Ph and plants.

Anyone know how much ph affects plants? I have some crypts, anubius, pogostemen, scarlet temple and a Madagascar lace leaf. My ph is around 8.1 most of my plants are growing but don’t look that great. 2 of my 3 anubius are mostly dead but my lace leaf is about to flower. Wondering if it is a ph issue to much flow or something else. I have a fluval 3.0 plant light and a aqueon led for lights and I use easy green once a week. Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are consistently 0. Kh and gh 6-7. Any suggestions on what I could do better for them?

 

What substrate are you using? How long are your lights on for? What intensity is the lighting?

Your picture is upside down as well lol.

 

I’m using activ flora substrate. And I have my light on the planted tank setting. I thinks is on for 12 hrs. Not sure why everything I post here is upside down

 

I’m using activ flora substrate. And I have my light on the planted tank setting. I thinks is on for 12 hrs. Not sure why everything I post here is upside down

 

The only Activ Flora I can find looks like larger pebbles, but if that's anything to go by it contains almost nothing to feed plants, despite the elemental analysis. Your lighting period is too long, especially given your very small plantload.

Cut lights back to 6-7 hours a day, dose Easy Green 2-3x per week. Easy Green is an -ok- fertilizer but isn't very high in nitrogen, potassium, or phosphates compared to other all-in-one formulas. Plants do better in softer, more acidic water as a general rule of thumb but a pH of 8.1 isn't terrible. Anubias, for example, comes from African rift lakes, where the pH can be described as "liquid rock".

What gets me is how you have a pH of over 8 with a KH of 0. With a KH of 0 your pH has no stability and really shouldn't be that high.

 

Thank you for the tips I’ll cut back on my lighting and dose more. My kh and gh are 6-7. 0 was my am nitrite and nitrate.

 

Thank you for the tips I’ll cut back on my lighting and dose more. My kh and gh are 6-7. 0 was my am nitrite and nitrate.

Oh I misread, I thought it said KH was 0.

 

Certain plants do better in hard water than others. I too am someone whose tap water is on the higher end of the pH scale so I've had my share of failures and successes in what will and won't tolerate the pH over time.
Anubias tend to do well in high pH. Jungle valisneria also does very well in my high pH water. Dwarf salvinia is like a freaking weed so if you want a floating plant that's my suggestion. It enjoys my water which tends to swing from the tap between 8 and 8.8+ (the pH test maxes out). Amazon swords are hit and miss. The broad leaved variants I find do pretty well in hard water but the rounder 'melon' swords couldnt seem to keep leaves and melted to mush.
Java fern will go through a reproduction cycle upon being introduced to hard water unless it was already in it. My one java fern suddenly sprouted tons of babies as the leaves turned brown and withered away. Theboriginal fern died, but I kept the little babies in a smaller/lower flow tank (still same pH) until they got some size on em and now those baby ferns are adults and thriving in my tanks.
Four leaf star grass was fine for a while, but eventually just failed to thrive. I'm not sure if the valisneria outcompeted it for nutrients or if it just couldnt handle the pH long term.
Anacharis also didn't handle my water well. It became frail and constantly broke at the slightest touch or flow and eventually just fell apart.
Hornwort shed all of it's very fine little leaves everywhere upon introduction to my tanks and made a great big mess. It was a pain to clean. But, eventually, the stuff that survived adapted (the ones in higher lighting did better) and grew.
Guppy grass loved my water. Maybe too much. That stuff grows so much.

 

Where'd you get that background?

 

I found it on offer up. I really like it. I thinks it’s made by universal rocks.

 

Certain plants do better in hard water than others. I too am someone whose tap water is on the higher end of the pH scale so I've had my share of failures and successes in what will and won't tolerate the pH over time.
Anubias tend to do well in high pH. Jungle valisneria also does very well in my high pH water. Dwarf salvinia is like a freaking weed so if you want a floating plant that's my suggestion. It enjoys my water which tends to swing from the tap between 8 and 8.8+ (the pH test maxes out). Amazon swords are hit and miss. The broad leaved variants I find do pretty well in hard water but the rounder 'melon' swords couldnt seem to keep leaves and melted to mush.
Java fern will go through a reproduction cycle upon being introduced to hard water unless it was already in it. My one java fern suddenly sprouted tons of babies as the leaves turned brown and withered away. Theboriginal fern died, but I kept the little babies in a smaller/lower flow tank (still same pH) until they got some size on em and now those baby ferns are adults and thriving in my tanks.
Four leaf star grass was fine for a while, but eventually just failed to thrive. I'm not sure if the valisneria outcompeted it for nutrients or if it just couldnt handle the pH long term.
Anacharis also didn't handle my water well. It became frail and constantly broke at the slightest touch or flow and eventually just fell apart.
Hornwort shed all of it's very fine little leaves everywhere upon introduction to my tanks and made a great big mess. It was a pain to clean. But, eventually, the stuff that survived adapted (the ones in higher lighting did better) and grew.
Guppy grass loved my water. Maybe too much. That stuff grows so much.

Thank you that’s great info.

 

My water is 7.6, the water plant that supplies my water sets on a river.

I have had these plants Windelov Fern, Java Fern, Amazon Sword. and Anubius. The two Ferns struggled to survive for awhile, but then fell apart and wilted away. But the Amazon Sword and Anubis grew.

Then my tank got infested with black diatoms, and still is for the past year. The stuff covered the leaves of the Anubius and Amazon Sword, but they never died, but kept on growing. I tried getting rid of the black diatoms on several occasions, but only made my tank sick doing so. So I gave up on it, lived with it, and my fish and plants have been good.