plants dying/water a little cloudy

[1977]

My first attempt at a planted tank has been running for 2 weeks now. The plants I put in looked great to start with but now they are turning brown and some parts of the plants are breaking off. The water is also a little cloudy. 125 gal with seachem flourite and sand, t5 ho lights 312 watts running 9 or 10 hours a day. I have not put any fertilizer or chemicals in. Is this a normal process or what?

[Ed13]

What plants? Any pics? Is it all of the plants or particualr species?

I suspect that is either plants(amazons most likely) grown emerged changing to their submerged form, or nutrient deficiency.

Water change schedule and plant list would be useful and I think we need to revise a lighting schedule, because I really doubt you have a whole lot of plants matter that need so much light. Remember that 1 watt of T5 goes a really long way!

[willbldrco]

As Ed mentions, more info on your situation is needed.

Assuming you have enough light for your plants, the next step I'd take is to gather some data on your water by taking measurements of the following:

NO2 (Nitrite - likely only needed if your aquarium is a new setup)
NO3 (Nitrate)
PO4 (Phosphate)
pH
KH (Carbonate hardness)
CO2 (determined by the pH and KH values above)
Fe (Iron)
K (Potassium)

Once you have some numbers, it will likely be obvious what the problem is.

If you don't have enough light, then that should be the first thing to fix. "Enough light" will depend on the type of plans you want to grow. I use about 3 watts/gallon in my "high tech" setup (i.e, plants requiring lots of light and CO2 injection) .
Regards,

Will

[Ed13]

If you don't have enough light, then that should be the first thing to fix. "Enough light" will depend on the type of plans you want to grow. I use about 3 watts/gallon in my "high tech" setup (i.e, plants requiring lots of light and CO2 injection) .
Regards,

Will Defenitely not a lack of light with 312w of HOT5, but I am wondering if 1977 is running the actinics that come with the light

[1977]

Yes running the actinics but have 6700k on the way to replace them. Amazon swords and brazilian swords is what I have in there. I'll get to work on the testing

[Ed13]

Yes running the actinics but have 6700k on the way to replace them. Amazon swords and brazilian swords is what I have in there. I'll get to work on the testing
Pics? It may be the amazons changing from emersed to submerged. If it is this you will see new growth, the new leaves may look significantly different.

BTW, do you have brazilian micro-sword or brazilian swords?
Brazilian swords(Spathiphyllum tasson) are not true aquatic plant, they are bog plants at best!

I also don't think you need the actinics on at all for now, 4 bulbs on only. When you receive the 6700k you can run those for your photoperiod and gradually start supplementing with the 10,000k, maybe an extra hour each week untill you are ready

[1977]

Water won't clear up. My ph is 7.4, no nitrate, nitrite, ammonia. Done several wc and makes no difference. there is some algae spots on the glass but not much, but I assume it must be algae making my water cloudy. Only have my lights on for 7 hours a day now. Help please!

[Polar_Bear]

It's probably algae or bacteria that is clouding your water. In either case it will clear up all by itself. There are floculants to help clear it, or even better you could use a diatom filter, but as I already said, do nothing and it will disappear on it's own anyway. If I remember correctly you have a LOT of light without CO2, so things like this are what you were warned about. Keep up the 7 hours of light only for awhile. No NO3 in a planted tank is a bad thing btw, either ease up on the wc's or add some.

[1977]

IF I added more plants would this help?

[willbldrco]

If you had info on nutrient levels, it would help. I found that I had to suck up alot of NO3 and PO4 before the algae problems stopped. I did that by keeping the pH low (CO2 injection and keeping KH below 7 via water changes) and by adding fast growing plants (like several bunches of Water Wisteria - not to be confused with Water Sprite which is a slow growing fern-like plant).

If the cloudy water is green, many people recommend adding a UV sterilizer (which I've never had to do). In fact, that fixed someone's problem on this very forum:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=56712&page=2

That link is to the second page of the thread where the green water hits.

Good luck!!

Will

[Polar_Bear]

IF I added more plants would this help?

Yes. Add fast growing stem plants like; Cabomba, Ambulia, Ludwigia etc. Also look here http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/store/aquaticplantfood.php for plant foods, I prefer his pre-mix, but you can certainly create your own fertilizer mix if you choose. The real thing you need bedsides fertilizer is CO2. I disagree somewhat with the need to take all of the tests suggested. I no longer take any tests, but I do know how to read my plants. The other thing you can do is try and cut out half of your light, it's over-kill now. btw 50/50 "Actinics" grow plants perfectly well. It is what I use in my refgium and the plant growth is fast and strong in that tank, with no other light source.

[tpl*co]

Another thing to check is what temperature is your tank at? Some plants don't like higher temps. Did you add any chemicals or salt?

Tina

[Ed13]

Yes. Add fast growing stem plants like; Cabomba, Ambulia, Ludwigia etc. Also look here http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/store/aquaticplantfood.php for plant foods, I prefer his pre-mix, but you can certainly create your own fertilizer mix if you choose. The real thing you need bedsides fertilizer is CO2. I disagree somewhat with the need to take all of the tests suggested. I no longer take any tests, but I do know how to read my plants. The other thing you can do is try and cut out half of your light, it's over-kill now. btw 50/50 "Actinics" grow plants perfectly well. It is what I use in my refgium and the plant growth is fast and strong in that tank, with no other light source.
Once again I'm with Larry!:) Add more plants(fast growers are preffered but any is better than none), nutrients a little CO2(at least DIY, easy and it works), I never test either, less light for now .

I still don't like the actinics. Why? False actinics(what normally comes in stock fixtures) produced too much light in the blue spectrum which plants love and utilize, especially in HOT5, but they still are more capable of using red light and look better under it. However its so strong that plants can only "use" so much and alge uses the rest. You notice that plants go in to rest mode a bit sooner.
Maybe reducing your light to a 4-1-4 schedule. That is 4hrs on, 1hr off and 4hrs on

[Apistomaster]

As advised do make sure you have plenty of fast growing true aquatic stem plants, Limnophila indica aka Ambulia and I would add to that some fast growing floating or surface type of plants. Ceraptopteris, Water Sprite and Ceratophyllum, Hornwart are all very good fast growing plant and they will help take away the nutrients that the algaes are presently utilizing. Add a lot of these plants at once. They will then begin making almost immediate contributions towards free nutirent uptake and shading out the algae.

Almost all the rooted plants are actually bog plants and are grown commercially emersed, that is, above the water. When planted in the aquarium they make a transition to submersed growth. The original leaves die even as they are being replaced with their aquatic leaf forms. During this transition they do not contribute much more than more nitrates from their original leaves decaying. which is welcomed by the algae.

I don't think I would resort to a complicated lighting schedule but would leave the lights on eight or nine hours a day. There is an ecological succession that is occurring as it does in every new tank. As others have pointed out it will get past this current state of affairs. Getting these fast growing true aquatic plants going ASAP will bring things into balance as fast as anything else you can do. I would suggest buying enough of the above plants to cover half to two thirds of the surface. Eventually, this ecosystem becomes more complex and as the major rooted plants become fully established it will probably be necessary to reduce the surface shading plant species densities to allow the other plants access to the stronger illumination.

There are cycles within cycles and a planted aquarium is always moving towards a greater degree of complexity of fish/plant/bacteria and algae interactions.
Ironically, the greater the complexity of these interactions the simpler aquarium becomes to keep.

[1977]

Really irritated with my first planted tank experience. This is strictly an amazon tank with only swordplants so I dont want to add any of these other plants. Everywhere I read to go 3 watts per gallon and I'm only at 2.5. I have quite a few bn plecos to eat algae and have only had the lights on for 6 to 7 hours a day doing wc 1 or 2 per week and still algae is everywhere. Hair algae growing on leaves of plants, sand , driftwood, and of course the plants look like crap. It looked awesome the first week now it just makes me mad to look at it. Temp is 80, ph 7.6 or so.

[willbldrco]

I've been there, man!! I've had swords covered with beard algae so bad it looked like Halloween in my tank! I threw them out and and gave up for a couple of years.

Seriously, buy some cheap fast growers (several bunches), let them starve out the algae. Swords won't do that - they simply grow too slowly to be able to. You need something like water wisteria which seems to grow an inch/day to really suck up those free floating ferts which the algae so love.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Will

[mmorris]

Several years ago I had a cloudy water issue in my planted tank. Interestingly enough, so did several of my neighbors. I bought a diatom filter and it worked like magic. I still use it once in a while for a few hours if I've been messing around in the plants and want it clear quickly. I, too, had a bearded algae problem until I went a bit higher-tech. I now have about 3 watts per gal., and fertilize both liquid and roots. I also add a lot of Excel- up to double dose daily. There are some threads on this forum that discuss using Excell for a bba problem. I still see the algae here and there but the plants are now on top of it. Of course, it looks like a jungle... My planted tank is not a discus tank. Martha

[Apistomaster]

I don't know if there are Discus in your tank yet but if so, 80dF is too cool and they discus will not have good appetites and will be susceptable to diseases.. I have always used 84F as my standard Discus keeping temperature. Most plants will tolerate this temperature.

By now your problem should have cleared up. If it is still a problem, check the nitrite/nitrate levels. Continued cloudy water indicates over feeding in a new setup. You might be surprised at how much food finds it's way into the substrate. You should hydrovac the gravel when making your regular water changes.