Why my plants are getting like this?

[professorjimjam]

Please see attached photos.

In the first photo below, the leaves are having holes. what is causing these holes? is it the fishes that eat the leaves? I never left them hungry.



in the second picture below, this plant is getting yellow and seems like dying. I put enough nutrition in the water but still I see these plants dying. what is causing this?




and in this third photo below, I have this plant but it is overtaken by the algae. how can I control the excess growth of algae? this plant seems like destroyed by algae. how can I fix this?

 

[Deadeye]

What’s the full stocking? It’s possible you may have a plant eater for the first one. Or it doesn’t have enough nutrients, looks to be an Amazon sword which needs lots of nutrients in the soil/gravel.
For best algae removal, manually taking it out + increased water changes helps to fight it back.
The yellowing one looks like it lost lots of leaves, it simply may not be doing well in the tank.

 

[Rocksor]

Do you have hard water (GH reading) or soft water?

 

[professorjimjam]

The water is hard GH around 18

 

[Rocksor]

Okay getting plants to work is a delicate balance of adding nutrients (or not adding ferts) as well as number of hours that the light is on, plus CO2 levels, etc. Then there's distance of plant from light source, and quite possible other things in your water like fluoride. You're going to have to find the right plant species for your water. It can take a while to find the right ones, so don't try to force it.

The algae is a sure fire sign that there's way too many nutrients in the water column.

Now you are going to have to decide if this is a planted tank or a fish tank. That will determine how much further you go with both. It takes a lot of $$ and tinkering to do both.

 

[FJB]

Very hard to give objective suggestions without additional information (water characteristics, temperature, frequency of plant liquid food and root tabs, etc.), were the plants doing well before?
1st photo - Amazon swords like both liquid fertilizer and root tabs. The former, perhaps once a week, the latter perhaps once in na while (2-3 months or so).
2nd photo - (seems to be Bacopa, or similar), in flower pot, seemingly still with the "cotton" that they are sold with? Need to be planted in real substratum, and responds well to fertilization as described above.
3rd photo - Can't tell what plant, as it is covered with algae. Presumably something attached to driftwood, such as java fern or Anubias? Algae needs to be removed mechanically (as frequently as needed), or there is no hope. After removing most, removing from tank, spraying with peroxide, and placing back should help.

General observations-
1- The black gravel is too coarse. Although plants can grow in it, they prefer sand, or much finer gravel. In addition, that gravel allows too much waste to go to deeper layers. Sand will not.
2- You have a lot of Assassin snails, possibly introduced to combat other snails. When numbers of snails that serve as food fro assassin snails decline (due to they preying upon them), assassin snails turn to eat whatever they can find, including detritus and plants. In nature they are scavengers.
3- There seems to be at least one puffer? (perhaps I am wrong). Not the best friend of plants (even though primarily carnivores).

But better description is needed for real suggestions. Good luck!

 

[Rocksor]

I never used liquid ferts with my Amazon swords in a 24" high tank. I did use root tabs, and they grew more fat (outwards) than tall. This was a fish tank (with oscars) first, and the 3 swords that I had was just there as an experiment of what I could keep. I was surprised the oscars didn't mess with them for the 3 years. Substrate was #20 mesh size sand.

 

[kno4te]

Look like nutrient deficiency. Root tabs should work. Think the OP needs to give some more info on what he’s dosing or feeding the plants.

 

[professorjimjam]

Aimara
Thanks very much for your useful analysis. this is not just a plant tank. I have many fishes in this tank.
I have 8 pea puffers, 1 green spot puffer , 1 figure 8 puffer and 4 amazon puffers. are these puffers plant eaters?

 

[professorjimjam]

Rocksor
Thanks. should I only keep the fishes and no plants?