new tank syndrome

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milkman407

milkman407

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Jul 15, 2006
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Long story short, took the plants from my dirted nano that was under a 13wat cfl, and put them into a 10gallon. Had a little melt with some plants, but everything was thriving. For some reason my red root floaters have super melted, all the flowers fell off, the plants are turning from a red/green to a dark black/brown.. No idea what's going on. I started doing 20% water changes in hopes the floaters will bounce back.

the 10gallon is dirted, I did add mexican clay ( which wasn't in the nano) and I added another 13wat cfl ( 26wat total)

Other than the added clay, and another cfl, nothing has really changed... is it possible that they can't handle the extra light? To much nutrients? ammonia spikes from the soil?
 
How long has the 10 gallon tank been running? What are the water parameters? What type of dirted tank, mineralized topsoil, or? Using any sort of fertilizers including root tabs?

Plants will melt a bit when put into any new tank, this is because there's no such thing as 2 identical tanks; What I mean by this is no matter what every planted tank will always have different parameters when compared to each other. By moving the plants you have essentially taken them from their ideal conditions, and moved them into a new tank with totally different conditions in which they now have to become accustom to these new conditions before you start seeing any new growth.
 
Organic miracle grow potting soil, I use in most of my smaller tanks. I generally only have my planted tanks set up for about a month, then rip them down clean them out and start from scratch ( I don't have fish in them, just a few snails to take care of unwanted algae growth). My Monte Carlo carpeting plant is flourishing in this tank, as well as the strautogyne repens. The red root floaters were doing great and flowering for the first week being in the tank, I didn't see any form of melt from them, then over a 2 day period BAM!. I do have a small ammonia spike in my tank, but this happens frequently when using organic soil, So I keep up with a every other day water change until the tank finds its balance. I just don't understand why everything in the tank is growing like weeds and pearling, yet the floaters are melting like nothing I've seen before.

to answer your questions: Tank has been up for about a week (usually I only keep a tank setup for about a month before I rescape it), ammonia is showing up, but in the very very low range (due to the organic potting soil ) nitrite are zero, nitrate is about 30 ( which the plants are enjoying) Organic potting soil ( miracle grow, Use in all of my planted tanks) No other forms of fertilizers besides Red mexican clay as an iron additive for the kleiner bar swords. as well as c02.
 
I'm probably going to just pull them out, and put them in my unfiltered betta tank outside and see how they do, I think I have either to much light on the tank ( being that the cfls are probably 3" away from the floaters ) or I have to much of a specific nutrient in the tank.
 
on second though, I am noticing a small amount of brown hair algae on the sand towards the back of the tank, so I'm going to assume this is a phosphate issue and the red root floaters can't handle the phosphates.
 
Alot of people are generally unaware, but it can take up to 3 months for a tank to completely cycle... It's unheard of but it can happen, which is why you'll notice that some people will take a filter or filter media from an already cycled tank and use it on a newly setup tank to speed up the cycling process.

Yeah MGO dirted tanks work good for some people, unfortunately I'm not one of them lol which is why I've always gone the Flourite route, until earlier this year when I decided to try the mineralized topsoil route and had great success... But I put one of my Red Texas Cichlids in the tank, and he established who's boss to the plants... ;)

I always go with dry fertilizers, as well as Osmocote+ root tabs for any planted tank I set up... However I decided to take a break away from "needy" tanks, and get a couple Red Texas Cichlids for the summer, the 5" Male in my 45 gallon long tank is one of the most pearl covered RT's I've seen, and he's getting a new LED light fixture tomorrow!!! But the smaller guy in my 30 gallon long tank will be put up for adoption so I can change the 30 gallon tank into a saltwater tank.



Anyways, now back to your problems lol... I would probably tear the 10 gallon tank down, and restart from the beginning. The problem with using MGO or topsoil is that putting the dirt directly into the tank you end up with air pockets that form, and can destroy everything in the tank. This is due to the anaerobic pockets that can form under the substrate, and if left undisturbed can wreak havoc on an aquarium.
 
I don't put the dirt in dry, I mix it up before hand into a pudding consistency, it helps amazingly with the amount of air pockets.. I've been in the hobby for 10+ years, But just recently (past 2 years) started playing with planted aquariums, I find it more enjoyable than the monster fish to be honest. I also, don't keep fish in my planted tanks, hence the reason I use mgo because it provides a decent amount of nitrates for my aquarium. But this is the first time I've ever had a phosphate issue, I went out and bought a test kit and it's reading between 5-10ppm. Apparently red root floaters don't do well with this amount of phosphate, but the brown hair algae does. I added 3 nerite snails to the tank to take care of the unwanted algae ( honestly, there's not much of it ). You live you learn I suppose, I guess for now I'll keep the red root floaters in the guppy pond, they tend to thrive outside rather than in tanks.

you said you use root tabs, do you add a source of iron to your tank? I ordered a 12 gallon mr aqua tank that i'll be setting up in a few weeks. I don't plan to use mgo, was planning on using an actual substrate with root tabs. But i've been debating on putting clay into the root tabs or using a liquid fert.

mineralized topsoi?? (edit, I found a link, never mind :D.) This looks more promising than using mgo, I may try this eventually.
 
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For my mineralized topsoil MTS, yes I add in 1/2 cup of dark red clay powder for ever 12" of tank space once it's ready to be added to the tank as an added source of iron.

Osmocote Plus is an all in one fertilizer, it has macros N-P-K, and micros such as iron, boron, magnesium, etc.... except for calcium. It's actually a garden/plant food but people have been using the 15-9-12 formula in aquariums for years. I buy the indoor/outdoor 15-9-12 formula at home depot, and then get empty capsules off ebay, and then I add the oscmocote+ to the capsules, and then stuff them deep into the substrate around heavy root feeding plants like swords, crypts, vals, etc...


It's so much cheaper than actual aquarium root tabs from api or seachem, because this way lets you make your own root tabs in bulk. I still have around 1,300 root tabs that i made up last year, and I still have a huge amount of osmocote+ and empty capsules sitting around.
 
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