prairielilly

In most any setup I've run so far, I have very little nitrates - less than 5 PPM. I tend to overfilter and understock my tanks Once I thought I'd do water changes less often, but the tank quickly got dirty with fish poo and uneaten food so I quickly nixed that (I now siphon it, just take out less water). I've bought a new nitrate test (API dropper test) and banged the bottles as instructed, so I believe what it's telling me. I recently cycled a 10g with an initial ammonia dose of 8 ppm - the last time I did that, I ended up with over 40 ppm nitrates at the end...this time - FIVE PPM. I'll be using Flourish (liquid and root tabs) but they both specify they don't add nitrates. The only algae I've EVER seen is diatoms, and once that goes away, nothing. So I'm just wondering if my live plants will suffer at all bc there's so little nitrates, and if so what to do?

alicem

Actually plants need all kinds of nutrients found in different forms.
Your water changes will infact replace some of the necessary minerals which are used by plants (and fish).

Your water's GH also includes minerals for your plants.

I've heard of people dosing nitrates, but sorry to say, I don't have the specifics for you. (I'm a low tech planted tank type)

Maybe as your fish mature and get bigger, you'll feed them more.
Then you will probably have higher nitrates, closer to 10ppm, which is still nice and low.

alicem

Nate McFin

Many heavily (stress the heavily) planted tanks add nitrates to the water as plants really need them. When I first put my plants in I was fishless cycling and my nitrates were through the roof. The plants grew so much then. Now the tank has been stocked for awhile and with weekly water changes the nitrates are next to nothing. The plants have shown alot less growth but seem ok otherwise. Less pruning anyway. lol

prairielilly

Hmm, so don't worry about it until something seems amiss? Can do. I'd known plants need all sorts of stuff, I just thought I'd read that nitrates were super important.

I bought a bunch of new plants over the last week and most are doing fabulous (some went in established tanks, some in cycling tanks) - except for the new vals. They looked good initially, but soon the leaves developed holes, which got bigger, and now they're turning transparent. I don't know whether to trim all the dead stuff off and hope they recover, or just junk them. I thought maybe the lack of nitrates might be the culprit (the worst off one is in an established 5g with nothing besides one honey gourami).

Butterfly

The difference between cycling without plants and with

I have a terrible time trying to grow vals. I just don't have enough light. But the little chain swords that look kind of like them grow great for me

Most of the time I don't use ferts except the occasional root tab and a dose of Flourish excel once or twice a week when I remember
but Flourish excel and Vals don't get along at all. For some reason they melt when it's used.

Carol

cerianthus

If have problems with plants when using specific plant additives, try diluting in bottle/container/bucket of water and slow drip them thus slow increase in concentration which may not intefere with cell walls Osmoregulation.

cerianthus

If plants were suffering from deficiency of NO3, probably may not see any when tested, I would think.

Butterfly

Thanks cerianthus. When Seachem was approached with that problem they suggested using 1/2 the dose for plants showing a sensitivity.
My problem with the vals was lighting. I never run high lights any more and they just like their lights
carol

alicem

Oh, sorry to state what you already know, just trying to be encouraging...

I can't seem to grow vals either.
I'm thinking I read they don't like water flow and I can't seem to plant them away from the water flow.
My lights aren't real strong either, so I suppose that's another part of my val failure...

alicem

Butterfly

According to my Kasselman "Aquarium Plants" book it grows "naturally in medium to hard alkaline water with strong circulation in spots of direct sunlight"
so for me it could be more than just the light
Carol

alicem

*sigh* whoo bouy, it's likely the light in my tanks then.
The vals I tried were shipped, so I had wondered if they got too cold/warm enroute...
Yeah, that's it, lay the blame on USPS.

I'm sure I'll try them again at some point, hard headedness on my part, I suppose.
alicem

Butterfly

i know me too a friend had the most beautiful Leopard vals and I just had to have some and mine died dead as a door nail
carol

prairielilly

Oh! you were! I'm sorry I must have misstated that - no worries Thanks for the info

I've never had vals before...this morning one was all keeled over the leaves have gone transparent - safe to say that one's dead? or should I trim it down and leave the root part, see if it comes back? Kinda aggravating to pay $9 each for two vals and they both die within three days, but it'll keep me from buying more vals I guess....the light is med-low in the one tank and med in the other, so I thought they'd be ok. They haven't had any ferts yet, I had to mail-order those and they likely won't be here til Friday at the earliest. In both cases they were planted right beside the heater, maybe that's what they didn't like?

harpua2002

What kind of lighting do you have exactly? I had a medium light 55 gallon tank and vals grew like crazy for me. I'd have to pull out probably 10 plants a week. I was running 130W PC lighting over the tank and didn't add any ferts. I know my nitrates were low too, because I was keeping discus and did 50% water changes 3 times a week. I doubt if the heater is your problem, because I the tank I had my vals in ran at 85F for the discus.

Butterfly

I would trim them and see if they come back, you just never know
Carol

prairielilly

I put a straight val in a 10g tank with a 12W compact fluorescent, and a corkscrew val in a 5g with a 10W compact fluorescent. Under those same lights I've got anubias, java fern, java moss and crypts getting really green and growing really well, and dying vals The base is still green though, maybe the shock of moving?

harpua2002

Well it's true that many plants don't like to move, but honestly I think the problem is your lighting. The other plants you have are totally fine in low light, as you're seeing, but vals IMO are more of a medium light plant. I'd still trim the dead parts and keep trying though.

prairielilly

I agree, I'll trim them tonight. I don't want them rotting in there. I can tell the honey gourami will miss the val though - as soon as it went in he went and hid in it, and stuck pretty close to it after that (ignoring the silk plants that were still in there )

prairielilly

Isn't 2 WPG considered medium light?

harpua2002

It is over a larger tank, but I remember reading some threads on other forums about how small tanks are much different in terms of WPG. I'd go into it, but I really don't remember exactly what was said. Honestly, I scrapped the WPG thing for myself a couple of years back since there is just too much variance between different types of lighting for WPG to really explain much. For example, high output T5's- I kept a 36x12x24 (very tall) 45 gallon medium light tank with only 48W HO T5 light. It was a 2 foot twin tube fixture on a 3 foot tank and the plants were going nuts. Here's another example... I used to work for a LFS before I moved, and we ran 108W HO T5 on all the 55 gallon tanks. They were noticeably brighter than my own 55, which had 130W power compact light.

Sorry to get off on a tangent there, just the WPG guideline bugs me, LOL. What I'm guessing is going on here is that you're using screw-in PC bulbs in an incandescent hood- correct me if I'm wrong. If so, you're losing more light than you think, since those hoods don't really have reflectors to speak of. That's not a big deal, but it does mean that you'll have some limitations as far as what you can keep. If you want, you can always upgrade your lighting later on to give yourself more options. There are some PC fixtures that fit on a 10 gallon that are pretty reasonably priced.

prairielilly

Thanks for the info.

Everything is new, so I'm not upgrading anything - I'm a big believer in getting some use out of anything I've invested in ('my money's worth' so to speak - I can hear my mom now....) I guess I don't have enough light for the vals. I think tonight I'll trim all the dead stuff off and then wait a few days; if the base dies, out it comes and no more vals, I'll try something else and call it a learning experience ($$). If it revives, all good. Atm I just want to keep it simple...the other plants I've tried are doing well, so possibly some more of those. Gotta love learning the accidental way

prairielilly

Tonight I hacked all the dead stuff off - didn't take much, between this morning and six pm they'd basically disintegrated. What a crazy mess! near impossible to get all the bits, especially out of the filter! in the cycling tank it's not too big a deal to still have little bits in there, but I don't want that mess in a tank with a fish. It's a good thing I did the cycling one first, when I did the second one I took out the honey gourami. In both cases the plants are cut down to about 1/2" from the gravel (bc that's still green atm) - I'm hopeful, but if they go I'm just going to get some more crypts...those ones are doing awesome!

harpua2002

If you want some crypts that will grow taller, try cryptocoryne retrospiralis. It's one of my favorite plants. It does great in low to medium light tanks, and will grow tall enough to be a really pretty background plant for your 10 gallon. I use it as a mid-ground plant in my 120 gallon.

prairielilly

ooohh! background option for the 20g! thanks!

That tank currently has a giant anubias in it tied to some driftwood (how long does it take for them to attach?) and I've been trying to figure out what is tall enough to use as a backdrop that will live in that light.

(started with 3 plants on a piece of driftwood in a 10g..now I've got six planted tanks...oooyyy)

harpua2002

Anubias is a slow grower. It generally took mine up to a couple of months to attach.

I didn't know you had a planted 20 gallon. I thought you only had the 5 and the 10!

prairielilly

It was supposed to be the 5 and 10, and maybe the other 5 and 10 if things worked out...I put java fern, java moss and anubias on two pieces of driftwood in one 10g and they did awesome. So I moved one piece to the other 10g and put some java moss on a bridge ornament in there, and added a val in the corner (probably that's dead though). The first 10g was supposed to get a wisteria but I haven't been able to find a healthy one for a decent price - not paying $14 for a brown sprig, thanks. I bought a crypt for the betta's 3g, which turned out to be a bunch of crypts - so I separated it into 3 bunches and 2 went in a 5g plus some java moss, and of course the last one in the 3g. In the last 5g I put a corkscrew val, that lived 3 days (so I guess that one's currently not 'planted' but it will be again soon)...on the last trip out I bought a giant anubias and attached it to the driftwood in my 20g. It's doing awesome (3 new leaves in 3 days!) and the tetras seem to love it! but in order to attach it I had to wrap thread around the wood in a weird fashion - there's parts where there's thread 'clotheslined' across an open area, just how it worked out. I'd planned to add some cories to that tank soon, but don't want them to hurt themselves on a piece of thread (or I'm possibly worrying too much about that). I could just stuff some filter sponge around it I guess.