My 60ltr tank

[cookie.dou]

Reduce light intensity by 50%

This plant is getting worse pretty fast

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If it makes you feel any better, my rotala bonsai from tropica 1-2 grow almost all died, I only had like 10% of it left =/. Everything else failed to root... From your picture, it looks like it's dying from the bottom up and just keeps spreading. I would try to trim off the dead parts and replant the green parts if you want to try and salvage what you have.

The bonsai you have behind it looks like it's rooted though!

 

[Mark Allen]

I'll keep persevering lol

 

[AquaPlantDemon]

Keep those CO2 levels up and constant, keep removing algae. Don't rest until you are sure that your CO2 concentration is where it needs to be.

Maybe ease back on the light a little

 

[Mark Allen]

Pulled the plant out today, but it had great roots. Not sure what it didn't like.
Ludwigia had to come out too. Wish I put that in my other tank, just to see if it would grow in there.

 

[cookie.dou]

Pulled the plant out today, but it had great roots. Not sure what it didn't like.
Ludwigia had to come out too. Wish I put that in my other tank, just to see if it would grow in there.

If it has great roots it would've rebounded eventually! If you see that next time I would recommend that you stop and just let it be =D.

 

[Mark Allen]

So leave the roots under the soil and it should regrow?

 

[HiNtZ]

I wouldn't believe what you heard about the Ludwigia dying because it wasn't in the soil. I tried to grow some super mini red on my tree and it kept dying and getting attacked by algae. I eventually got it right - with a lot of time. I broke that tank down eventually and started the same idea again, this time with rotala rotundifolia.

It's been about two months of constant daily trimming, but now I'm seeing some really small growth as opposed to huge leaves. The root system you can see is fine... it puts new roots out every few days as the fish eat the others and they decay. It's effectively underwater hydroponics. The only requirement is to stay on top of ferts religiously as there's no substrate to back it up if you run low. Potassium shows very quickly in the rotala. It's a great indicator - way before my hygrophila notices.

I hacked this back yesterday, give it 2-3 days and it'll explode again. All you need is time and a good tank balance.

 

[Mark Allen]

Some of the tissue culture plants are still alive and some even look like they are slowly starting to grow. One siad 30cm in 30days, which is never going to happen, lol. Perhaps they like an established tank rather than a few months old one?

 

[Mark Allen]

Tissue culture plants never took off, so I added some bigger plants. Couple of otto's to munch up the diatoms. Looking better now, but not how I intended it to be, lol.

 

[Manisha]

A really big change ☺ It will hopefully be easier to get the balance right with a bigger plant mass! I've got cabomba caroliniana in my tank's too, it's great!

 

[Manisha]

Hi Mark
How'd the new plants go?

 

[Mark Allen]

Just taken a photo on my phone, will upload later.

It's not perfect, but thy are growing nicely.

 

[Mark Allen]

Photo below

 

[Manisha]

Looking good So different from your first picture! Like your guppys!

 

[Mark Allen]

Yes, its a very different tank. Everything from plants to fish seem to be a lot happier. I do have one guppy that just hides in the corner, I thought he was going to die, but that was weeks ago. He just seems like an inactive fish, still eats food which is good.

 

[HiNtZ]

Looking good!

 

[Mark Allen]

Been a while, plants don't seem to really be growing that well. I thought with CO2 etc... they might be growing faster and not dying. Clearly something is not right. Im doing the same as my other tank, just in ratio's for 60ltrs instead of 180ltrs.

Perhaps its the light strength? my juwel 180 has T5's and reflectors, where as the superfish 60 just has a few LED's, I think 10W, but some are blue and some are white. Should I put some extra lighting in there?

This plant for example has hardly grown at all

Some plants just melt

This crypt is just about doing ok

 

[HiNtZ]

EDIT: Hadn't realised I already replied to this one. Didn't get a notification....

What are you dosing? I don't think light was your issue at all - it has to be nutes. Especially since you said you tried CO2 (although your DC looks a bit turquoise)

Here's a not so recent update pic from the one I posted above. No problems here at all as you can see - grows like crazy, is about 5 inches from the light, but like I said, CO2 is spot on and dosing is religiously.

 

[Mark Allen]

I dose TNC complete, it says one dose a week, but I spread that out (correct amount per ltr/ml). So I do a 50% water change, dose half, then mid week, dose the other half.
I also use Seachem Flurish and carry out the same dosing technique as above.

As for the CO2, maybe I need to get that on sooner. Lights come on at 15:00hrs and the CO2 a couple of hours before. by approx 17:00 its very light green and I turn it off a couple of hours before the lights go out.

Shall I carry out a better nutes dosing programme, use something different? Its just odd I do the same nutes and technique in the other tank and plants reach the surface of the water from half way down. One difference if I have different soil in that tank though. Could that be whats causing it?

 

[Manisha]

Hi Mark, I use tnc complete too & think your dose may be a bit light. Another member recommended to dose the recommended dose three times per week on my high light nano with liquid co2. For my big low tech, (240l) should be 24ml, three times per week - but because it's low tech I use about a half dose. The three times I understood is equivalent to ei levels so if your using co2 I'd be inclined to try that.
It is odd how you your big tank is doing fine with equivalent levels. It could be flow is more evenly distributed in your larger tank or perhaps you have a better balance in terms of slow/fast growing plants?