Problems with plants dying

werlax · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 6

I've been having problems with my plants slowly dying away, and am
trying to take a more technical approach to determining the cause and
am hoping someone can help me out. I've done some testing on my water
and here are the results. I have a 55 gallon tank using an UG filter
with approx. 10 fish, a fiddler (or two... haven't seen one in a
while), and a dwarf frog. The lighting is provided by two 15W 8500K
"Flora Sun" plant growth bulbs. I currently only have 4 live plants
as I'm struggling with them. I also have a piece of driftwood and a
rock/gravel base. This tank has been running for approx 1/2 a year.
I did pH and KH water tests. pH is 7.2 and KH is 14 dH. According to
a chart I found at algone.com, the CO2 levels are at 28ppm. All of
this seems alright for my tank. Does any of this strike anyone as out
of line for plants and fish? I use our tap water, which I also
tested, and it rates the same as the water in the tank. I have added
salt to the tank in the past, but I'm phasing it out to see if the
plants get healthier. No luck so far.
Thanks for any ideas!

Archived from group: rec>aquaria>tech

Cichlidiot · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 47

werlax wrote:
> I've been having problems with my plants slowly dying away, and am
> trying to take a more technical approach to determining the cause and
> am hoping someone can help me out. I've done some testing on my water
> and here are the results. I have a 55 gallon tank using an UG filter
> with approx. 10 fish, a fiddler (or two... haven't seen one in a
> while), and a dwarf frog. The lighting is provided by two 15W 8500K
> "Flora Sun" plant growth bulbs. I currently only have 4 live plants
> as I'm struggling with them. I also have a piece of driftwood and a
> rock/gravel base. This tank has been running for approx 1/2 a year.
> I did pH and KH water tests. pH is 7.2 and KH is 14 dH. According to
> a chart I found at algone.com, the CO2 levels are at 28ppm. All of
> this seems alright for my tank. Does any of this strike anyone as out
> of line for plants and fish? I use our tap water, which I also
> tested, and it rates the same as the water in the tank. I have added
> salt to the tank in the past, but I'm phasing it out to see if the
> plants get healthier. No luck so far.
> Thanks for any ideas!

You might want to try posting this to rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants to get
more answers. That's the plant newsgroup filled with many knowledgeable
people. I'm just a novice with plants, but I can say your lighting is not
adequate. You only have 30W over a 55 gallon tank. That's barely over half
a watt per gallon. You'll need much more than that to grow plants
successfully unless you want to limit yourself to low light plants like
java fern or anubias. I'd also doubt the CO2 levels unless you're
injecting CO2. Most tanks have less than 5ppm CO2 (usually 2-3ppm) unless
you inject CO2 into the tank. Perhaps your test kits are old and not
giving reliable readings. See if a pet store will test your water to
confirm the KH and pH readings.