What Else Do I Need To Keep Plants Healthy?

[codheadjohn]

I am having a nightmare keeping my plants in good health. Firstly they started dying off, I bought some King British aquatic plant food which stopped the rot and some have started growing. Now they are starting to show small holes in the leaves again, which I want to sort out.

I also bought some new plants, and since I added them, algae has started growing again.

I've just got delivered flourish and flourish excel. So I will fully dose the excel today and start on the flourish when the king british runs out.

What else do I need to help the plants grow? I'll consider anything other than CO2 injection (unless no other option)

240 litre tank
2 x 54W lamps (one is blacked out at the moment, can I turn this back on with excel in the tank?)

plants are:
amazon swords
vallis
lillies
aponogeton
anubias

As a side note, the vallis was growing like crazy until about 2 weeks ago when it ALL went a translucent green and then fell to pieces, now there's just a few upstarts coming back

 

[Caprichoso]

Vallisneria will "melt" with some types of fert dosing, they just don't like it at all. To be honest, the type of plants you have really don't need much, as they are lower light, mostly undemanding plants. You don't need CO2 to make plants grow. It certainly speeds up plant growth and helps eliminate algae though. I use Seachem Flourish ONLY and I dose slightly less than what they recommend on the bottle. My plants are all growing nicely (vals included). The plants you have will grow just fine if you stick to the 1 watt per gallon rule. The problem with having too much light (2-3 watts per gallon) is that you will get algae. If you are using high light, you need to heavy dose ferts, probably have CO2 and do 50% water changes every week. Oh and prune like crazy!!! One last thing, light only on for 8 hours is recommended, although I leave mine on for 10 usually.

 

[codheadjohn]

Vallisneria will "melt" with some types of fert dosing, they just don't like it at all. To be honest, the type of plants you have really don't need much, as they are lower light, mostly undemanding plants. You don't need CO2 to make plants grow. It certainly speeds up plant growth and helps eliminate algae though. I use Seachem Flourish ONLY and I dose slightly less than what they recommend on the bottle. My plants are all growing nicely (vals included). The plants you have will grow just fine if you stick to the 1 watt per gallon rule. The problem with having too much light (2-3 watts per gallon) is that you will get algae. If you are using high light, you need to heavy dose ferts, probably have CO2 and do 50% water changes every week. Oh and prune like crazy!!! One last thing, light only on for 8 hours is recommended, although I leave mine on for 10 usually.

The problem is that the tank came with nearly 2wpg lighting and it costs a fortune to buy a new hood and lights etc, so I blacked one out. I know they're easy grow plants, that's why I got them. The Flourish excel was so I could hopefully un-block the second lamp without getting algae

 

[Caprichoso]

Excel definitely "melts" the vals, I've also heard some issues with excel and crypts as well. I don't think you can put that other light on without having the algae issue...unless you get CO2 which is a whole other cost on it's own. I have heard of some planted tank experts that DO have bright light and only heavy dose ferts but have NO CO2. It's a slippery slope I think though and I can't offer any advice on that one.

 

[codheadjohn]

Excel definitely "melts" the vals, I've also heard some issues with excel and crypts as well. I don't think you can put that other light on without having the algae issue...unless you get CO2 which is a whole other cost on it's own. I have heard of some planted tank experts that DO have bright light and only heavy dose ferts but have NO CO2. It's a slippery slope I think though and I can't offer any advice on that one.

Oh dear, I've already added the excel, I guess my vallis is a gonna now!

I wish they'd given me a T8 lit tank, it'd be so much simpler.

What melted the vallis in the first place though? Can meds do it? I dosed an anti bacterial/fungal meds a week or 2 before that happened, but nothing else changed from when they were growing like mad!

 

[Caprichoso]

No, it's for sure the Excel, I've heard about this happening many times. I never dose excel and my plants are great and I have no algae. It's all about finding the right combo of light vs. ferts. I have had tanks for over 15 years and find that for me it's been most successful to keep it simple. I personally don't want to worry about CO2 and high fert dosing as it can be tricky and hard on fish. Most people that have "planted" tanks are all about the plants. I'm all about the fish. I'm not saying you can't have both, but it does take a lot more work the more gizmos and gadgets you have and if it's not set up properly or you're not get the right ratio of light and ferts and CO2. Your val is probably still alive at the roots but will continue to melt with the excel. One thing I learned with ferts is NOT to overdose. You are better off starting at less than what it says on the bottle and just seeing how your plants do with it rather than too much and oops, I have an iron build up on my plants or sudden algae bloom. There is speculation on whether ferts cause algae to bloom....but I don't want to find that one out the hard way.

 

[codheadjohn]

No, it's for sure the Excel, I've heard about this happening many times. I never dose excel and my plants are great and I have no algae. It's all about finding the right combo of light vs. ferts. I have had tanks for over 15 years and find that for me it's been most successful to keep it simple. I personally don't want to worry about CO2 and high fert dosing as it can be tricky and hard on fish. Most people that have "planted" tanks are all about the plants. I'm all about the fish. I'm not saying you can't have both, but it does take a lot more work the more gizmos and gadgets you have and if it's not set up properly or you're not get the right ratio of light and ferts and CO2. Your val is probably still alive at the roots but will continue to melt with the excel. One thing I learned with ferts is NOT to overdose. You are better off starting at less than what it says on the bottle and just seeing how your plants do with it rather than too much and oops, I have an iron build up on my plants or sudden algae bloom. There is speculation on whether ferts cause algae to bloom....but I don't want to find that one out the hard way.

I wasn't disputing that, I meant that until today, I've never added excel, but the vallis melted a few weeks ago, and all that changed was the meds I put in. That and I had been dosing King British for a month or 2 at that point

 

[Caprichoso]

Hmm, well I've never heard of meds doing that, maybe someone else can shed some light on it? I do know that when you plant valls initially, they can have a bit of a "die off" phase. My corkscrew valls all did that but then rebounded back and started growing new leaves after about 3 weeks.

 

[codheadjohn]

Hmm, well I've never heard of meds doing that, maybe someone else can shed some light on it? I do know that when you plant valls initially, they can have a bit of a "die off" phase. My corkscrew valls all did that but then rebounded back and started growing new leaves after about 3 weeks.

They'd been in for 6-9 months. I can't remember exactly, but it was last summer.

Even easy to keep plants aren't easy!