My plants don't look so good.

[Martyerd]

I have a 10 gallon planted tank (check signature for tank setup). I'm worried that something is not setup correctly because instead of a healthy green, most of the plants are either dark green, brown, or have what almost looks like a wrinkled shirt for leaves.

My Melon Sword is rubber banded to a rock that is on top of my sand (i read that you are not suppose to directly plant them but allow their roots to grown down into the sand?). Several of the leafs looked really bad and where withered so I removed them. But some of them look like wrinkled shirts and others have a brown film on them that can be rubbed off. I'm guessing that this is algae and I need to decrease the amount of time my plants are exposed to the light. Some of the leaves though have brown veins on them or sections of them are brown almost like brown spots.

My hornwort was floating but it just got really bad and started basically shedding into the filter so I removed it.

The Cabomba seems to be doing the best, but strangely enough it seems that half way up the stem of each plant their are what look like root strands emerging. Is this normal for this plant or has the bottom half died?

My ludwigia at the very top of the plant is a bright green leaves, but further down the plant the leaves are dark dark green. The undersides are a nice red though.

Here is what the current water levels are:

GH 60 ppm
KH 40 ppm
PH 6.5
NO2 0
NO3 20

I have a few Flourish Tabs in the sand and I use a little FloraPride every now and then.

Any Tips or suggestions that you can offer to help these plants grow and get that rich green shine back please help!

I will try to provide some pictures as I'm sure it is hard to get an idea of what it looks like with just text.

 

[The Zigman]

What kind of lighting is on this tank?

 

[Martyerd]

Lighting: 2x15watt 6500k CF 10 hours daily (on timer)

 

[The Zigman]

I have 2 of the 23 watt 6500K's on my 10..
the plants in there seem to be doing good without ferts.
mine are on a timer as well, for 10 hrs per day.


You might want to bump up the lighting a bit?
I got mine at WalMart... 3pack, like $7...

(they are the 75 watt equivilant...23watts)

Sorry, didnt see the sig with the dark blue skin on...

 

[Martyerd]

Wouldn't increasing the lighting just cause more algae problems?

 

[Sarge_857]

Wouldn't increasing the lighting just cause more algae problems?

actually, plants can help reduce algae when they have more light, they take all the nutrients in the water that algae needs to grow. i havent had algae problems since i put plants into my tanks. on my ten gallon i had 2 13 watt compact fluorescent bulbs that push out 60 watts of light. never had any problems.

 

[Martyerd]

hurm, these are the bulbs that I purchased.

http://genet.gelighting.com/LightProducts/Dispatcher?REQUEST=CONSUMERSPECPAGE&PRODUCTCODE=85394&TABID=2&BreadCrumbValues=&ModelSelectionFilter=FT0001:Energy%20Smart%C3%83%C2%83%C3%82%C2%A2%C3%83%C2%82%C3%82%C2%84%C3%83%C2%82%C3%82%C2%A2^FT0025:General%20Purpose

(since the link might not work, the product code is GE "85394"

Are these the right bulb? I'm wondering if they are really full spectrum.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Plant your melon sword...I've never heard of tying it to a rock and waiting for the roots to grow down. Just make sure not to bury the crown...just the roots.

 

[Martyerd]

As it stands right now I have 3wpg with my current lighting (equivalent to a 60 watt normal bulb). That appears to be viewed in the "High" levels. The lighting is 6500k "daylight" with 900 lumen's. I lowered the temperature in my water down to 74-76 as I felt it might have been "too hot" for the plants.

Obviously I either have unhealthy plants or something else is wrong. Not trying to fight you guys on adding more light, but anything above 3.5wpg generally seems to be extreme lighting. Taken from http://www.aquajake.com/blog/hardware/lighting/lighting-how-much-do-you-need/

 

[Squawkbert]

Root tabs may not be the way to go w/ such a small tank - maybe you're OD on NO3 or something else, resulting in stunting (I think that's the common term for the wrinkled shirt look).

Also - yes, do plant the sword. That "tied to wood/rock" thing is for rhizomes on Anubias, Bolbitis, Java fern and the like.

re: GE "85394"
you have 13W, per bulb over your 10g tank. for 2 bulbs, that's 2.6WPG, a decent place to be (though the "rules" aren't perfect at that size tank) - I'd rate yoursetup as on the low/med border.