Anubias: What am I doing wrong?

[Cypherman]

I've been trying for over a year, yet I cant seem to grow Anubias. They're supposed to be a hardy plant with low light needs, yet they all grow rather curiously. Firstly, no matter how much time I give them, they absolutely refuse to root to logs or rocks. Even if I want months, or on one case, over a year, the plants refuse to attach, yet will grow new trailers and even extend their current ones. Second, the leaves always die off. The plants will grow new ones, but they die long before reaching their full size (they yellow and develop holes). The plants often extend their stem length, and grow vertically, with many short, compact leaves (poor lighting?) but they simply wont florish...

The lighting is low for a planted aquarium but not that low (lesse...two 48'' full spectrum and two 24'' ocean blue lights to make it look more natural, on a 75 gallon aquarium). I do use a laterlite/gravel mix for my crypts, which do rather well. I do have liquid fertilizer but I wont lie, I rarely use it since the tank is more for fish than for my plants...PH is never extreme; always slightly acid or basic...Hardness is low...Temp around 78-82.

So can anyone possibly suggest something that might be wrong?

[Cypherman]

Oh and also, Ive noticed that my java fern, (the easiest plant in the world to grow), isnt doing too well...Well rather, it isnt getting any bigger or smaller and the nodules on the leaf arent defeloping into baby plants. Also Apogenogeton (sp.?) species seem to do well in my tank when grown from bulbs...

[djlen]

What is the wattage of your lighting? What exactly do you have in the way of ferts that you don't use? Please explain.
The dosing of a reasonable amount of nutrients won't hurt your fish. If you want to keep plants don't you want them to do well along with the fish?
Your plants need N,P,K and Traces in order to do well. If they grow well they will only enhance the environment for your fish.
With the water you describe you should have no problem growing Anubia or Java Ferns.

Len

[Cypherman]

Hehe when I say I dont use much b/c the tank is mostly for my fish, I'm not worried about hurting them, I'm just somewhat lax in my plant care and slack when it comes to fertilizing and such heh. The lights are standard fluorescents, so I think it adds up to approx. 96 watts total? (32 watts per 48'' tube I think...) or a little over 1.2 wpg. The liquid fertilizer I have is Seachem Flourish: Comprehensive Plant Supplement. N, P, and K are the three most abundant components of the fertilizer, but since I rarely fertilize the levels are probably zero. Do anubias require more of these nutrients than Crypts?

[cblin]

Cypherman, what is your tank temperature? I've had problems with plants before, later to find out that my temperature was too high.

[gregg604]

If you are using fluorescent lights I have heard that they need to be replaced every couple months. They get very weak over time. I had a similar problem with plants before and recently bought a new compact fluorescent. Woo hooo! Ever since, my plants grow like weeds. Well worth the money.

[Tempest]

Seachem Flourish is mainly a trace mix. The macros N, P, and K are relatively low in flourish for macro needs. I think I'll be like Plantbrain and offer to take these two month old bulbs off people's hands. It seems to me they would still have a lot of use left in them. :)

My 48 inch regular tubes are 40 watts.. Your wattage is still over a watt per gallon and I would think that anubias and java fern would do at least okay. You may want to try dosing a little potassium and some flourish. I think I'd dose that each time I did a water change. That makes it easier to remember. You can pick up potassium at the grocery store in the form of Nu-Salt, potassium chloride, salt substitute. If you change at least 30% of the tank water a week, then I'd dose a cap of flourish and half a teaspoon of KCl. That's actually quite low on dosing by some recommendations I've seen but see how the plants look after a week or so. You want them to green up nice at least.

The reason I didn't say anything about dosing the other two macros is that with such low light I presumed your fish food was providing enough.

[Cypherman]

Thank you all for your comments :D

Question: Is it posible my filtration is pulling out a lot of the nutrients needed for plant growth? I have a Fluval 404 and an Aquaclear 500 running on my 75 (the AC is mainly just to provide aeration but has media in it) and the tank itself holds a 5 inch Geophagus surinamensis, a 2.5 inch common oscar, and three 3 inch jack dempseys, which is a fairly low bioload (and I know in the future it will be far in excess so no need to tell me ;) ). Considering how little food goes in for these fish, do you think I should start adding more of the other macronutrients too?

[djlen]

Are you running those filters with the charcoal in them? If so, lose the charcoal and just go with the sponges. It will absorb the nutrients out of the water.
Whatever tubes Tempest doesn't take, send me. I use my tubes for 1 year before replacing. CF tubes last much longer.
I also agree entirely with Tempest's advice on dosing.
AND I've just heard that you can also get larger quantities of KCl(Sodium Chloride) in the water softener aisle at Home Depot. I haven't looked yet, myself. If anybody can verify this I'd appreciate it if you'd post it.
NOW comes the big question. How do you grow any plants at all in a tank with an Oscar in it, or the Dempseys, etc.?

Len

[Starry]

Originally posted by djlen

AND I've just heard that you can also get larger quantities of KCl(Sodium Chloride) in the water softener aisle at Home Depot. I haven't looked yet, myself. If anybody can verify this I'd appreciate it if you'd post it.

Len [/B]

You mean potassium chloride. I don't think you wanna be adding sodium chloride :) Unless you want brackish water.

[Cypherman]

The oscar is too small to dig up anything (I use a very large river pebble gravel; 1/4-1/2 inch in length), plus I planted most of my crypts in between large boulders so they wont be able to remove them very easily.

Thanks again for all of your wise advice, I will look into KCL supplementing. Yea I do run AC on both filters, although it isnt changed too often. I will remove them. Should I also ditch the ammonia removing resin and stick to biofiltration?

[djlen]

My apology.....I don't know what I'd do without Starry....she caught my bad. I did mean Potassium Chloride(KCl). Sorry about the mistake.
Just my opinion.......rooted plants will do much better with a smaller diameter substrate.
Fish create ammonia. The amount of plants should be in proportion to the amount of fish to be able to use the ammonia and other toxins that they will produce.
Your fish will eventually become large, especially the Oscar. Unless you have enough plants in the tank to balance the waste they create, you are going to need something in the tank to absorb it.
Planted tanks that are in balance with the fish load shouldn't need activated charcoal or ammonia absorbers. Whether your plant load can handle your fish load is a question you have to determine.

Len

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

However, I think anubias likes large substrate. Mine loves the big gravel I have, and so do my crypts. Not all plants do, though.
My kribensis just spawned in my anubias, ignoring the caves I have for them. Strange! :D