plants are low light plants so adding some floating water plants would be a good idea.

Thanks Tropical. Just picked up some Flourish after reading your post. Next step will be to find some decent floating plants...Tried duck weed, but current is too strong in my tank for it to settle. Any suggestions?

Well there's your first problem. Nitrogen is one of the basic building blocks of all life, plants are no exception. In an aquarium, plants get their nitrogen in the form of nitrates. No nitrates = no plant food. A healthy planted tank needs nitrate levels of 10-15ppm.

Thank you JCardona. I had recently taken out the carbon from my Mag 350 because the guy at my LFS said it would disolve any of the good stuff that I needed...As you might be able to tell I'm new to the whole planted tank thing...Fish I can take care of, no problem, but plants are tricky

I did grab some Seacem stuff to add nitrogen to my tank, hopefully that'll help.

Anything else that I might be missing?

Your help is greatly appreciated

 

[J0ker]

When you say you took out the carbon from you filter do you mean the thing black carbon pad thing? What does that do?

 

[JasonG75]

When you say you took out the carbon from you filter do you mean the thing black carbon pad thing? What does that do?

Yes, its the BLACK Thing. Most believe believe you have to remove this in order to dose Ferts. More than likely the Active Cardon really isnt active anymore. Carbon HAS to be replaced monthly. So if its older than a month you didnt have to remove it. While AC does remove SOME traces it doesnt REMOVE them COMPLETELY.
I took my AC out years ago, and never have replaced it. I do however use Purigen, a much better product which can be recharged UNLIKE that of Active Carbon.

 

[Tropicalfish34]

Watersprite would be a good plant just let it grow at the top.