Dying Floating Plants

[Squawkbert]

1) oily layer must be addressed - it's protein and scum, better circulation of water should help

2) investigate the lightbulb that came w/ the biocube - if it's for corals (quite blue, 10,000-14,000K rating), it won't do much for plants (who prefer 6500-10,000K, generally).

 

[Thursday Postal]

1) oily layer must be addressed - it's protein and scum, better circulation of water should help

2) investigate the lightbulb that came w/ the biocube - if it's for corals (quite blue, 10,000-14,000K rating), it won't do much for plants (who prefer 6500-10,000K, generally).

Yeah, I've adjusted the filter output for now, it'll take care of the layer. The biocube comes with two lights, one is white, the other is pretty blue. I use them both, generally.

As of now I've got the majority of the plants outside in a bowl of dechlorinated water. with a couple of algae wafers. I don't know if that really counts as nutrients for them (both my other plants come in bulb/bulblike forms so I'm sure that's why they're doing well), but I'm not willing to put much more into my tank than necessary because I'm much more interested in shrimp than floating plants. I'm just kind of experimenting at this point. The bowl is in good sunlight so I'm seeing if that'll help them any. If so, I'll see if I can get some better lighting without messing up other things.

 

[Thursday Postal]

Are you feeding the tank, & what are the other tank inhabitants if any?

It's probably either nutrients or lighting at this point. There isn't much going on in my tank right now because it's just the malaysian trumpet snails, and I give them bits of algae wafer if it looks like they have nothing to eat. I don't want to feed them too much though, so the water is probably pretty empty of anything. I'm not quite sure what aquarium plants need (other than co2/light/water, which aquarium plants get plenty of, and I figure as a surface plant the red root floaters get a decent amount of co2).

 

[Thursday Postal]

Update, for those who may search this thread with a similar problem in the future:

Outdoor plants are probably all dead. Maybe one or two will survive, who knows. Indoor plants: I have two or three left in the tank, one looks healthy, other two look very sickly, but they all are growing new little leaves, so maybe I just need to try and let the plant population grow on its own and find a balance. There are also a few duckweed plants here and there that came with the floaters that seem to be fine.