Why don't my plants live???

[Jungle Girl]

When I think of the money I've spent on aquarium plants, and then look around my house to see what I still have, IT HURTS!!!

The only species that is still going strong is the java fern.

All my tanks have plant grow lights, pH just under neutral, no excess nitrogen, and have temps around 78'F. None of my fish are plant eaters.

Is it because I use regular pea gravel? (That's my only option in this small town, so that's what I've ended up with.)
Is it because I don't add plant fertilizers?
Is it because I don't have a CO2 pump?
Is it because my local fish store sucks?
Any other ideas?
Some of the tanks you guys have posted look so LUSH and BEAUTIFUL!!!!

Here are some of the plants that have only lasted a few months:
Bacopa
Cabomba
Wisteria
Vallisneria
There have been others, but I don't remember their names. It's sad, I know.

PLEASE HELP ME FIGURE OUT WHAT I'M DOING WRONG!!!

[Pamelajo]

I can't tell you what your doing wrong, but will tell you what works for me. I use to kill everything except java fern. Now I ask for easy hardy plants and low light plants. I do have plant bulbs but nothing fancy. Some tanks have gravel and some have sand. No CO2 but do use fertilizer and root tabs. So far these plants are doing great for me: Anubis, Hygro, bacompia, windelow, crypts a couple different kinds even divided some cause they got big. Red lotus and Val. There are more but don't know the names.

[Zebrapl3co]

Well, I think you already know the answer by asking all the right questions ...
Not sure was kind of lighting you are talking about when you say "plant grow light".
First you need to calculate how many watts you're pumping into your tank. So:
1) How big are some of you tanks in terms of gallon?
2) check out how many watts of lights you're pumping into your tanks.
3) are most of your tanks tall tanks? ie., more than 24" high?
4) what kind of lighting are you using? compact florescent? metal halide? T8/T12 florescent tub? You should be using these kind of lights.
Incadescent or halogen lamps are next to useless at growing plants.

These factors play an important role on what kind of plants you can grow in your tanks. The best starting point for any planted tank is 3 watts per gallon of water. For example, if you have a standard 20 gallon tank, you should aim around 60 - 65 watts of light into the tank. This will guarentee that a majority of the plants you buy from the fish store will survive in your tank. You can go less, but the choices are limited and you will need to do experiments and research to find out which plant can and can not live under your lesser light condition.

CO2, is not a must. But you won't see the unearthly lushness you see of photos on the net.
Fertilizers, a cheap DIY fertilizer is PPMD (you mix your own from ingredients you buy from hydroponics stores).
- another starter fertilizer mix from Tropica See:
http://www.tropica.com/article.asp?type=news&id=686
- a third and probably best of the three here is Seachem - Excel (not very compatible with shrimps).
- as a last resort, if you really really can't get the above, you can go with Jobe - lush fern spikes. You must use these sparingly and with care, as well as do regular water change as there is nitrate in it that can throw your tanks parameter off.

Gravel is a problem as you already suspect. There are basically 2 type of planted tank soil you can get that goes well with planted tanks without having to be inventive. Seachem - Flourite and Caribean - Eco-complete for plants.
But if you really want to get your hands dirty. There are almost unlimited amount of gravels you can go with. Basically, flourite is just a harden red clay. Got to any potery store and buy a box of neutral red clay (or terracoda colour clay). Bake it, and bang it up into little peices and tada DIY flourite. But just a note. It's cheaper and safer if you buy the flourite. With the DIY, you need to think of a method to rough out the ediges so the don't cut your fish or plants.

Good luck,

[Wiedertäufer]

Plants need calcium. What's your water hardness and carbonate hardness like? Most people in Ontario have very hard water, so you're probably fine there, but you never know-- are you using water that's gone through a softener or some other filtration?

The other things they need are the stuff they eat. Ammonium, nitrates, etc.,. Stuff we normally want to filter out of our tank. What's your filtration like? Are you using any sort of chemical ammonia or nitrate remover? Are you doing too many water changes and removing that stuff from the water before the plants can use it?

This is primarily the concern with non rooted plants. From what I understand there's a potential for some difficulty in balancing out a transition from lightly planted to more heavily planted. You need things in the water that might be less than pleasant for the fish, but it's not really safe for the fish to have them in the water until you have enough plants to safely suck it all out (plants are natural filters).

Also, for rooted plants, what's your substrate? How are you making sure there's enough nutrients in the substrate? If you're vacuuming it all the time, you may want to lighten up on that.

Remember though, that if you lighten up on water changes, filtration or vacuuming the gravel, you *need* to have enough plants present to suck up the increased nitrates and ammonia or your fish will suffer the consequences. Floating plants are the best for this. A really buoyant light moss, tiny water lily pads, even the much hated duck weed and the super fast growing hornwort are excellent for this transition period.

As for lighting, I just use those spiral compact fluorescent bulbs in goose-neck lamps. I use about 3 wpg in the form of three bulbs on my 27 gallon tank. I'm sure if you've got dedicated quality plant bulbs, that's not the issue. I'm just using 6700k daylight bulbs I got at the drug store. My tanks main strength when it comes plants is that under my gravel layer in my tank, I have a layer of top soil (yep, dirt). There are a variety of commercial substrates that are also well suited for growing plants.

[DaFishMan]

Or on the simple side of the spectrum....

The plants you listed don't require 3wpg, special gravel, heavy fert regimen or
such. They are all low requirement plants, and can get most of what they need nutrient wise from the fish waste and such in the water.

All of those would do ok in a low tech tank. 1.5 wpg to 2wpg, regular gravel.
BUT the depth of the tank affects how much light gets to the substrate too. If
enough is not hitting bottom your stem plants will have weak leggy growth.

I think this relates directly to your light, photoperiod, and depth of your tank.

How many Kelvin is your gro lights and what is your watts per gallon ?
Do you use a timer and how long are those lights on ?
That's a good starting point :)

[Jungle Girl]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
I didn't know anything about WATTS PER GALLON!
My tanks are waaaaaaaaaay under even the minimum recommended ratio!
Thanks so much! So glad I asked!!! I will remedy this situation ASAP!

[CACAdmin]

Out of curiosity I decided to check how many watts per gallon I have on my planted tanks. Shockingly despite what appears to be inadequate lighting and no ferts or CO2, I am able to grow low light plants (java fern, hygro, amazon sword). Granted, I am sure they would be much healthier with adequate lighting but they do survive.

(using T8 florescents)
20g: 0.75 wpg
70g tall: 0.357 wpg

I will add that my apartment gets an enormous amount of daylight as well so one would need to factor that in. I also leave the lights on for 12-15 hrs. per day.

[Soggybottom]

They say daylight is bad (algae), but a couple of my tanks catch a few rays each day.
I really like the way it makes the planted tanks look with the slanty shadows 'n all, and I might be imagining it, but I think the fish like it too :)
I also remember reading that HID lamps (like reefers and reefer growers use) are about 1/10 as powerful as the sun, and flouros even less. So if you are catching direct sun Jay, I bet thats making up for a lot...

[Melody]

You're not imagining it - my fish love playing in the sun, they swim up and down in it, very active when it hits. I had a loach who would lay on a rock everytime the sun hit that part of the tank, sunning himself. None of my tanks get enough to impact it with algae or heating it up, but I do like how it looks and what it does for the fishies.

Natural sunlight is needed for some species to meet their full colour potential at all. There's a Swordtail species that only gets red if it has sun... and its not a sunburn either...lol. I can never remember the name of the species of course, but its one example.

[Soggybottom]

Thats awesome! maybe sunlight is like crack for fishtanks, a little bit here and there is great, but not too much or things get crazy.

:WhoMe:

Just kidding everyone! never do crack! like ever ever!

[CACAdmin]

My 70g gets some direct sun every day for a short while on one side and top corner of the tank (well, when we get sun... this is the 'Wet Coast' after all...lol). The 20g doesn't get direct light but it gets reflected light off a white wall on my balcony and amplified by the glass doors so I think you're probably onto something there. My apartment walls are all white so they reflect light as well.

Rarely any algae problems as my snails and plecos and mollies usually take care of it. (with the one exception of an outbreak of BBA in the 70g last fall.)

[CACAdmin]

You're not imagining it - my fish love playing in the sun, they swim up and down in it, very active when it hits. I had a loach who would lay on a rock everytime the sun hit that part of the tank, sunning himself.

That's priceless... a sunbathing loach. :laugh:

[Melody]

Thats awesome! maybe sunlight is like crack for fishtanks, a little bit here and there is great, but not too much or things get crazy.

:WhoMe:

Just kidding everyone! never do crack! like ever ever!

That's right! Because if you step on a crack, you break your Mother's back! :wideeyed: But a crack of sunlight never hurt anyone.

[Edgezilla]

I can tell you everything that is wrong for the plants you lost or I can tell you what you can do the remedy the problem.

What you have there are mostly med to high light plants.

If you want to keep everything simple and still have a nice looking planted tank without adding/upgrading a lot of other equipment, stick with low light plants and or plants that don't need to be rooted into the substrate, i.e. java fern, anubias, moss/fissidens. Those don't need a lot of light can be tied down to wood and rocks.

As for low light plants, there is a few readily available, even swords. Amazon sword, Echinodorus parviflorus 'Tropica'. Cryptocoryne sp (most of the aquarium variety will be fine in low light setup). These will do fine in pea size gravel. Not the best, but they have a big enough root system to grow in them.

For foreground low light plants you can use Saggittaria subulata, marsilea hirsuta, and a couple others. These should be grown in finer gravel.

[PPulcher]

They say daylight is bad (algae), but a couple of my tanks catch a few rays each day.
I really like the way it makes the planted tanks look with the slanty shadows 'n all, and I might be imagining it, but I think the fish like it too :)
I also remember reading that HID lamps (like reefers and reefer growers use) are about 1/10 as powerful as the sun, and flouros even less. So if you are catching direct sun Jay, I bet thats making up for a lot...

Diana Walstad in The Ecology of the Planted Aquarium advocates the use of sunlight for planted tanks as a supplement to aquarium lighting. If it's working for you, that's awesome!

[Melody]

Thats awesome! maybe sunlight is like crack for fishtanks, a little bit here and there is great, but not too much or things get crazy.

:WhoMe:

Just kidding everyone! never do crack! like ever ever!

I caught these ones as the evening sun set on them. Only one side of the tank gets the sun so they all go there and start swimming up and down in it. If you look closely you can see the different shades of the sun hitting the wall.


http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f227/canadiansinternetdotcom/018-1.jpg

[Melody]

Incidentally, we have Darrell's Koi Sword, Mick's Platy's, Jay's Moo cow Platy, Pacific Aquatic's Hifin Platy and Patricks Longfin Whiteclouds and one of the Cory's I got from him ages ago. Community tank takes on a whole new meaning around here :laugh: .

[CACAdmin]

Now that you mention it, I realize that the side of my 70g which gets the sun is a favorite hangout too.

Community tank takes on a whole new meaning around here :laugh: .
That's for sure! :rolleyes: :laugh:

[Melody]

Not in the picture but in the same tank are Green Neon Cory's from Madattiver, a couple of albino BN's & LF Whiteclouds from Pam and Bill Allen's Hifin Swords... don't even get me started on the snails :laugh: . Its serving as a q-tank but I quite often run out of q-tank space and permanent residents get mixed in. Once I've dealt with breeders long enough its a safe enough risk, but never fool-proof and I wouldn't exactly recommend it. Desperate times & all that :Embarassing: .