Sooo... My plants aren't growing... and I have no idea why.

[dundadundun]

here's a recent pic of my tank under ge daylight 6500k cfl's for reference...

you might want to try riiz's root tab recipe also. it's been working wonders for me whereas the name brands have failed miserably imo.
and a fts for reference growth and capacity wise...

this is without co2.

 

[myswtsins]

First off, you're not alone! I'm sick at the thought of how much money I have spent on plants just to kill them. I have gone from NO growth to explosive growth but with that came algae (algae won). I have killed Java Ferns & they say they are impossible to kill!

The Rotala growing where the light from the window came in & the very straight straggly growth (from the plant on the other side, maybe more rotala) indicates it may be a lighting issue, lack of.

If you are using the spiral CFL bulbs they can't compare with other typical lighting. I am not saying they can't be used you just need good reflectors, more of them & they need to be replaced very regularly (I think every few months). I use 26 watts of spiral CFL over my 10g, 2.6 WPG on a very short, small tank & I get low light growth, slow steady but healthy. In comparison, I have 55 watts of AHsupply CF over a 33g, 1.6 WPG over a 21" high tank and I definitely consider this a high tech tank, I just can't control the algae.....yet.

Do you use well or city water? or other? Do you use any type of conditioner/filter on your source water? Most of my fish/plant keeping issues were related to the use of our water softener (whole house type) and I just want to rule that out as a possibility for you.

Very nice tank dundadundun!
*Edit* for comparison sake would you mind telling us the specs on your tank?

 

[red_wall]

The Rotala growing where the light from the window came in & the very straight straggly growth (from the plant on the other side, maybe more rotala) indicates it may be a lighting issue, lack of. That's kind of what I was thinking when I noticed the new, somewhat explosive growth that came from the excess light from the window.

If you are using the spiral CFL bulbs they can't compare with other typical lighting. I am not saying they can't be used you just need good reflectors, more of them & they need to be replaced very regularly (I think every few months). I use 26 watts of spiral CFL over my 10g, 2.6 WPG on a very short, small tank & I get low light growth, slow steady but healthy. In comparison, I have 55 watts of AHsupply CF over a 33g, 1.6 WPG over a 21" high tank and I definitely consider this a high tech tank, I just can't control the algae.....yet. I never really thought that my ghetto DIY setup would be the cause of it... Hmmm.... I really think that's the problem haha.

Do you use well or city water? or other? Do you use any type of conditioner/filter on your source water? Most of my fish/plant keeping issues were related to the use of our water softener (whole house type) and I just want to rule that out as a possibility for you. I use city, and we have a water softener on the house. What does the water softener do to affect the plants?

Very nice tank dundadundun! Thanks, even though I think it looks very shotty right now.
*Edit* for comparison sake would you mind telling us the specs on your tank?I listed the specs in my first posts but... 46 gallon bowfront, 2.2 wpg, 4x26 watt CFL's

Here's my light setup... and the more I look at it, the more I consider it to be the problem... hahah. Oh well... might be headed to ahsupply.

Retrofitted the hood that my tank came with and added the lights. They stuck out of the bottom of the hood, so to avoid breaking them, I placed black foam all the way around it, as a spacer.

AHHHH. I'm dumb.

Anyways, here's the pictures of my stupidity, as promised.

 

[dundadundun]

thanks myswtsins. it's a 30 gal. snake breeder actually that i haphazardly filled with water. it's holding ~25 gals of water if i'd venture to guess at it (10 gal w/c is just under half). footprint is 36"x18" and it's about a foot deep. i've got 2 ge daylight cfl's in clamp lamps suspended over it. one with a 10 watt and a metal lamp and one with a ~23 watt and the white ceramic lamp. so it's just over 1wpg with ok reflectors. the 10 watt with the metal reflector definitely puts out as much, if not more light than the 23 watt and covers almost 2/3 of the tank. this is evidenced by where it's harder to control algae spread... even though the side with the higher watt bulb gets indirect sunlight to help out. when i need new bulbs i'll be putting in 2 10 watters and switching the ceramic lamp to another metal one i have that matches the other one. the bulbs are actually just over 6 months right now, maybe 6.5 months. they're suspended ~15" above the water, maybe a little more.

i usually only dose about 1/32 to 1/16 tsp kh2po4 and k2so4 ~weekly. i also amend my gh to ~5dgh at w/c time since my water is very soft. if i do a lot of maintenance that includes w/c's i'll add ~1/8-1/4 tsp kno3 to keep things balanced. it holds back the algae till the fish can make me some nitrates.

is there anything crucial i'm missing?

if i were to guess, i'd say those were N:vision daylights under red_walls' diy hood there. the only thing i was able to grow with them personally after the first week or so was algae. some people like them but i definitely like the ge's better. they're cheap walmart bulbs too.

red_wall... i wouldn't be surprised if your softener wasn't your issue and the added light is giving those plants the extra umph to push through. also... your bulbs are probably too close to your reflectors to use them to their potential. that's why i decided to use clamp lamps and throw away the old unit we had laying around. most of the usable light is projected outward so i figured reflecting that down from a vertical position would work better and it payed off. especially since i just used what was lying around.

 

[dundadundun]

a pic of the ge bulbs next to another brand for comparison...


notice the bulb area itself is actually thinner. i don't know if it makes a great difference but i'd think it would produce more light and less re-strike. i remember the N:vision bulbs being awful bulky, but can't seem to locate any leftovers in any of the lamps in the house. either they all blew, they're in less convenient lamps or the wifey didn't like every room shining blue all the time. :silly: i actually liked that about them.

 

[myswtsins]

Alright I will try to make this as short as possible.

I have had issues with fish & plants since day 1 almost 2.5 years ago and am just now getting to the bottom of it. To put it simply house hold water softeners mess everything up. They replace certain minerals (Calcium & Magnesium among others) with salt through ion exchange, that's a very loose description. Of all trace elements you need Ca & Mg are among the most important and you just replaced them with salt (which was probably hurting my inverts but that's not an issue here). So although you no longer get hard water spots you still have a high TDS because all that happened was a swap of dissolved solids so as far as our fish and plants are concern you now have water that is not soft because of high TDS, which is the true measure of hardness or hard because it has nearly no minerals except salt (unless you are using the potassium alternative than it has some potassium). If you also has a resin chamber it goes a step further and removes even more stuff, like iron. It messes with all kinds of tests, Gh, Kh, even Ph, try figuring out your CO2 levels without using any of those tests, it's not fun.

Ok, it is not very eloquent but I have done TONS of research and I know a water softener is bad. For some proof for you, I had troubles with plants & inverts in my 10g for 1.5 years (since I started it). I ran new plumbing straight from the well through a carbon filter (because I have REALLY high iron levels) into my room and only used that for the shrimp tank. I had over 100 baby shrimp within a month where as they all died within that time frame before & the plants boomed, moss nearly filled the tank recently. I am currently working on setting up a water system for my other tanks as well because this has been such a success.

I would also say that your lighting system is not optimal BUT with the proper water it should be growing plants better than what you have seen, dundadundun's tank is a perfect example! I have been made fully aware of the fact that plant success is based on many factors & all the factors have to come within reasonable balance.

Sorry it was long!! :duh:

*Edit* I always forget something! What temp/color range are your bulbs? And I agree with dundadundun about the GE bulbs smaller, cheaper & easy to find in 5600k!

 

[red_wall]

I'll definitely look in to those GE bulbs...

So is there anyway to get rid of the effects of the water softener other than using well water?

 

[mjordan29]

i use ro water... in all my tanks. before ro water i was having the same problems with my plants.

i changed to ro because of my tap at 8+ph and mabey yo should check your source... now all my tanks are around 6.8ph

lighting looks fine to me. i also have a ah supply retro kit on one of my tanks and i love it.

edit: also take into acount how deep the tank is.... its tall. ask your self how much light really get to the bottom. i mean you do only have 4 compacts... i use to compacts on a 10g tank...

 

[dundadundun]

So is there anyway to get rid of the effects of the water softener other than using well water?

there's a few ways...

check to see if your outside, laundry and sink spigots are run through the softener. if you find one that's not... bingo, you found your solution to the softener issue.

"T" off your incoming line before the softener... there might already be a t there.

use phosphorous based softener media instead of nacl.

use spring water... definitely check gh, kh and ph of whatever brand you decide to use from time to time.

use distilled or ro/di water and reconstitute it with baking soda and a gh booster. my gh is low as it is so i use barr's gh booster from aquariumfertilizer.com, but other places are carrying it now. you can use baking soda for kh at that point if you think it's an issue (for instance if you have hard water loving critters or you're running co2 heavily and want it).

collect rain water and reconstitute that the same as you would ro or distilled water... i did this for an entire summer while my water main was being cleaned and our ammo was horrendous.

i'm sure there's something i'm missing... :hypnotized: lol

edit: i think personally your lighting situation is fine... except maybe not the greatest and newest bulbs. mine have to travel ~27" to reach the bottom of my tank and all my plants are fine. i think the only real issue i can see is you're not utilizing the bulbs to the best of their abilities being so close to a reflector in a housing that gives them no room for reflection. then again 4 bulbs should be plenty even in that situation. like i said before i'm only using 2 bulbs for a total of about 33 watts and my footprint is 18" x 36". that gives you plenty of room to increase your output from mine just by using higher wattage bulbs.

 

[myswtsins]

Well, why would you not want to use well water, what is wrong with yours? Mine would have been a simple bypass if it wasn't for the high iron content, you may be in a better position. Although things change over time the results you received when the water softener system was put in will be a good starting point. If you do not have access to those results (but you should really try for them), most system have a bypass somewhere, you could get a sample from that 1.see what it looks like, 2.test it with every test kit you can & then let it age an day and repeat. If all looks good you could probably use it without any issues but I can't guarantee that, that is why I used it on a test tank first before distributing it to all my tanks.

You could also use RO water and add everything back into it. This is a safe bet and you know exactly what it contains but it does require some money, space & a little work.

Once you know what your water contains you will be able to make a better decision. Best bet is to get the well water professionally tested, I unfortunately am cheap and don't have ANY extra cash right now so I had to do it my way but even though everything seems fine I do plan to get the water tested when funds allow.