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When I planted my Pogostemon helferi, they almost completely melted away. A few weeks later shoots started growing and they're doing alright now. My water's only 3 dKH.
 
So i have melting Monte Carlo, Helferi and even some Repens is struggling.

Most of the Helferi has gone. The MC has just started and i don't know why! The lights were upto 85% but i have backed them down to 65% and they have been for the past week.

The Repens doesnt seem to be doing much, some small bits of melt, but certainly no growth. I just cant work out what is going wrong and i'm starting to get pi$$ed of with this now!!! :banghead: I've had the tank for seven years now and never had any success with it. :(

Melt_1_16.jpg


Melt_2_16.jpg


Melt_3_16.jpg
 
My thoughts are to consider the following.

1. Change from a spraybar to a lily pipe to get the flow going from the back right of the tanks to the front right.
2. Move from an inline diffuser to a reactor....i certainly have a filter capable of running this tank with a reactor
3. Extend the lighting period from 6 hours to maybe 7 or 8
4. Change from Ei to some Neutro+ i have from Aquaesserntials
5. Jack it all in!!!!!
 
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It occurs to me that none of my plants that are furthest down in the tank are growing. The Repens is three weeks in and hasn't changed. Something has to be wrong. I think I'm going to ramp the light up to 90% and see what happens. It can't do any damage as its not working anyway!


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Hi Ross

I was a firm believer that your problem was the lights from the very beginning. I have mine at 100% and its 45cm from the substrate. I would go full throttle and as I said what's the worse that could happen...your plants melt? aren't they melting already?

Go for it...nothing has worked up to know....go 100% and 40cm-45cm from the substrate!

It occurs to me that none of my plants that are furthest down in the tank are growing. The Repens is three weeks in and hasn't changed. Something has to be wrong. I think I'm going to ramp the light up to 90% and see what happens. It can't do any damage as its not working anyway!


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So i have gone 80% as i cannot move the light any higher I'll ramp this to 85% over the next couple of days. Lets see what happens! I'm still getting my 1 ph drop and dosing EI, so happy that i got those covered. I'm also dosing Easy Carbo at the normal doseage!

Still thinking i might go to a lily pipe and see if i can get the flow to move around the tank, but for now lets see what the increase in lights do!
 
So i have gone 80% as i cannot move the light any higher I'll ramp this to 85% over the next couple of days. Lets see what happens! I'm still getting my 1 ph drop and dosing EI, so happy that i got those covered. I'm also dosing Easy Carbo at the normal doseage!

Still thinking i might go to a lily pipe and see if i can get the flow to move around the tank, but for now lets see what the increase in lights do!
Flow is fine, nutrients are fine, co2 is fine. How far away is your light fixture from the substrate?
 
Hi Ross just had another read through your thread, shame things aren't picking up yet, a couple of observations from me, you seem to change the light intensity often I would personally set the light at an intensity and leave it for at least a few weeks maybe 60-80%, maybe try the outflow that came with the filter rather than spray bar, place the in&outflow in one corner of the tank and try a circular flow pattern, point your skimmer in the same direction, at the moment your plant mass is low throw in some cheap fast growing stems, most lfs do bunches cheap get some easier plants growing and the tank stable then add in or replace the plants your not happy with, always try and wait at least a week or two after making a change to your setup to allow the plants to adjust, I'll be trimming a fair amount of hygrophillia polysperma after new year, if you want the trimmings drop me pm, keep at it mate you'll have a cracking scape in the end.
 
Based on George's measurement here - http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/ada-solar-i-vs-tmc-1500-ultima.27121/ the 2x Ultima 1500 puts out about 80 PAR at the substrate when hung 45cm above the water, about 45cm + 25cm above the substrate. Doing some extrapolation for your single tile being 36cm above the substrate, I'm guessing at 100% power it would be around 60-80 PAR. Should be plentiful. I'm stumped... I had very badly growing Staurogyne and Monte Carlo before. Staurogyne were losing leaves (not going transparent, just straight out dropping off) and Monte Carlo shrunk to the size of HC and did not spread for months. I managed to cure it by increasing light intensity and bumping up CO2 till dropchecker is yellow and more than 1 point of pH drop. Both started to recover. I don't know how that helps you since you've tried both.

Tim's right, you need to stick to a setting for at least 2 weeks. Plants will take some time to adapt so whatever you did in the last 1-2 weeks will only start to show symptoms now.
 
So thats it! Go to 100% and stay there! You will be growing algae no doubt about it until your plants start growing and grow healthy and fill out the tank...then you will start trimming the parts where there is algae until no algae is left since new growth will not have any algae...go for it without changing anything else!

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Hi All,

Thanks for the feedback and apologiese for the lack of updates.

It seems by following all your advise i might have turned the corner. I have left the lights at 75% and i made a change to the flow by slowing it down doing this these seems to have really helped. I'm getting a much quicker PH drop. Its currently drops 1 PH point in 50 minutes and i had it down to a 1.67 PH drop at one point! Remember no livestock. The Melt seems to have stopped and the Monte Carlo seems to be spreading!

MC_16.jpg



The Helferi and repens han't done much! But that is certainly better than it melting! I might add some more in this week.

Some of my Annubias leaves are yellow. Is this because they are new or a deficiency of some sort?

an_16.jpg


I also need an idea of some plants that i can put in the middle under the branches as this is bare at the moment. Any ideas?

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Many Thanks

Ross
 
Watch the yellowing anubias a bit. It might be iron deficiency, or it might be some sorta color morphing. I have anubias barteri var nana that had some very pleasant yellow marbling effect develope over time.
 
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