20 Gallon Tank Help, my plants won't grow

I need help figuring out why my plants wont grow and why they're growing very slowly.
I have a 20 gallon long with a plenum and plain kitty litter, eco complete, and a bit of black sand as the substrate. I used some laterite in between the layers and aquarium co-op root tabs where i planted.
I have two nicrew skyled lights on the tank as well.
My main parameters before the plenum started to kick in were: 0/0/10-20, this was with salvinia and maybe one or two 5 gallon water changes. nitrates are now ~5ppm
(i initially set up the tank in april 2022 and reset it in janauary this year. plants struggled to grow then too)

here's what my plants look like

 

Your use of kitty litter brings back memories. I haven't heard people using that in a long time. Anyway, it may be your plant choices and number of plants. I'd fill that tank with a bunch of tried-and-true plants: cryptocorynes, swords, water wisteria, etc. It's a lot easier to grow plants in a tank full of plants than in a tank with few plants.

 

Too much light intensity and too little CO2 availability is the no.1 problem in low tech tanks. Especially during startup + low plant density.

In contrast, algae love the light intensity and don't need a lot of CO2 and nutrients to reproduce. Some plants in your tank are already infested, which makes life for plants only worse.

I expect this is going down hill further.

If you dim the light, your plants won't show more growth but are given a chance to become healthy and invest resources in enzymes that will compensate for the low CO2 and defensive mechanisms to keep off algae, instead of growth and pigmentation to protect against the light.

This is the little challenge in low tech. Creating healthy plants bites a little with growing them.

The easiest solution is to have many more plants from the start like Mudminnow says. For various reasons. One is you don't have to wait for your tank to become densely planted....

 

I've tried growing plants in Eco for years, with little success. It may just be me tho and not the eco.

 

Using some Algaecide like API CO2 Booster might help as it’ll end up killing the algae in your tank. That’ll give the plants more of the nutrients and also kill the thin layer of algae on the plants, so they absorb CO2 easier.
Other than that I don’t have much advice other than monitoring light based in CO2 intake as it’s tough to make plants grow in big tanks without injected CO2. However I have heard bottled CO2 products (algaecide) can help.

 

I've tried growing plants in Eco for years, with little success. It may just be me tho and not the eco.

have you added root tabs? i have a tank with just eco complete that grows plants super well. i got some advice from others that said my lighting was too high so maybe that's it for you. the eco complete tank has low light too.

 

have you added root tabs? i have a tank with just eco complete that grows plants super well. i got some advice from others that said my lighting was too high so maybe that's it for you. the eco complete tank has low light too.

Yeah, I think it just me. I have a pale green thumb at best.

I've tried different brands of tabs with no luck. i use liquid ferts now and plants have survived, but just barely. I keep the lights low. Buce does grow well and flowers monthly, but that's about it. I have never gotten a stem plant to survive in 13 years. I've tried many with no luck. Java fern dies withing a month or 2. Anubius does not grow (exccept for the mini variety). It has taken a couple years, but I have some crypts that survived, though quite stunted at about half their normal size and they don't spread or reproduce. This tank will be my last attempt at growing plants I think. I'd rather spend my money on fish instead of plants. I have no problem getting fish to survive.

I don't think my water is extreme: pH 7.5, KH3, GH4, Phosphates 1ppmn. When I started using APT Complete, plants stopped dying, but they don't grow either. Because the tank plants have not done well, I added planters near the top of the tank and planted a wall of emergent plants. These plants, growing in the same water, do great.

 

Hi! I have a 10 gal with quite a few varieties of hardy beginner plants (amazon swords, java ferns, echinodorus ozelot, dwarf sagitaria, moneywort) that seem to be thriving with the small led light that came with my tank and gravel substrate. I add api root tabs to all new plants and top off weekly water changes with Thrive C liquid fert (comes with a pump so I do 2 squirts). Temperature is also another factor as any anacharis I added when my tank was at 82 F eventually melted so I bought more and lowered the temp so we'll see if they do better. Doing research on your plant species that you want to add helps loads.

 

Yeah, I think it just me. I have a pale green thumb at best.

I've tried different brands of tabs with no luck. i use liquid ferts now and plants have survived, but just barely. I keep the lights low. Buce does grow well and flowers monthly, but that's about it. I have never gotten a stem plant to survive in 13 years. I've tried many with no luck. Java fern dies withing a month or 2. Anubius does not grow (exccept for the mini variety). It has taken a couple years, but I have some crypts that survived, though quite stunted at about half their normal size and they don't spread or reproduce. This tank will be my last attempt at growing plants I think. I'd rather spend my money on fish instead of plants. I have no problem getting fish to survive.

I don't think my water is extreme: pH 7.5, KH3, GH4, Phosphates 1ppmn. When I started using APT Complete, plants stopped dying, but they don't grow either. Because the tank plants have not done well, I added planters near the top of the tank and planted a wall of emergent plants. These plants, growing in the same water, do great.

this is our 10 gallon with only eco complete. we use seachem root tabs from time to time and have a nicrew light on it. we also use api leaf zone occasionally and flourish occasionally. our water is extremely hard with a gh of 34, kh 8, and high phosphates.

what kind of light do you have? do you have pictures of the tank? plants really bring a tank to life. i don’t want you to give up!

 

what kind of light do you have? do you have pictures of the tank? plants really bring a tank to life. i don’t want you to give up!

Thanks!

I'll post pics later when the lights are on. I use a finnex planted HLC. I have it run for 6 hours at "high" (roughly 50-70%). The rest of the day it is either ramping up or down. I also have 2 led plant spotlights for the emergent plants that runs 6 hours daily. i also use APT fix (anti algae), but only as needed about once a week or less.

With a full dose (per directions) of APT Complete 3x weekly, my nitrates are 5ppm at the end of the week, before water change. The emergent plants are the main utilizer of the ferts. Prior to adding them the nitrates were always above 20ppm before the weekly 50% WC.

I stopped using the Seachem tabs when I realized they are only micronutrients. The same with Flourish. Also, I was seeing no benefit from using them. I tried another brand of tab which leached so badly that my nitrates spiked overnight. Stopped using them and switched to and all-in-one liquid fert. (APT Complete). I also add additional potassium because my plant were showing signs of deficiency even with the all-in-one. That has stop the problem.

I have successfully grown anubius and Java fern in other tanks. And of course, Eco can't be blamed for their poor performance in the current tank.

The most carefree and successful tank I have is a Tanganykan tank. No plants The fish are over 10 years old. I believe in setting myself up for success and doing what works. So that's why I think it's time to stop using plants. As much as I love the look, I don't get much reward because it is constant frustration. At some point i need to pull the plug.

There are many biotopes without plants that I can explore. By no means will any of my tanks be bare. No plant does not mean empty.

 

Thanks!

I'll post pics later when the lights are on. I use a finnex planted HLC. I have it run for 6 hours at "high" (roughly 50-70%). The rest of the day it is either ramping up or down. I also have 2 led plant spotlights for the emergent plants that runs 6 hours daily. i also use APT fix (anti algae), but only as needed about once a week or less.

With a full dose (per directions) of APT Complete 3x weekly, my nitrates are 5ppm at the end of the week, before water change. The emergent plants are the main utilizer of the ferts. Prior to adding them the nitrates were always above 20ppm before the weekly 50% WC.

I stopped using the Seachem tabs when I realized they are only micronutrients. The same with Flourish. Also, I was seeing no benefit from using them. I tried another brand of tab which leached so badly that my nitrates spiked overnight. Stopped using them and switched to and all-in-one liquid fert. (APT Complete). I also add additional potassium because my plant were showing signs of deficiency even with the all-in-one. That has stop the problem.

I have successfully grown anubius and Java fern in other tanks. And of course, Eco can't be blamed for their poor performance in the current tank.

The most carefree and successful tank I have is a Tanganykan tank. No plants The fish are over 10 years old. I believe in setting myself up for success and doing what works. So that's why I think it's time to stop using plants. As much as I love the look, I don't get much reward because it is constant frustration. At some point i need to pull the plug.

There are many biotopes without plants that I can explore. By no means will any of my tanks be bare. No plant does not mean empty.

When did you add the emergent plants? perhaps theyre taking too much nutrients from everything else

 

I actually added them because the submerged plants were doing so poorly and the tank was heavily stocked. So I'd say about a year and a half into this tank I added them.

I will say that with persistence I do have plants growing in my tank, but after 3 years, I'd hoped for a better result. Most of what I've planted has died relatively quickly, but those that have survived are plugging along. There is a Cryp Wendtii that puts up one leaf every month or so. The leaf dies a few weeks later. A month or so later it puts up another leaf. I leave it, hoping some day it will have more than one leaf. Cryp Parva are about 1/2" tall after 3 years. Crypt Lucens is about 1 1/2" after 3 years, but has looked healthy these past few months. I actually like how it looks, but it's tiny. I also have a few java Fern babies. As soon as I "plant" the Java Fern it starts to die and produce babies. The babies start to die before they break away from the mother plant. I have an original one that has survived after loosing all it's leaves and is now making a comeback. My gold coin anubias puts out new but tiny leaves. My anubias hastafolia puts out new leaves and seems somewhat normal. After a couple of years trying to grow moss (christmas I think) I got it to start growing and it has done well. And as I said earlier, the Buce and mini anubias seem to do well.

There's no question that the emergent plants are taking up most of the nutrients, but I do fertilize.
I've spent a fair amount of time on a couple planted aquarium forums as well trying to address this issue. Unfortunately, nothing has helped. I've run across plenty of people with the same issues, but no resolution. There's probably an answer, but at this point I want to stop wasting time and money and just enjoy my tanks.

I used to grow anubias that flowered regularly and my java ferns were beautiful. That was in a different tank, however they were the only plants that would survive in that tank. It was the same water as I'm using now. Also, I didn't fertilize that tank.