Plant melted... need help !!

[henree]

Hi all, new to planted tank, need some advise from experience planters.

Manage to setup a 2ft tank 2 weeks ago with base fert topping with 2inch of pre washed aquarium gravel.
Without any plant or fish, I cycle the water for 1 week before introduce the aqua plant bought from Teo aquatic farm.
The plant are mainly Java Moss, hairglass, Lotus and some leaf plant.

Have also introduced about 20 cherry shrimp, 30 Cardinal Tetra and 4 Yamato Shrimp and 5 guppies 2 days after the planting.

Setup :
Filter : Eheim 2215 canister filter
Light : 1x14w 10000K PL light (on 8 hrs daily)
Fan : 1 unit on 24/7
CO2 : Reagent type. I think about 1 bubble/3Sec 24/7


Now comes the problem..
Plant :
My lotus start to melt away bit by bit until it is almost gone!! The hairglass seems to turn towards yellowish, and the leaf plant have brown "burn mark" along the edge of the leaf.

Fish:
Cherry shrimp : 15 dead
Guppies : 1 dead
Cardinal : 2 dead

Water already crystal clear after being cloudy for about 3 days.
PH level : controlled at about 6.9-7.0
water temp : 26-27C

Other fish seems quite lively.

Need advise on how to keep the plant healthy as well.

All comments and advises are appreciated. ThanKs

Henee

[wynx]

Seems that your water flow rate is too fast, using a 2215 on a 2ft tank and then it looks that the lighting is not enough for a tank like yours. A good gauge is 2watts/gallon.

[zenscape]

In addition to what Wynx had said, you should consider adding plants for the cycle and not after. Wait till the plants are doing well before adding critters. But start with small number of them at the initial stage.

Consider colour temp for your light between 6000k - 8000k.

Lotus is sensitive to change of water parameter. Leave it there and it will revive after sometime if you are lucky. For the rest of the plants like hairgrass, be patient. Teo's plants are mostly grown on land and they need some time to adapt to your water condition.

For healthy plants, fert, co2 and light are essential. Read the sticky here and "fert & algae" and you will learn a thing or two

[henree]

Thanks for the advises, should I keed the light on for longer hrs instead?

How about liquid fert. Right to add it now?

[zenscape]

Add more light and change the tubes for 6000k - 8000k. 14w x1 for 2ft is not enough unless you are aiming at slow growing plants and hair grass is not. Increase the photo period to 10 hrs. Add more plants and crank up your co2 to 3-5 bubbles per second and then add fert. Sit back and watch your plants pearl.

[budak]

30 cardinals + shrimp is way too much bioload for a 2 ft tank. The ammonia spike probably killed off both the fish/shrimp and plants. You need to go slow in introducing livestock, but first the tank has to be stabilised... and you need MORE light if you are using CO2... as in more total wattage, not longer hours....

[benchan21]

Recently I had the same plant problems with some plants that I bought from Teo's. I believe that the plants are just getting used to the water (or water parameters). My lotus almost melted away, but after a while the melting stopped, and now I see some new leaves growing.

Just leave the plants as they are, and slowly they'll recover. These are just some of my observations, I'm new to all of these as well.

[|squee|]

Diligently remove the dead rotting leaves, and I agree with budak 30 cardinals is overkill. I'd keep maximum 15 cardinals only in the tank but that's just me.

Get a 36W PL light at least, since you're introducing CO2.

And you mentioned your pH level is controlled... by a pH controller? And what's a reagent type of CO2?

[oblivion]

Diligently remove the dead rotting leaves, and I agree with budak 30 cardinals is overkill. I'd keep maximum 15 cardinals only in the tank but that's just me.

Get a 36W PL light at least, since you're introducing CO2.

And you mentioned your pH level is controlled... by a pH controller? And what's a reagent type of CO2?

i think he means its diy co2
probably commercial diy?
buy the satchets and mix together plus water
think nutrafin's one is like that

[henree]

i think he means its diy co2
probably commercial diy?
buy the satchets and mix together plus water
think nutrafin's one is like that

--that is the one I am using now.

PH controlled... as in stable PH value

Thanks for the advise, will try to add more light and remove some of the fishes away for the time being.

As for CO2, think might have to go for the cylinder type if want to achieve 2-3 bubbles/s rate.

thanks for the input.

[valice]

I would in fact suggest removing all the fishes less the guppies to do the full cycling for 3 weeks before adding more fishes...

And adding means adding like 6 at a time so that the filter can cope with the increase bioload slowly...

As for lights, you need to change your lights to a full 2ft light of 55/36W instead of using a 1.5ft light set... Kelvin is never an issue...

[clouser_minnow]

Thanks for the advises, should I keed the light on for longer hrs instead?

How about liquid fert. Right to add it now?

when i first set up my tank, i did not add liquid ferts. i used solid fert sticks placed under the plants. only when i saw new growth on the plants, did i add liquid fert. now if i add plants to my "half-way-to-jungle" tank i will keep up the liquid fert regime for the benefit for the other plants. hope it all helps.

[PeterGwee]

Using fishes to cycle tanks is plain cruel and really unnecessary. All you need is to add loads of plants and provide them with the necessary conditions for good plant growth and the nitrogen cycle would never happen. Plants simply export the NH4 out as biomass and add O2 to the tank as a "waste" product of photosynthesis which do a lot of good to both fish and bacteria. Focus on the base of the "eco-system" and the fish would do well.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[eddyq]

To set up a new tank, plants heavily and set up CO2, lights and filteration from day one. Let it cycle for 1 to 2 weeks before adding any fishes.

Plants melting is normal they will grow back, can try cutting brown leaves.

[henree]

when i first set up my tank, i did not add liquid ferts. i used solid fert sticks placed under the plants. only when i saw new growth on the plants, did i add liquid fert. now if i add plants to my "half-way-to-jungle" tank i will keep up the liquid fert regime for the benefit for the other plants. hope it all helps.

Hi, I think that is the main reason for the plant to melt --- Liquid fert. which I add it 1 day after initial planting. Have check with Teo's farm, they also suspected this. Should have dose it after the tank stablise.

Actio taken

Did a 70% water change and replaced those melted plant last week.
Bio load no change.
CO2 adjust to 1 bubble per sec. (cylinder set) 8 hrs
Lighting : 24W PL light - on 8 hrs
Water temp : 25 - 27C

Observation for the last 6 days.

All fish and shrimp looks healthy. no casualty so far. Think some of the cherry shrimp going lay egg soon.

Plant -- looks really healthy with new shoots sprouting. (especially tiger lotus, seems to grow by at least a inch over the last 6 days!!)

Anyway thanks all for the your precious advises, ready appriciated. Will try to post a pic. of the tank once it is more stable. Thanks

[PeterGwee]

The fertilizer that you add is definitely not the reason why the plants melt. If you add crypts in, it might melt due to new conditions in which they need time to adjust. On the other hand, your initial light condition might well be way too low to grow plants. You can go low light but then there is also a limit to how low things can go (LCP....light compensation point).

Regards
Peter Gwee

[henree]

point noted. Thanks