Need some advice!!

[cravy]

I have some riccia tied to a piece of driftwood. Initially when i started my 60cm x 30cm x 45cm tank, all my plants were all pearling(abt one month ago). Recently, i realised that they pearled very little. riccia stopped pearling. I tried to change water and my diy co2 but no result. I am using 2 x 36w pl light.....why is this so ????? I have abt 30 small fishes in my tank.

Any good soul can tell me ?

[juggler]

Did you add enough fertiliser or feed your fish enough food? I suspect major nutrients like N,P,K may be very low. Try to test for your NO3 and PO4 to confirm.

[cravy]

I have added some liquid fertiliser but still did not work..maybe too little. cos i am afriad that algae might broom..
How do i test for the NO3 n PO4? How much is the test kit?

[cravy]

one more thing to add. is that my red colored plants are turning green...is it because there is a lack of iron ?

[geoffrey]

You have nutrient deficiency. Best is to check as per Juggler's advice. Check your NO3, PO4 and Fe. To check, buy these test kits from a LFS.

You may also want to let us know the fertilisers you are using. Some familiar with it may be able to help with the dosage better. As for red to green leaves, that usually tells us you have TE problem, but are the greening also happening on older leaves?

[cravy]

the older leaves are turning pale....with some green spot algae

[geoffrey]

You have both Macro and Micro nutrient problem. Although it is not advisable since I do not know what you are using for fertilising, you may want to consider adding more of it first until you have more info for us to help. Do it slowly.

At the same time, try feeding more as most commercial fertilisers do not have NO3 and PO4 in them. Your feeding will help.

[cravy]

thank alot ...i will try out the methods.

[bclee]

It is usually K that is the first of the macronutrients to be lacking. You might want to consider dosing that first.

You can use K2SO4 or Seachem Flourish Potassium(more expensive).

BTW, what fertiliser are you using?

BC

[cravy]

how many is the test kit ?......Sorry i do not know what is the brand of the my liquid fertiliser..(will check later when reach home).

[PeterGwee]

Feeding more to fishes is okay but be careful though (This part settles the ammonia side which plants need in slight proportion). Your red plants are turning green would probably be a buildup of nitrate due to lack of some other nutrient particularly PO4...This can slow nitrate uptake to a crawl. There is another way to get around test kits though if you do not find large weekly water changes troublesome.

Your situation
Nitrate: ???
Potassium: Maybe some in your traces but definitely not enough perharps.
Phosphate: ???
GH: Should be around 3
CO2: What is your pH/KH before lights on and lights off? Could well be another major problem if this is screwed up.
Traces: Might need more.

[geoffrey]

There are essentially a few test kits that most of us have used before we dumped them aside.

pH - tells you acidity/alkalinity of your water
kH - tells you carbonate hardness. Use with pH, they tell you your CO2 concentration in your water.
gH - tells you total hardness
Fe - tells you iron concentration
PO4 - tells you phosphate concentration
NO3 - tells you Nitrate concentration

There are more, but I find these useful but they can be very unreliable at times, most of the time or everytime....heehee : ) I leave it to you to be the judge.

[PeterGwee]

Just for correction...KH does not measure carbonate hardness..it measures alkalinity. You would need an ion-specific test kit or probe cum meter to measure carbonate hardness though.

[cravy]

what are the recommended test kit to test all these ?
Cheap n easy to use..

[tawauboy]

think most are using either sera and jbl.
except ph and kh test kits which are easy to use, the rest requires you to mix about 3 reacting agents with a variety of procedures. so there isn't really easy to use test kits.
you should be looking at the reliability of the test results, something which cheaper test kits may not be capable of.