Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Tank Plant Advice => Topic started by: Colesr92 on April 15, 2015, 09:34:49 PM
-
Hi,
Just a quick question concerning my plants lately. I have had some issues with algae in my tank lately and noticed that my plants were not growing as well, so put the issues down to lack of CO2. However, since starting on CO2 fertiliser, I have noticed that the algae has not got much better, yet is no longer growing but nothing has changed with the plants. Since I have started with the CO2, there have been dark spots appearing on the leaves of my anubias and Echinodoras becketii, and these plants do not seems to be doing well. However, there has also been some discolouration in the leaves of my java fern.
Just need some hints on what this could be as reducing the amount of lighting in the tank does not seem to have worked either.
Thanks!
-
It's always tricky to diagnose plant problems .............
How hard is your water? Dark spots can be down to shortage of Calcium or Magnesium which are lacking in soft waters.
Sometimes when algae grow on plants, the part of the plant underneath the algae dies from lack of light. When the algae itself later dies, the dark dead spots on the plants are revealed. In this case, the dark areas were there before but just weren't noticeable because they were covered by algae.
"Reducing the amount of light does not seem to have worked either". Plants need enough light to grow. Algae can usually survive at lower light levels than other plants and so reducing light levels is more likely to harm the plants than the algae. I'd try increasing light duration to 10 - 12 hours a day, though you don't say what it is at present. Fast growing plants can outcompete algae.
-
Sorry, slightly of topic but what is about the right amount of light for a planted aquarium. Mines set to 12 per day, no problems with plants. Is that to much light?
-
That's fine, it's about the same as mine. Tropical plants would receive about 12 hours a day in nature and so they should thrive in the same conditions in an aquarium.