Help, Yellowing Plants

[texyank]

I am not new to fish keeping, but I am new to planted tanks. My 55 gallon tank has been up and running for about two months. I was not seeing significant growth and the plants were starting to turn yellow so I added a CO2 system. It has been operating for about 9 days. It took a little tweaking, but my drop checker now indicates a CO2 level of 26-30 ppm. I have seen no change in the plants so did some research on fertilization, both macro and micro. There is a lot of conflicting information so I'm not entirely sure what my problem is or how to correct it. I have also developed some green algae in the last 10 days or so on the glass and wood (one large manzanita stump, two medium mopani rootwood). I do 30% water changes weekly. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Specs are listed below.

Plants:

Substrate is 2-3.5" of Eco-complete

16-18 Sagittaria Subulata - Growing well, good color, spreading but not particularly quickly
12-14 Micro swords - Spread well at first now turning yellow and not spreading
11 Narrow leaf chain swords - Planted 10 originally, also turning yellow
Approx 18 sq inches of dwarf baby tears - have not spread nor died off, slightly yellow
8 sq inches dwarf hairgrass - just starting to spread but not as bright green as it was at first

Water specs:

pH 6.6
gKH 5
GH 150
KH 140
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10

Lighting:

Coralife Aqualight with 4 65w, 6700k compact fluorescents
Light is 1.5" above tank
Light operates from 8 am - 6 pm
CO2 operates from 7 am - 5 pm


Livestock:

10 Cardinal tetras
5 Lemon tetras
6 Otos
2 Pitbull Plecos
2 Siamese algae eaters

Equipment:

Pressurized CO2 system
Fluval 305 canister filter
In-line ETH heater

 

[Ps3Steveo]

What ferts are you dosing?

 

[NewbeeSteve]

Maybe a iron deficiency or too little nutrients for the amount of light maybe?

 

[texyank]

What ferts are you dosing?

Well, that's part of the issue; I'm unsure of what I should be doing.

I was under the impression that the Eco-complete had everything I needed. It's only been in the last week or so that I realized this isn't the case. The problem for me is the conflicting information I'm finding.

I've been told I have high light; I've been told I have moderate light. I've been told all swords are heavy root feeders; I've been told that micro swords and chain swords are NOT heavy root feeders.

I've been told I need high light for the dwarf baby tears; I've been told that moderate light is enough.

I was even told that all my plants are carpet plants, yet my Sagittaria subulata is 12-15" tall. I'm not frustrated yet, but I am confused about all the differing opinions.

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on light and ferts.

 

[DrRob]

I've been scouting around for a while looking for a straightforward answer to what is or isn't high light.

As you say, consensus doesn't really seem to exist, largely because the wattage of different types of light has different outputs, affected also by depth of tank and wavelength pattern of the bulbs, amongst a host of other things.

Best answers, and my best results, have been with a simple line that the more light you have, the more co2 you need and the more ferts you need. Increase any one without the others and you get imbalances. Generally I've managed low tech tanks with mainly micronutrients and the more complex you get with higher light and more CO2 the more you need the macros and increased micros.

I know it doesn't answer your question entirely, but if you've got good light and good CO2, then it's either more ferts needed or something else odd bothering them like wrong temperatures or water conditions.

After all that, sometimes things just won't grow. I've never been able to grow amazon swords except the dwarves (although I haven't tried again since I've restarted), despite growing everything else happily as they all went yellow and died back.

 

[minnnt]

Told you i would learn something from you!!

 

[texyank]

Okay, here's an update.

Friday morning I purchased Aqueon Aquarium plant food which contains both macro and micro nutrients. It was on sale and I figured I didn't have anything to lose. I dosed the tank with it at the prescribed level. I also added Flourish nitrogen and phosphorus. Saturday I turned off half the lights.

This morning I have new hairgrass coming up through the substrate and significant new bright green growth on the baby tears! Micro swords and chain swords appear to be sending out new runners. The sagittaria was never affected so its about the same.

For now, I'm going to leave the light level where it is and continue dosing per bottle instructions while I watch the results. I am very encourgaed today.

Thanks for all the advice. I'll keep you updated.