My wife and I have a 225L aquarium, set up with a deep sand bed, six corycats, five lyretail mollies -- six until last weekend, but one died under mysterious circumstances -- and six ottocats. We've got it planted with swords, crypts, water lettuce, water onions, jungle val, and water wysteria. Photo period is currently set to 6 hours/day, with one 65k daylight and one 5k roseate bulb, both T5HO, plus some indirect sun from the windows.
A few months ago we were having an algae problem, but a big tank clean and blackout period took care of most of it. We hoped that aggressive planting would curb it, and since adding the plants it seems to be coming back more slowly, but it is coming back.
Furthermore, the plants seem pretty unhappy. The swords and crypts are doing ok, but just ok, the water onions, jungle val, and water wysteria seem pretty depressed, and the water lettuce are the most worrying -- they still have lots of green leaves, but they're turning white and dry at the edges, and some of the leaves are turning yellow and falling off. There's also algae growing on their roots, and the roots are so thin and feathery that they're extremely hard to clean. We're not sure if the tank conditions are wrong for these plants, or if there's some kind of nutrient deficiency, or what. The fish seem pretty happy -- the corycats have even spawned -- but the plants are just not having a good time of it and we're not sure what to do.
Water chemistry info and photos coming tomorrow, but I figured I'd post this now just in case someone goes "oh, water lettuce turning white around the edges, that's obviously _____!". Sorry if I've left out anything obvious, my wife is the expert here but she's currently swamped with other things.
A few months ago we were having an algae problem, but a big tank clean and blackout period took care of most of it. We hoped that aggressive planting would curb it, and since adding the plants it seems to be coming back more slowly, but it is coming back.
Furthermore, the plants seem pretty unhappy. The swords and crypts are doing ok, but just ok, the water onions, jungle val, and water wysteria seem pretty depressed, and the water lettuce are the most worrying -- they still have lots of green leaves, but they're turning white and dry at the edges, and some of the leaves are turning yellow and falling off. There's also algae growing on their roots, and the roots are so thin and feathery that they're extremely hard to clean. We're not sure if the tank conditions are wrong for these plants, or if there's some kind of nutrient deficiency, or what. The fish seem pretty happy -- the corycats have even spawned -- but the plants are just not having a good time of it and we're not sure what to do.
Water chemistry info and photos coming tomorrow, but I figured I'd post this now just in case someone goes "oh, water lettuce turning white around the edges, that's obviously _____!". Sorry if I've left out anything obvious, my wife is the expert here but she's currently swamped with other things.