Disappearing Plants

[blue musketeer]

I have a 10 gallon tank that has a couple of plants in it.... see pic

The plant on the left is losing all of its leaves.... almost. What is being left behind looks like skeletal leaves. What can I do to stop this?

PS this is an old pic, the water level has been topped up

 

[madcaow]

what sort of lighting does that have in there?

and are you adding any ferts?

the plant on the left could use some root tabs. i see you only have large gravel there, maybe try and get some smaller gravel at least.

 

[blue musketeer]

what sort of lighting does that have in there?

and are you adding any ferts?

the plant on the left could use some root tabs. i see you only have large gravel there, maybe try and get some smaller gravel at least.

I am just using the flourescent lighting in the tank hood. I haven't added any fertilizer... what would you suggest?

I was thinking of making the ground cover a sandy one to encourage natural behaviour from a couple of my cories.

 

[madcaow]

everyone would recommend Seachem Flourish. i use it with some other stuff.

plants would benifit from good lighting also. im guessing your lamp would be like a 6-10w? maybe?? do you know?

in my experience, poor lighting can cause your plants to melt.

 

[blue musketeer]

everyone would recommend Seachem Flourish. i use it with some other stuff.

plants would benifit from good lighting also. im guessing your lamp would be like a 6-10w? maybe?? do you know?

in my experience, poor lighting can cause your plants to melt.

My hood top lamp is a 15w flourescent strip. Is this sufficient?

 

[netcode]

My hood top lamp is a 15w flourescent strip. Is this sufficient?

To grow low light plants it will be. You can get by growing some plants that require more light if your adding ferts and taking care of them well.

Personally I think you should start by changing your gravel over to something smaller. I don't think anything benefits from large gravel, fish nor plants. I think it would look pretty nice with the largest of the rocks and some sand.

After the change of substrate you can look at doing a few more things for your plants. Adding root tabs is pretty much needed when growing Amazon Swords (plant on the left) as they feed a lot from the roots.

It really depends how much you care about plants in your tank. If you don't wanna do any maintence and aren't into the plant scene then just pick up some plastics

goodluck

 

[blue musketeer]

Thanks for the input everyone.... I guess I am off to the store to get some sand, fertilizer and probably some healthier plants

Thanks again

 

[pringle]

Apart from fertilizer; lighting and substrate size co2 needs to be lloked into as well. I see that you have the air bubble going as well. The turbulence the air curtain creates may be beneficial for increasing oxygen in the water but inhibits the co2 content in the water, if I might add.

good luck!