Bacopa not growing any advice

I added Amazon Sword, Java Fern, Water Sprite, and bacopa 2 months ago to a fully cycles tank. Ammonia 0 nitrites 0 nitrates 20ppm. I have a fluval aquasky 2.0 I use the auto mode and also run the tank light that came with it 2 hours a day(really has made my water sprite grow faster). However my bacopa is not growing. I have root tabs by then and the swords. I also use easy green as directed and do 30 percent water change once a week. I've had issue with brown alge but that's slowly going away. And advice...

 

Two hours of light a day is not enough, your lights need to be on a timer for around 8-10 hours per day. Baby Tears is never easy to grow, I would suggest you get some more fast-growing stemmed plants and get them established first.

 

Is anything growing at all? If not, kind of sounds like a lack of phosphates, but you wrote you're dosing that.
Any chance you have an ion-exchange based water softener installed? That's kinda the picture that's burned into my mind from them.

I'd also advise on getting some more plants.

 

That Bacopa is dead. What is your water hardness (gH) and pH in the tank? Stop adding the liquid fertilizer, theres too little plant mass in the tank. You are going to grow lots of algae.

Those rainbows will also need a bigger tank soon, at least 4 feet long. Best to rehome them if you can't provide that.

 

The fluval light is on for 10 hours a day I turn the tank kit light that came with it an additional 2 hours a day for more light. It's a 40 gallon tank all the research I did on those rainbows say they only get 4 inches long? I do have a 75 and a 50 gallon tank in storage I'm going to set one of them up within a year. And I do have a bunch of floating bacopa and water sprite you can't see in the picture. The floating bacopa is still green just hasn't grown yet either. The ph is 7.3 ish not sure on the water hardness.... Any suggestions other plants I can try too. The water sprite seems to be growing now especially the unplanted water sprite.

 

"Added plants to a fully cycled tank." I have no idea what the relevance of this is.
It seems on Fishlore that all problems somehow have to be related to cycling. (And frankly, the "emergency template" used on Fishlore is partly to blame for this).

The issue here is that your tank conditions favor algae at the moment, big time. Algae by definition have a head start in aquatic conditions compared to (terrestrial) plants (living submersed).

Whenever I see a tank with (very) low plant biomass in combination with a "mid-tech" approach, like fertilizers, bright lights and a heater (not seeing it, but assuming it is present), you can safely say, algae will have a blast. And when plants start to struggle, algae will exploit the opportunity further. Leading to further demise of plants.

This is the situation your are in and it is going to get worse. Growth has stopped. Defensive mechanisms are down. Algae feasting on nutrients released by yourself and by plants.

I suspect you also have some cleaning regime, considering how the glass and substrate looks.

So what to do?

Either turn this tank into a planted tank manually; not through growth from your current stock, but by massively and instantly increasing plant biomass. With lots of rooted plants.

And / or transition from mid-tech to low-tech and choose plant species accordingly.

Dim the lights and keep them on much longer. Stop releasing nutrients. Water changes and waste will be sufficient. Epiphytes work great in this situation. In which case I would also remove at least half of your substrate. Without plant roots, the type and thickness of your substrate will do more harm than good.

 

I agree with most of what Ruud says, especially about getting way more plants to start with. However do not keep the lights on for longer - as I understand it the fluval lights are on for 10 hours a day plus extra lights (aquarium lights) for 2 hours? This is way too much light especially as you only have very few plants. In fact the aquarium lights would probably be sufficient initially. I would not only dim the lights but have the lights on for only 6 hours a day intitially, then longer when the plants are well established. Also whether you need a heater will depend on the type of fish you keep (I don't know temperature requirements of your rainbow fish) and your room temperature. I certainly could not do without heaters in my tanks (unfortunately!).

Having said all this, I tried Bacopa twice, in two different tanks, and it never worked for me, it hung on for a while but never really grew and was eventually outcompeted by other plants. By trying several species you will find out which ones do best in your water conditions. But you definitely need a lot more plants!

 

"Added plants to a fully cycled tank." I have no idea what the relevance of this is.
It seems on Fishlore that all problems somehow have to be related to cycling. (And frankly, the "emergency template" used on Fishlore is partly to blame for this).

The issue here is that your tank conditions favor algae at the moment, big time. Algae by definition have a head start in aquatic conditions compared to (terrestrial) plants (living submersed).

Whenever I see a tank with (very) low plant biomass in combination with a "mid-tech" approach, like fertilizers, bright lights and a heater (not seeing it, but assuming it is present), you can safely say, algae will have a blast. And when plants start to struggle, algae will exploit the opportunity further. Leading to further demise of plants.

This is the situation your are in and it is going to get worse. Growth has stopped. Defensive mechanisms are down. Algae feasting on nutrients released by yourself and by plants.

I suspect you also have some cleaning regime, considering how the glass and substrate looks.

So what to do?

Either turn this tank into a planted tank manually; not through growth from your current stock, but by massively and instantly increasing plant biomass. With lots of rooted plants.

And / or transition from mid-tech to low-tech and choose plant species accordingly.

Dim the lights and keep them on much longer. Stop releasing nutrients. Water changes and waste will be sufficient. Epiphytes work great in this situation. In which case I would also remove at least half of your substrate. Without plant roots, the type and thickness of your substrate will do more harm than good.

Thank you for the reply Ruud, I added the cycled tank part as it seems everyone always asks for the most amount of information as possible. I'm very new to live plants in the aquarium and appreciate the helpful advise. I just purchased a quite a few more plants and will try that and see how it goes. Thanks again for the advice.

I agree with most of what Ruud says, especially about getting way more plants to start with. However do not keep the lights on for longer - as I understand it the fluval lights are on for 10 hours a day plus extra lights (aquarium lights) for 2 hours? This is way too much light especially as you only have very few plants. In fact the aquarium lights would probably be sufficient initially. I would not only dim the lights but have the lights on for only 6 hours a day intitially, then longer when the plants are well established. Also whether you need a heater will depend on the type of fish you keep (I don't know temperature requirements of your rainbow fish) and your room temperature. I certainly could not do without heaters in my tanks (unfortunately!).

Having said all this, I tried Bacopa twice, in two different tanks, and it never worked for me, it hung on for a while but never really grew and was eventually outcompeted by other plants. By trying several species you will find out which ones do best in your water conditions. But you definitely need a lot more plants!

Thank you TClare, I appreciate all the advice. I just purchased quite a few more plants and will be trying that out. I do need the heater as our basement can get anywhere from 60-68 in the winter months here. It would be nice if I didn't need on as they are an eyesore in my opinion. Thanks again for the advice.

 

Great to hear you did this. Try different plant species. Some work, some don't. Not so much due to water parameters, but more so due to competition between plants. Don't try to save a few as the intervention can make the majority suffer.

If you find a plant struggling after at least a month, just take it out, put it in a vase and place it on a windowsill. Chances are it will recover.

For any new plants purchased, I would also place them in vases first and let them adapt. Chances are they were grown emersed. If you place a lot of newly purchased, emersed plants to a tank and they all start melting, your algae can't wait to predate on the decay.

The "trick" with vases is also to spread risk. People find it hard to start a planted tank, but once they put something floating in vases, they are always surprised that a mere, tiny water change is all it takes to witness plant growth in a tiny vase.

Edit: I would actually do the same with, let's say, half of the plants in your tank.... Let them recover outside your tank.

 

I hope you figure it out. Good advice already given.

in 11 years of fishkeeping I have gotten one stem plant to grow. It's 2 years old and about 3" long and it floats at the top of one of my tanks. I tried Bacopia numerous times. It has never made it to week 2. Same with all other stem plants I've tried. I have planted them in mass plantings as advised so as to have enough plant mass, but to no avail. I blamed myself for not knowing what I am doing, but finally decided to only grow plants that want to grow for me. Now, I don't even bother with stem plants. My Buce just flowered for the second time in 2 weeks, so I know I can grow epiphytes at least.

When my plants looked like yours and algae was taking over I cut feeding by 50% and cut the light duration and intensity. Even now, I have the lights on high (70% intensity) for 6 hours and the rest of the time the light ramps up and then down and is high enough for viewing, but to low to cause algae issues. The fish would probably appreciate the dimmer light as they have no place to feel secure at the moment.

 

Some stem plants do well for me - Cabomba, Limnophila (Ambulia), Hygrophila polysperma, Heteranthera zosterifolia and pearlweed all do well. They are quite fast growing so help to get things established. Vallisneria, Amazon sword plants and red tiger lotus also do well. Ferns and crypts do OK. I failed with Anubias but only tried once as they are very expensive here. I have water lettuce as a floating plant in all my tanks. No CO2 and basic lights, occasional fertilization with an all in one liquid including N,P and K.

 

Just out of interest , pull the bacopa out ( hardly going to disrupt growths at this point ) and see what colour the roots are . If black , just Chuck it out. If white then replant in a higher light area.

what’s the pH ? I’ve noticed mine grow much , much faster in a lower pH tank. I will happily add this does get liquid ferts and has a fluval plant 3.0, the tigers have basic sand and lights , one has a plant substrate and a £15 led light but grows plants for fun.

As a last ditch attempt to stimulate it to grow , trim the roots and give it half a root tab directly under it after a 50% wc. They aren’t usually difficult to grow so it could be the plant has just had it and it’s nothing you’re doing wrong. Doesn’t say where you’re based in the world but if you’re uk based I will happily send you some cuttings for free.

 

Thanks everyone for the replies I ended up getting some more plants the bacopa wasn't dead just covered in brown alge washed it in used tank water and there green and the roots were long and white....

Just out of interest , pull the bacopa out ( hardly going to disrupt growths at this point ) and see what colour the roots are . If black , just Chuck it out. If white then replant in a higher light area.

what’s the pH ? I’ve noticed mine grow much , much faster in a lower pH tank. I will happily add this does get liquid ferts and has a fluval plant 3.0, the tigers have basic sand and lights , one has a plant substrate and a £15 led light but grows plants for fun.

As a last ditch attempt to stimulate it to grow , trim the roots and give it half a root tab directly under it after a 50% wc. They aren’t usually difficult to grow so it could be the plant has just had it and it’s nothing you’re doing wrong. Doesn’t say where you’re based in the world but if you’re uk based I will happily send you some cuttings for free.

I live in Iowa, in the states. Thanks so much for the advice though the roots were white and surprisingly long...it was just brown alge growing on it.i just added quite a bit more plants as well .