Browning leaves?

[ErrorS]

I noticed my plants are growing pretty slowly.. but the worst part is, the leaves are browning.

I noticed *some* growth recently. This grasslike stuff I had shot out a runner, I noticed it last night. Then this morning there was another one, it is definitely spreading (though none of my other platns seem to be)

the new growth has brown leaves and I can't figure out why. Even this brand new 'grass' that just sprouted, the leaves are all brown and unhealthy looking.. what could be causing this? all the older plants also have the problem but they seem to be browning slowly, unlike the new growth.

Shouldn't the flourite and fish waste have enough nutrients? I ran CO2 for a while but just took it out a couple of days ago because it didn't seem to be helping.. and at the same time I was havnig trouble balancing the CO2 with the oxygen.. too many changes at once

There are quite a few potential causes.. uh..

Lighting is in the sig. I have Fluorite mixed with some (black colored) plant substrate I forgot the name of. It's a pretty thick bed.. at the moment the bed is filled with all kinds of waste, dust from the fluorite, etc. It's pretty dense with very few 'air pockets' and little circulation of any kind.

The thing is, it might be my lighting. The two CFs I had were 3000K, *very* red in color. I broke one and replaced it with a 10k. The two T8s I have are GE Daylight bulbs.

[cyborob]

Replace the other 3000k cf light too, my understanding is that light is no good for growing plants.

Your plants look ok in your picture. You could use a lot more however.

[Mgamer20o0]

i have used 6500k and 10000k bulbs. what kind of problems were you having balancing the CO2 with the oxygen? do you know how much co2 was in the tank? when was the t12 bulbs replaced?

[ErrorS]

I replaced the T12s about a week ago thinking that would help. They were Trichromatic bulbs, but they're a few years old.. replaced them with GE Daylights and they look good.

Basically, even when I removed the CO2 at night (DIY with yeast) my fish would look horrible the next morning when the lights came on. The plants didn't seem to be using it quickly enough. I removed the CO2 for a few days and now the fish look great, the plants haven't changed at all. They're slowly dying.

A few years back when I was running sand substrate with dual NO 40W fluorescents and DIY CO2 the plants grew like crazy (or reproduced, they never got very big). I replaced the bulbs with the Trichromatics and replaced the sand with Flourite (I think that's all I changed? this was a couple of years ago) and every plant in the aquarium died..
Now I can't get them to grow at all. Bought the CF hood with the red bulbs and they still wouldn't grow, stuck the old Trichromatics in with the CFs and still no growth.. replaced the Trichromatics with T8s and I'm waiting to see if that will help. It really sounds like light when I put it all out like this, ugh.

I don't know if this matters but:
1. My Java Fern is reproducing like crazy. It looks pretty poor itself after 3 days it has 8-10 little Java ferns growing off of it. I can't get the smaller Java Ferns to survive. This large Fern has been tied down to a piece of driftwood for more than a month and it still hasn't attached itself. Whenever I had Java Ferns before they would reproduce pretty nicely but never as much as this thing does.
2. I just recently bought a small piece of driftwood from a LFS that had this green moss growing on it. I liked the way it looked and wanted to 'seed' my aquarium so I could get some of that growth. This stuff is growing and looks pretty healthy. I have some on my large piece of driftwood and notice (SMALL) changes every day. It's not growing as quickly as I would like but that might be the plant itself and not what I'm doing.
3. My Moneywort has some new growth that looks good (a small amount of it) but all of the older leaves are brown and nasty looking. I'd say 3/5 of the plant has brown'sh leaves.
4. The Sword is slowly dying. Leaves look brown'sh in some areas and are starting to curl.
5. The Ludwiga (I think that's what it is?) Is browning. Leaves are falling off and it's generally looking poor.
6. All of the plants seem to be rooting nicely. That Sword had roots halfway across the aquarium days after I had first planted it.

Most of the plants in my aquarium are a couple of months old... The fact that there is no (healthy) new growth really bothers me. I would normally trim some of these leaves but if I did that there would be nothing left.

edit: Oh, I broke the other red CF about a week ago and replaced it with the 10k. i think it was the next day when I bought my new electronic ballast and installed the T8s

[ergo sum]

I would start adding fertilizers and put the co2 back in the tank. Java moss will grow in the dark in tanks with no water changes or circulation for months. I am not sure you can kill that stuff. But since every other plant is struggling I would assume it is not the light but something else.

[webcricket]

The substrate and fish waste alone may not be providing enough nutrients. What is your nitrate reading? If it's not in the 10-20 ppm range, I'd consider starting a fertilizer regime (nitrate, phosphate, potassium, and traces).

[ErrorS]

I just did a reading. Nitrates are very very low at the moment, too low for my kit to read, I think I need to settle down with the water changes.. but with the high bioload Nitrates should be at a good level within a couple of days. If not, my tap water has 20PPM Nitrates, I could just top off the aquarium with it.

I had problems when the Nitrates were at 20ppm, 50ppm and 300ppm (don't ask).

I forgot to mention.. I did put fertilizer tabs at the bases of some of the plants a couple of weeks ago.. Mainly, the moneywort, that tall grass-like stuff (what is it anyways?) and the sword.. the Ludwiga was close enough to the Grass-Like stuff it should have also been using the tabs (it wasn't). I only fertilized some of the plants, others of the same species seem no different in color or growth.

I moved around some of the Ludwiga today and it wasn't rooting in the soil at all, I imagine this is bad? I'm about ready to give up on the Ludwiga, i've never had good luck with it.

I've been watching 'gunk' build up on the tall grass for a few days. I thought it was just the tank being dirty, it usually gets like that when I add feeders (they hang out in the grass) and I simply wave a net around to clear the leaves, all is good.. I just turned the lights on tonight (been gone all day) to whipe the leaves down and I noticed that the tall grass is covered in light green algae. It looks almost like beard or hair algae, but not exactly like any I've seen. Looking closer at some of the other poor plants (the ludwiga, mostly), they have the dark brown spots that apparently come with red algae, it's not tha the leaves are browning.

It's a light, light green.. looks almost white until I look at it up close out of the water. It's hard to explain the shape.. almost like, deer antlers? It's a tough algae, it takes more than whiping it off to get rid of it (I have to rip the algae from the leaves to get it off). It isn't very long at the moment but seems to be getting 'bushy'. I've had algae growth on plants before but never anything exactly like this.

The 'grass-like' stuff (someone please tell me the name) is getting hit the worst at the top closest to the light. The Sword takes second place.. Moneywort, Java Fern and Ludwiga have slim to none growing on the leaves.

I have a few plants that look like this (found on google image search: http://www.aquaticscape.com/articles/algae/bba3.jpg).. the first plants I bought were the smaller versions of the grasslike stuff (that seem frozen in time. They don't die, they don't grow) and the Ludwiga, all from one tank. They both have this dark brown stuff growing on them. I thought these spots were just the plants dying but after removing the leaves I noticed they weren't part of the plant at all. These are some of the first plants I bought (a month and a half ago), the spots don't seem to be growing or lessening. Should I pull these plants out and throw them away? The ones with the dark spots/growth? I can get the dark brown off with a razer blade if I'm careful.

I've also recently added "Flourish" to the aquarium.. in fact, around the same time I removed the CO2.

Tell me if this makes sense, this is what I'm thinking now.

1. Added the new T8s
2. Removed the CO2 a day or two days later.
3. Added liquid fertilizers after I removed the CO2.

So basically, the new T8s fixed a lighting problem, now the plants need CO2. I added iron liquid fertilizer. Basically making my aquarium a low-CO2, rich nutrient, high light tank perfect for growing algae? Fixing my problem with a CO2 additive? and maybe needing some more Nitrates which should go up soon.. (especially after I restock the tank with feeders)

the dark brown algae on the leaves has always been there though. I'm guessing I was starving them out enuogh to not grow but not enough to kill it off. I'm guessing if I don't do something right away that potential 'beard' algae will turn into an outbreak.

[ergo sum]

You put flourite and some other plant substrate in and you added fertliser tabs in the substrate? You are not really making sense here. Sounds like you may be cycling the tank. What is the ammonia?

[ErrorS]

ammonia and nitrites are 0.

My fish are the healthiest they have ever been.. I've been donig water changes with RO water (using additives, with Flourish) to get the hardness down to a more realistic level (was at over 600PPM) Long story short.. just, before I really started spending money on the tank it was just my Dragon Goby. He was in the bare, brackish tank with few water and filter changes.. hardness and nitrates built up.. and it was hard water anyways (400ppm). That calcium buildup in the picture in my signature is almost entirely gone now with no scraping, it's apparently being redisolved into the water.

It was 2-3 small tabs at the roots of some of the larger plants, the ones bundling together.. It was when I was struggling with them and I felt like I had tried everything, so I stuck a few fert tabs in. I don't have the labeling for the fert tabs but I can't imagine it was anything more than 2-0-0.

I just noticed two more (healthy!) runners coming off of .. uh.. the tall grass-like stuff. I think it was the lighting that was hurting them at first, now I need some CO2 and other nutrients to keep the algae in control... right? Well, CO2 is running right now.. and I'm doing it right. The airpump will go on at night when the lights are out and off in the daytime when the lights are on. I'm going to try and get some more plants.

Phosphates are still pretty high at the moment (15ppm). I don't have anything to directly measure CO2 or Iron... or any macronutrients in the water. Forget about testing the gravel. PH is at 7.2, however, I've been using a PH stabilizer with the RO water so that wont help me figure out CO2 levels. GH is still at 300PPM or more, KH is also at 300PPM or more. Probably as close to 300PPM as possible.. I'm guessing these are far less important at the moment than getting my Nitrates up.

This is the conclusion I've come to based on the help from this thread and others.. I'd feel much, much better if someone said that it sounded good :D

Tomorrow I will try to get some pictures.

[ergo sum]

Well if the vallesneria is growing that is a good sign. (or s it sagittaria?) Sounds like you need more time to transition this tank but I am still not sure what you are saying. You had a brackish water set up and you are trying to make it a freshwater setup? Sounds like you are pushing the limits of everything in that tank.

[ErrorS]

No, i had already done that..

Look, this is my tank history for the past 6 months.

6 months ago it was a nasty, brackish tank. With GH at such high levels no test kit could read it. PH was also insanely bad.. i had just my dragon goby and striped raphael.. Due to personal reasons I just sorta forgot about the aquarium, flat out neglected it. Luckily the only two fish I had seemed to thrive on neglect, they both nearly doubled in size.

I bought some needlefish and an anachross about 2-3 months ago. The Needlefish was fine but the plant died within hours.. Tested the water, Salinity was just below brackish, Nitrates were off the charts, etc.. so I did some water changes with the faucet to bring it down.

2 months ago - Water had little salinity but hardness was still far off the charts. I bought a DI filter that ran itself out .. and bought the first batch of plants since the anachross (Ludwiga, Sword, Small grass-like st uff, java fern different plants from different places). Did steady water changes, got the Nitrates to about 100ppm

one month ago - bought an RO filter and have been doing water changes every couple of days. Bought a second batch of plants (the tall grass-like stuff, piece of wood with moss growing on it). Hardness is just now starting to be readable at about 300PPM. Nitrates are below 20ppm, couldn't tell you an exact number as my test doesn't go that low.

I'm going to see if I can find a test kit for plants, so I can measure stuff like Iron and CO2 directly. I can't see me being able to do this without measuring everything, there's too many variables.

It's especially hard considering the setup of my tank. I add two dozen feeders a week, which add a pretty big load. It's never enough to crash my tank but things like CO2, phosphates, etc.. even nitrates.. i need ot keep a closer eye on them.