Help Please - Why are all my plants just dieing ????

i also think you could do better with lower light than you have. everyones tank is different. i have all those plants and several others growing well in what would be considered fairly low light in my 55, with 80 watts over it in the 6500k range. they grow slowly, and i only give them root tabs but they seem to be healthy. i think even the amount of light that most people here are putting over their tanks is a bit more than what is actually needed for healthy growth. it just speeds it up a bit.
 
Thanks every one, for all the help & suggestions.
I will only use 2 lights for a while, and bring it down to 108 watts.
I will keep you all posted.

I'm still going nuts wondering while algae does not grow???
 
Actually the plants were also dying before I blasted them with the high intensity lights.
 
There is no way you can kill plants or algae with too much light when we're only talking 216w. That's just getting into the high light range on a tank that size. If you think about terrestrial plants getting burned by the sun, it seems like a logical conclusion, but planted tanks don't work the same way.

That being said, now that you have more plants- I'd probably stick to 8-10 hours a day of light- and go ahead and run the whole 216. If you start getting algae you may want to back that off a little, but while the plants are getting settled, I'd run both banks of lights. Try and stay consistent with the lighting schedule.

If I were you I would also change a bunch of water because you way OD-ed the fertilizers according to your first post. Keep your nitrates below 30 and you want your phosphates around one or two- not ten. Keep an eye on the levels so you know when to dose your fertilizers again. This is what works for me, YMMV. The first chance you get invest in a pressurized CO2 system. If you really want a beautiful lush planted tank that will make all the difference. The DIY will help, you will notice a difference, but if you go pressurized things are really going to start going gangbusters.

Also for fertilizers, you may want to look into buying dry ferts and mix your own. Its much cheaper than buying the premixed formulas and you'll have a bit more control over what you add. Look into PPS pro or EI dosing when you have time to learn more about fertilizing a planted tank.

Good luck and I'd love to see a picture.
 
Thank you Turbosaurus, my major research begins tommorrow morning.
I'll also start a hunt for a CO2 cylinder and regulator
 
It almost sounds like some kind of chemical contamination. I can't imagine why your 10 gallon in the window is not even growing...Is it possible you have detergent contamination or some kind of herbicide contamination? Think about this very carefully.

A test would be to take two clean jars(as in absolutely no chemicals) and put some of the tank water in one with a little scrape of algae to propagate, and fresh water in the other with another scraping of algae. Place them in direct sunlight and see what happens.

Do you have a heavy amount of air freshener in use possibly? Just throwing ideas around...
 
Prophecy, thanks for your help & suggestions.

The ten gallon tank did have some "Algae Destroyer Advance" by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals’, many months ago.
It is possible that stopped the algae and hurt the plant growth somewhat, but there we're several 50% water changes since then. I also still do partial water changes on it about every 14 days.
My larger 55 gallon tank has never even had algae, and it never have any Algae Destroyer added to it.

I am finally seeing a little algae growing on top of a piece of driftwood in my 55.
At least now it is now showing some kinds of life.
I'm still waiting for the plants to show me some form of new blooms.

I change my charcoal every couple of weeks, could this have something to do with it.
It’s all I can think of now, since everything on this planet is a carbon based life forms.

I have seen advertized on eBay aquarium carbon which is cylindrical in shapes.
It just looks like charcoal which was formed under pressure into cylindrical shapes.
There’s also the activated charcoal, which looks like natural granulated stuff.
This is the stuff I that have been using.

I assume it is all the same – can I wrong on this?


BTW: No air freshener used in those rooms
I'm positive of no detergent contamination either.
I am using city water, going through a water softener.
All aquarium water also goes through my RO filter system

I will try the two jars of water and see what happens

thanks
 
I'm not sure we should inject CO2 in a tank with 0 KH. Who knows where the pH would end up?

The low KH/high nitrate combination makes me wonder if there's a bit of OTS here. What are the KH and GH of the tap water?
 
KarlTh

Actually the PH has not really changed, it's still at 7.0

The other reading have changed a little however

GH - 179
KH - 143.2
Nitrites - 0.25
Nitrates - 10
Ammonia - 0

BTW: Anybody got an answer to my Charcoal / Carbon question previously posted above?

I have seen advertized on eBay aquarium carbon which is cylindrical in shapes.
It just looks like charcoal which was formed under pressure into cylindrical shapes.
There’s also the activated charcoal, which looks like natural granulated stuff.
This is the stuff I that have been using.

I assume it is all the same – can I wrong on this? :confused:
 
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