What am I doing wrong?

[bazil323]

I have a 2.5g planted only tank at work. I have Elatine triandra, subwrassertand, Windelov fern, a red or bronze crypt wenditii, 2 ludwigia glandulosa, and 2 echinodorus bleheri "compacta." There is also an unknown tiny plant (maybe an inch long) with tiny leaves (maybe 2-4 mm each). I dose Yamato Green-N liquid ferts twice weekly (about 10 drops per dose), and Excel daily except for weekends (about 5 drops). I have the light on 8 hours a day, but weekends are off. It's a 27w compact flourescent 6500K. I just switched bulbs from the one that came with it, same watts unknown K. I need to get a timer to set it for 10-hour days, every day, but I haven't done that yet. It's been setup since April 22 (about 2 weeks).

At first I misread the Yamato label and was dosing every other day, and I dosed it that way for the first week. I use the Jungle Labs Plant Care water conditioning fizz tabs to declor the water, and I have added about 2 liters every week from evaporation. No real water changes, just top offs.

I have a Repti Clear Compact Filter F150 submersible for water movement. I have it set to the lowest setting, as far as I can tell. It still has fair movement, but it's not too overwhelming. I don't think it's the greatest filter, but I mainly just wanted the movement.

Anyway, my subwrassertang has really gone downhill since last week. I came in on Monday to find it almost completely dark green/brown with only a little bit of green on some of the tips. My Elatine triandra was looking fairly sad since I planted it (had it floating in another tank for about a week before planting), and on Monday, it has mostly been dieing off with only a few of the plants having pale green tops.

The echinos look okay, but they were fairly beat up when I got them, no real decline since then. The ludwigias are fine, but they have roots growing out all along the stems even though they are planted. I think the roots were there when I got them as well, but very small. Can't remember for sure. I have had them in the tank since April 27, but I replanted them after I trimmed the bottoms off because they were too tall. That was, I think, April 28th or 29th. The Windelov looks great.

I think that maybe having no light Saturday and Sunday was the kicker, but surely there must be something more than that! I would think that the ludwigia, with it's higher light needs, would have been hit hard too. I just don't get it. Is it ferts? I did change the bulb Tuesday, May 5 to the 6500K bulb. I don't know what the original bulb's K rating was, but I suspect under 6500K, maybe 5000K or so. Here's the link to the Yamato website (http://www.yamatogreen.com/products.htm#YamatoGreen) for a list of what's in there.

[bazil323]

Oh, yeah, and the substrate is 2.5-3" of Flourite Black Sand.

The second day I had it at work, April 24th, the water was cloudy white, but that resolved by Monday, April 27th. I added the filter on Monday, April 27th, so the water just spontaneously cleared for some reason.

[coach_z]

except for the no water changes it sounds like you are doing everything right.

i would say that your problem stems from the previous light you had over the tank. What type of light was it? was it an incandescent light before you changed it out?

[DSR]

If you just top off the water I don't think you are removing any of the nastys in the tank, that might be something worth looking into. Not sure though.

[thebrandon]

I would consider putting something like a snail or something in there just to give it that natural fertilizer that seems to help me with my plants in my 125, you don't need it, but I think it would the tank a bit more pleasing

other than that I would say it could very well be the lighting and the lighting schedule

[7itanium]

I think the problem might be the fact that you have almost 11 watts per gallon of light.. that is a LOT of light to have on a tank with no Co2

[phanmc]

27w over a 2.5g tank isn't all that much. CO2 would help of course but he is using Excel.

I haven't grown subwassertang but if its anything like pellia and other liverworts it doesn't take too kindly to an overdose of Excel. When you say 5 drops, is that 5ml worth? If it is then that may be too much, try reducing to 3 drops.

I haven't used the Yamato fertilizers yet but from reading their info it appears they do not add phosphates, which was demonized early on as causing algae.

Stem plants will always grow roots all over, there's nothing you can do about it except trim them.

[bazil323]

She.

5 drops = 0.25 ml. 20 drops=1 ml. The light was the same type of compact flourescent, but I have no idea what the K rating was on it. It's the kind where it looks like 4 tubes in a row with a square pin that plugs into the lamp.

Just curious, what kind of 'nasties' would I be removing from a planted only tank by doing WCs? There is no livestock, just plants. It's been evaporating about 1-2 liters per week, so I have been replacing that water. From what I understood by asking before, I really didn't need to do WCs so often with a planted only tank. Maybe just doing 1-2 WCs per month.

I forgot to mention before that the subwrassertang did get quite dry when I was tying it to the rock. The E. triandra, however, was still damp when I was planting it. I think I may have been too rough when planting it, though.

For now, I want to keep it without any livestock for ease of care. I don't want to mess with WCs at work, and once we move into the new hospital, it will be very cumbersome to do anything more than a 0.5 liter water change.

[bazil323]

Oh, yeah, thought of another thing. Last weekend (the 2nd weekend) I forgot to turn the light off, so it was on from Friday about 8:30 until Monday about 8:30. I decided to keep the light off when I came in and realized that the light had been on all weekend. That was also when I noticed that the subwrassertang and E. triandra were soooo dead looking.

[phanmc]

K rating is unimportant, if the light is whitish then it'll grow plants.

Water change is to reset the tank water to prevent any chemical buildup and to remove TDS that aren't nutrients. Since you don't have livestock the TDS isn't a concern. The chemical buildup shouldn't be a concern unless they somehow skyrocket.

Try adding a little phosphate to your dosing schedule. If the plants continue to decline its likely you're lacking sufficient CO2 and may want to reduce your lighting a little by raising the light.