GothicCandle

Whenever I put live plants in my tank, in a few days it looks like this.




The fish take no harm it seems, it just looks nasty.

This picture was taken quite a while ago, my tank has no live plants and it stays nice and clean now. Just wondering why it does that in the first place.

Sabi

Hm. What plants do you put? I havn't seen something like this before.

Butterfly

Some times plants come in with algae on them or maybe their not aquatic and are dieing and adding to the nutrients algae needs to grow.
What kind of plants did you add ? Lights? Direct or bright sunlight?
Carol

Fish Addict

Whoa! I have never seen that! Do you add anything with your plants? Fertilizers or anything?

I have to TRY to get some algae in my tank for my otos...

GothicCandle

I don't know what the plants are called, Heres an old photo of one of them, i guess its some sort of sword.



I put in some other type too, not sure what its call. it looked a lot like this.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._vulgaris0.jpg

I just have the aquarium light. florecent light. the plants are aquatic plants, thats what the people at the store told me at least. i didn't add anything, like fertlizer or whatever.

sirdarksol

Two things:
First, do you clean all of the excess stuff from around the roots?
Second, do you step up your water changes after introducing new plants?

As plants rot, they release phosphates, which really helps algae grow. It could be that the plants aren't doing the greatest when you introduce them, and release phosphates into the water. Try doing extra water changes to pull the phosphates out of the water. Once the plants get more healthy, they should actually use phosphates rather than release them.

GothicCandle

I gravel vac once a week or so. There never is anything on the roots. The plants were alway clean, but i washed them off anyway. The plants always looked healthy and didn't seem to be dieing or rotting.

sirdarksol

All I can think of is "do a few extra small water changes until the algae blooms seem to pass."
I really don't know why that would happen. I've never had it happen at all, even when I've put dying plants in the water.
I suppose it could be some combination of your water source and the addition of new plants.

Butterfly

What kind of lights do you have? Does the tank get any direct sunlight or strong light?
Check this out and see if it answers any questions for you
http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=9
The leaves on the sword looks like they are dieing(this could add excess nutrients for the algae to feed on). Do you add any fertilizers? Swords are heavy root feeders and usually benefit from root tabs.
Carol

Martinismommy

My goosness! That's a mess......I've had live plants in the past and never had that happen....Do you have good filtration? And I was wondering if it was in direct sunlight also...

GothicCandle

I have a filter for a fifty gallon tank, its a 46 gallon tank. its not in the sun at all.