Can You Overclean A Planted Tank With Sand?

[Rynofasho]

I'm trying to understand why my plants are dying and I am wondering about excessive cleaning and if it can take required nutrients out of the water for my plants. If you clean and vac out the fish poo too often, are you robbing some plants of the nutrients they need, especially in a tank where you just changed substrate from gravel to sand? I had a lot of detritus built up in my gravel, but in the sand, I'm not sure how any of the root plants would get what they need without fert tabs.

Just thinking out loud really.

 

[brichamp]

I'm trying to understand why my plants are dying and I am wondering about excessive cleaning and if it can take required nutrients out of the water for my plants. If you clean and vac out the fish poo too often, are you robbing some plants of the nutrients they need, especially in a tank where you just changed substrate from gravel to sand? I had a lot of detritus built up in my gravel, but in the sand, I'm not sure how any of the root plants would get what they need without fert tabs.

Just thinking out loud really.

I don't know the answer to your question, but I'm very interested to see some responses. I have 3 planted tanks. 2 have gravel and 1 sand. The gravel tanks have less lighting but the plants are doing much better...? My sand is supposed to be plant friendly. I'm wondering if it's a nutrient deficiency because the gravel tanks have some flourite. The one plant that has thrived in the sand is jungle val. I'm also having problems with my rainbowfish nibbling on the crypts and other plants in the sand tank. I don't have rainbows in the other two. Also, my sand tank has a saltwater type setup with overflow and sump, so I wonder sometimes if my tank stays "too clean", if that's possible...

 

[OldMan47]

You are indeed removing plant food by keeping your nitrates low with water changes. With that said, you can never have so many plants that they will not survive a decent water quality in the tank. Plants need light, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and several trace elements to survive and thrive.

I run some of my tanks using Diana Walstad's basic approach which means a fertile substrate, lots of light and generous fish feeding to augment the plant nutrients in the water. The results are dazzling. Another very common approach is to intentionally add a bit more fertilizer to your tank than it can ever use and then do a massive water change once a week to reset everything. This causes explosive plant growth but requires tons of light to work well and can be expensive in fertilizers. Other less extreme plant regimes fall between these two approaches but the plants really don't know the difference.

Some factor always limits the plant's growth. If there is an abundance of all but one element of the plant's needs, that element becomes limiting to the growth of the plant. If you are running a high tech fertilized tank, either the carbon or the light is likely to be the limiting factor. If you go low tech without using the Walstad approach, you will probably first run into limitations because of light levels. If you run a Walstad style NPT like I do, the limiting factor may well be carbon as CO2. It really does not matter. No matter how carefully you balance things, something will always limit your plant growth rate to some value.

In your sand substrate, you may well have some trouble growing root feeders. Many water plants derive much of their nutrients from the water column but there are still some that actually use their roots for more than hanging on to things. They need a rich substrate to truly thrive. Those plants will not do well in any inert substrate but will demand a fertile substrate.

 

[Rynofasho]

Thank you for the detailed reply.

I've read about the EI method and PPS so I understand now that I basically removed all macronutrients from the tank which are more important than the micros that I'm dosing.

Pretty much all my plants have died. The Vals are all but gone, Pennywort is all gone, Crypts are gone, and Anubias leaves are disintegrating on many plants. It really is disappointing.

I don't have any sort of fertile substrate under the sand, just sand. I do have root tabs down, but they also only contain trace amounts of what is needed.

After reading a bit more I did find out what you mentioned, which is that the most important elements are nitrogen, potassium, and phosphates. I don't have enough light, nor will I be heavily planted enough for the EI method, plus large water changes upset my tank pH, but I figure that I can try to adjust the method -- instead of using the full dose guideline given, I am going to cut everything in half and start there -- so in theory I should only have to be doing 25% changes weekly which is what works for my tank and doesn't upset the balance of my pH too much. I found that you can get measuring spoons to measure as small as 1/32 tsp at a local store, so I should be able to give it a shot.

I ordered dry ferts which are silly cheap. I got what should end up being close to a 2 year supply for $22 and $11 of that was shipping. Hopefully I can at least get the Anubias back to health after trimming off the dead stuff and keep the Java Ferns alive too. Time will tell. Thank you!

 

[Rynofasho]

And as a secondary comment, OM, I am not looking for high tech or amazingly fast plant growth. I just wanted something more natural looking, and sought out low light, low demand plants so I wouldn't have to worry loads about have 50wpg or buying a CO2 kit. I think I did make a mistake though in not using any sort of plant substrate on the very bottom of the tank and using 100% sand.

 

[waterdrop]

While substrate does become a topic of interest when you study plants a lot, I think you may be exaggerating the extent to which it is a factor in your case. In the vast majority of low-light situations it is just not much of a factor. Much more likely is the effect of nutrient dosing and it sounds like you are moving to address that. I have found it to be a significant factor in my own low-light attempts. As I paid greater attention to making sure all the nutrients were there in large enough amounts and then were flushed out at week end, I had more success. I assume you are somewhere between 1 and 2 watts/USG?

~~waterdrop~~
ps. really nice writeup by OM47 up there, enjoyed that (and Ryno, remember when you hear things from me and OM47 to filter them through the lens that we have opposite water, his is very high mineral content and mine has almost none and sometimes that creeps into things we say.)

 

[Aqua Tom]

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Pretty much all my plants have died. The Vals are all but gone, Pennywort is all gone, Crypts are gone, and Anubias leaves are disintegrating on many plants. It really is disappointing.

I don't have any sort of fertile substrate under the sand, just sand. I do have root tabs down, but they also only contain trace amounts of what is needed.

If you are loosing your Anubis then it can not be your substrate that is causing it to die as it is on wood or rock.

 

[moochy13]

100% sand wont stop your plants growing, ive only got sand, no CO2, no ferts, no plant food and about 1-ish Wpg (36w 33G). i hoover my tank once a week, thats it. my plnats seem to be doing well.

 

[Rynofasho]

Ok, a few more questions then. Moochy, do you grow any heavy root feeders like Crypts? What is the depth of your substrate? Are you using PFS or Play sand?

I knew that it wasn't purely a matter of substrate because of the anubias like Aqua Tom said, however for plants like Crypts that grow huge root systems, I thought that dosing only the water column wouldn't be sufficient for me as the CEC of play sand is about nil so the macros that I need won't penetrate the sand. Additionally, I checked on the mineral content of the Flourish tabs I used and they are pretty much all micros, so I'm not sure I can grow Crypts this way.

As I have no intention of tearing the tank apart again, and the only heavy root feeders I had were Crypts, I think I may instead just try to find a different plant for the foreground that isn't a root feeder.

WD, I have 1wpg T5 lighting running about 8 hours daily. Still haven't got my Ferts so everyone continues to suffer the wrath.

What sort of tough, low-light/low CO2 plants can I use in the foreground instead? Also, in the back row of my tank where I plan to grow Valls, do you think it is work it to try to push some sand towards the front and lay an inch or so of something like Eco Complete or Laterite down since that is the only real place I will have plants rooted in the substrate?

 

[Aqua Tom]

I have sand as a substrate in my tank & apart from my bloody BN plec digging all over the shop the plants are fine.

 

[moochy13]

i have 2 crypts, one is growing very very well, the other not so well. the difference between them is one is directly under the light one isnt. im using argos playsand. i couldnt tll you how deep it is because my fish are constantly changing the layout of the substrate. id say on average probably about 3 inches tops. the only other plants ive got are amazon swords, which are growing absolutely perfectly, better than i could have hoped. they have a massive root system going all the way along the back of my tank.

 

[Rynofasho]

Sounds like it is doing well, moochy. Did you let your tank establish a bit with the sand before adding in plants? That was where I went wrong is I went from gravel to sand and then planted it all in a day, but I wiped out all the nitrogen and other important stuff in my tank when I cleaned the gravel out so the plants were planted with essentially 0 macronutrients to feed.

I did a pretty light cleaning of the tank to get some of the dead stuff out yesterday. One Crypt looks like it might be making a slight comeback. Almost all 15 Valls are dead but they sucked when I got them. Pennywort went the way of the dinosaur too. I trimmed the dead leaves off the anubias as well. I tried to leave some poo in there as bad as that sounds to keep from wiping out all the nitrates.

Hopefully my dry ferts will arrive today or Monday and I can start feeding them!

 

[moochy13]

i dont know how vallis is sold, but my experience of cuttings is rubbish as oppose to plants brought with root systems. all the plants i have now had decent root structures when i brought them. ive tried java fern cuttings and something else that was a stem cutting, but they either died or kept getting uprooted by my boistrous syno. i did a fish in cycle starting the tank from scratch, and from memory i gave roughly a couple of weeks i think before putting plants in, as i just wanted to concentrate on getting the tank going.

the tank is in my sig, left hand piece of wood as you look at it has a small crypt in front of it, and another closer to the left side of the tank you can just see it poking up behind the wood. that photo was taken when i put them in, probably about a month or so ago now i think. heres a picture now.

as you can see the one at the front has grown very well, the one at the side not so much, you can see its in a dark bit of the tank (3ft bulb 4ft tank). i probably just got lucky, the only special attention the plants get is removing dead leaves. last week i trimmed a carrier bag full of amazon sword leaves out of the tank as they were blocking the light a bit. the photo above is after the trimming. dont know if i mentioned it earlier, but i find eventually poo and food will naturally congregate round the plants stems - i just dont bother hoovering too close the them. unfortunately my haphazard "wing it" method of growing plants is not much help to anybody as i dont even know how it works

 

[Rynofasho]

Wow, they are growing really well. How much light do you have on them? I too noticed that the fish poo has a way of ending up right on top of the plants, but my Valls were already dead anyhow haha so I vac'd it up yesterday. Still left some in there for good measure.

My dry ferts arrived today. I found two threads on APC, one which tells how much of the chemicals in grams you need to add to 1L of water, and then another thread that shows how to recreate Seachem products and it lists out grams + teaspoons, so I just used the proportion of the grams/tsp I found of the various chemicals to figure out how to mix without buying a scale. Added it all to 1L of distilled water, shook like a banshee, and I'm leaving it sit overnight to dose first thing tomorrow. Now that I trimmed some dead stuff out of there it does look better, albeit barren. I need to find out where (im in the states) I can actually get some QUALITY Valls and Pennywort to add back in to give my scape some perspective since now it is pretty much a mess.

I'll keep you posted on how the ferts work for me. I figure I'll dose them a few days and then reintroduce Flourish Excel and up my photoperiod to around 10 hours and see how it all works.

 

[sXeLifer]

Getting rid of de poo pooz does rob them of nutrients, it acts as fertiliser to some degree just like cow dung to vegetables. My tank is planted with sand and they are doing fine. Just because you have plants doesn't mean you neglect your water changes though I remove around 30L's every 2 weeks and when I add more plants that will go to around 40L's every 3 weeks. Keep your filter clean though because that will catch any detrius like loose plant leaves.