Anybody Able To Tell Me Whats Going On ?

My plants don't appear to be dying but its like a bad algae or something consuming my plants. They get 8 hours of light(nicrew), I have a molly with 6 corydoras, also use flourish once a week. I am new to the whole plant aspect of the hobby so I really could use some much needed help.

 

Do you have a full tank shot? I'd cut back on the ferts for now. What all plants do you have?

 

^^What Valerie said and in addition add a few more fast growing plants like hornwort or pennywort. You could also add some floating plants, they effectively reduce excess nitrates. Dump them when all the other plants got a strong hold and are multiplying.

 

Do you have a full tank shot? I'd cut back on the ferts for now. What all plants do you have?

I could take one hold on. Honestly plant wise I don't know all the plants, but they are just basic plants nothing special.

 

Honestly plant wise I don't know all the plants, but they are just basic plants nothing special.

Looks to me like a sword plant, a piece of water wisteria and an anubias.

How big is the tank? You want more plants in there for sure.

 

I did have that anubias that's floating attached to some chollo wood but I'm cleaning it as it was growing some weird "clear" stuff on it. But this is the full shot ValerieAdams

 

Agreed with all the above ^ Cut back lights to 6 hours, add more plans, and 50% weekly water changes to help keep nitrates down.

 

Looks to me like a sword plant, a piece of water wisteria and an anubias.

How big is the tank? You want more plants in there for sure.

It is a 20g. I was unsure about getting more plants because the first time I moved them the roots were crazy long. Was uncertain if I added more plants that they would suck nutrients from each other then starve. I will certainly look into more plants though!

toeknee

I do 10-20% water changes every other day. Should I swap to the 50% weekly?

 

It is a 20g. I was unsure about getting more plants because the first time I moved them the roots were crazy long. Was uncertain if I added more plants that they would suck nutrients from each other then starve. I will certainly look into more plants though!

If you get new plants or relocate any plants in your tank, cut the roots back to be an inch long. It will promote new growth. No worries, you are far from having the plants compete for nutrients.

 

Baba I certainly knew about the cutting roots when relocating. But may I ask what is going on in the tank that is causing this problem? Because the swords and what not have been around the longest and were really bad. I added the wisteria about a week ago and it is starting to do the same. Could it be from too many nutrients? Too much lighting? Because I do have everything on a shared timer. My other 20 gallon has guppy grass, some sort of lily pad stem plant and water sprite. The 40 gallon have excellent looking plants from amazon sword, water sprite and java moss.

 

Baba I certainly knew about the cutting roots when relocating. But may I ask what is going on in the tank that is causing this problem? Because the swords and what not have been around the longest and were really bad. I added the wisteria about a week ago and it is starting to do the same. Could it be from too many nutrients? Too much lighting? Because I do have everything on a shared timer. My other 20 gallon has guppy grass, some sort of lily pad stem plant and water sprite. The 40 gallon have excellent looking plants from amazon sword, water sprite and java moss.

Easy answer: Something is out of balance. Either too much of this or too little of that.
Most of the time CO2 injection will be the holy grail answer. If you do not want this, cut back on light and ferts and start slowly increasing until you find the right balance between all ferts (CO2 included) and light.

 

This is a good video to watch when trying to troubleshoot algae issues, as well as a method of getting rid of it by blacking out your tank for a few days.

In short, it's either usually either lighting or nutrients. Your tank is currently pretty sparsely planted (I know it doesn't seem like it, but it is). Every tank has a balance, and that balance is between lighting, nutrients, and dissolved CO2/O2 in the water.

The more plants you have and the higher their requirements, the more you have to bump up lighting and nutrients...but your plants have pretty low requirements, and you're not running a high-tech setup with CO2 injection or anything. So right now you have more light on your tank than your plants can actually use, and more nutrients going in than they need. Cut the current light in half--what I like is a mechanical timer where I can have the light on in the AM and PM, but off the rest of the day on the tanks which are prone to algae (my betta tank), and on 10hrs on the tanks where I NEED algae (my guppies). You are probably also overfeeding--not just the flourish for the plants which you may or may not need depending on your water profile, but overfeeding your fish in general, because that's a pretty typical thing to do. Both your molly (which probably wants some friends, btw), and your corys should be picking at the algae and helping keep it under control. That they're not even tempted means that they're eating too much of the good stuff

 

Are you able to take a closer macro photo of some of the affected leaves?

For what it's worth, I don't think it's an issue related to excess ferts. From my perspective based on the two photos, the water wisteria (and other plants) seem to be experiencing chlorosis, an indication of any number of deficiencies (Flourish is not a comprehensive fert). Again, a closer picture can help.

 

Lacey D Thank you for your input, I will certainly check out the videos. I recently got into the water box so its awesome you're posting a video of his. I also did have molly friends(she is currently pregnant with a bunch of fry which has been going on for two weeks now) but the molly randomly died that was mating with her. It was literally out of no where. So kind of waiting to find the other perfect mollies for her. But you do point out a great point I do feed a lot mainly because my molly and corydora are pregnant. I did make a cut back on feeding though.

Minnowette Cholorosis is an iron deficiency is it not? Which Flourish has if I'm not mistaken? I will certainly take another picture tomorrow though for more feedback. I work 3rd shift and need to get to bed.

I appreciate everybody's feed back and will get more plants tomorrow after work as well as make some small adjustments until things make improvement.

 

HI SirShepherd

Welcome to Fishlore!

Let's start with the basics.

Tank size: 20 gallons
Light : nicrew / 8 hours
Water changes: 10% - 20% every other day
Fertilizer:Seachem Flourish / once a week

What are your water parameters? pH; dKH; dGH; nitrates (ppm of NO3) - Please provide what you can

It is very unlikely that you have too much nitrates, more likely insufficient nitrates. The green spot algae is an indication of insufficient phosphorus.

Overall leaf chlorosis (yellowing) of new leaves(including the veins of the leaves) the most likely problem is insufficient nitrogen. Interveinal chlorosis (green veins with yellowish leaf material between the veins) can be caused by many factors; if it occurs in new leaves the most common problem is a lack of iron; if it occurs on older leaves typically a magnesium deficiency. Keep in mind that an insufficiency of a nutrient can be caused by either not dosing enough (most common) or an excess of one nutrient is preventing the update of the nutrient that is lacking less common).

-Roy

 

Minnowette Cholorosis is an deficiency is it not? Which has if I'm not mistaken? I will certainly take another picture tomorrow though for more feedback. I work 3rd shift and need to get to bed.

Not necessarily. Iron deficiency is often the explanatory factor for interveinal chlorosis. However, chlorosis in general can be associated with a manganese and potassium deficiency. Likewise, a nutrient deficiency can be present even if a relevant fert is dosed as any number of chemical processes can render the fert biologically unavailable for plant uptake. Iron is particularly susceptible to this due to its high reactivity (particularly with phosphate).

In addition, the iron contained in Flourish is in the form of ferrous gluconate: it is highly unstable over time, and it generally oxidises and precipitates out of the water column within 24 hours. It also lacks any significant quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium and so I do not recommend its use by itself. I generally recommend NilocG Thrive as it's far more comprehensive, concentrated, cheap, and utilises EDTA and DTPA chelated iron which provides a modicum more stability in the biologically available iron concentration.

Others have spoken of the relationship between excess nutrients and algae. I just want to emphasise that the relationship between algae and aquatic plants is more complex than this. For e.g., Bachmann, Hoyer and Canfield (2004) conducted a study on Florida lakes and found no relationship between excess nutrients and algae where there was sufficient aquatic plant growth. Likewise, Vanderstukken et al. (2014), Zuo et al. (2016), and Pakdel et al. (2013) are among a very large number of studies that investigate the varied ways in which aquatic plant growth has suppressive effects on algae (in their works, they investigate the allelopathy mechanism).

Because of this, the management of algae in planted tanks is often a case of promoting good plant growth.

 

Flourish has so little iron in it it might as well not even be in there. If you want a more comprehensive all in one fertilizer myself and many other recommend thrive. You should definitely get down to the root cause of your algae, whether it's, lighting, high nitrates, lack of nitrates or some other imbalance. But another option to combat your algae is using seachem excel. It's marketed as a liquid carbon substitute (opposed to a full co2 kit) but it has the inadvertent side effect of being quite good a getting rid of algae. Many people buy it just to combat algae instead of it's intended marketed use.

 

I apologize to everybody that I haven't had any replys as I was super busy. I found out I had the day off so I was able to take advantage of such and start building my fish wall. My fry got a new 20g, then fish in the 20 gallon went into the 29 gallon I had been cycling. Was a very large and busy day. I redid all my plants to fit what I thought would be the proper tank considering the light spectrum, co2 the tank gets and the sort of soil that is being used. I really didn't have questions about the algae as I knew it was my problem from poor timings. When I first set up the tank I did not have a timer so I would set the tank light on right before going to bed, would could be 7 hours-9 hours of sleep. Was very inconsistent which is I learned from others can cause algae blooms. I will also look into the fertilizer toeknee recommended when I have used up my flourish. As I am just the type of person to use something up before buying 30 bottles of something. Thank you again, for every single one of your input!