Plants Browning?

Need some help...

I have El Niño ferns and amazon swords.

I have some shrimp in there so I’ve been using Flourish Excel to help with some staghorn algae I had. It all seems to be gone now but I still do a light morning dose of 1-2ml for a 29g.

I have root tabs for the swords but after my last water change I thought I’d try adding some Flourish complete to help the ferns more. I dosed per directions.

Now I’m noticing some brown ashy looking spots on my swords. darker brown on the ferns. And some of the light green algae on the rocks is brown.

Is this something I should expect as the plants get used to the comprehensive ... or should I not be using both?

My light is the one that come with the Top Fin essentials starter. It’s on a controller...

Light cycle:
11am - 20%
12- 60%
1pm 100%
8pm - 70%
9pm - 30%
10pm - Off

 

Hello
11 hours in total is a lot.. lower lights settings to 8.hrs cycle.

 

Is it just the overall hours that matter?
Or does the intensity factor in?

For instance, would lowering the intensity on some of the hours have a similar impact to cutting hours?

I like the time frame it runs on because I can feed them at lunch and then watch them right before bed. So my hope would be that if I’m running too much light that perhaps I could adjust the intensity down instead of cutting out time completely. I’ll do whatever I have to to help the plants but just wondering!

 

Would this be an acceptable light cycle:
12pm - 20%
1pm- 60%
3pm 100%
8pm - 70%
9pm - 20%
10pm - Off

So full power would only be 5 hours. 1 hour at 70%. 2 at 60%. And 2 at 20%.


Also I am curious as to why I only noticed issues when I added the comprehensive. Does anyone have thoughts on that?

 

HI there! The holes in your Swords appear to be a nutrient deficiency, likely potassium or phosphate. See the below for more information on diagnosing aquatic plant symptoms (You can find other s and diagnosing charts via Google.). Are you dosing any ferts besides the Flourish? Flourish provides micronutrients, which while important, do not provide the macronutrients plants need to thrive (potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus).

The brown algae on your rocks are likely diatoms, and will go away without interference as your tank ages and its cycle matures.

As an aside, you might want to stop using Excel. When I used to use it, I noticed some browning on my java ferns. The browning stopped almost immediately after I stopped using Excel. It does work excellent as an algaecide, however -- spot treating with a syringe on staghorn and blackbeard algae, especially, I've noticed.

Good luck!

 

I also have some easy green... would that be better than the comprehensive? Or should I use both?

The easy green has more nitrogen, more phosphate and a lot of ... potash... which apparently is potassium in some form.

 

That looks perfect! I don't use Easy Green myself, but I have heard good things about it. It looks like it definitely has enough potash(ium ) to fix your plant's deficiency, as well as healthy doses of the other two macros. Dose as recommended by the bottle (again, I don't use it myself so can't say how much to dose) and see how it does.

The only side note I can think to add is if your tank is not heavily planted: your plants may not absorb the nutrients quickly enough to out-compete algae. Therefore, you should keep an eye out for algae blooms. Hair algae in particular is quick to grow if the tank has excess light and nutrients. If that occurs, shorten your photo-period by an hour or two until you notice the algae stops growing. Luckily, hair algae is easy enough to eliminate by shortening your light-on time. I personally use a Finnex 24/7+, which I believe has a similar dim-on-to-off affect as your light, but I had to turn off the dimmer controls. DI'm light was not enough for my plants to absorb, but more than enough for algae to bask in and thrive. Now, my light comes on at full power at 9am, and turns off at 6pm. It still provides a ramp-up/ramp-down so the fish are not startled, but I haven't noticed ANY algae growth since switching to that cycle (and I had quite a large amount of hair algae before switching to the custom mode).

 

Is it just the overall hours that matter?
Or does the intensity factor in?

For instance, would lowering the intensity on some of the hours have a similar impact to cutting hours?

I like the time frame it runs on because I can feed them at lunch and then watch them right before bed. So my hope would be that if I’m running too much light that perhaps I could adjust the intensity down instead of cutting out time completely. I’ll do whatever I have to to help the plants but just wondering!

Well, a good way to think about it is this: if the intensity is not enough, no extended amount of hours is going to make up for it. Cutting hours is less of a problem than lowering intensity, because plants don't need a ton of hours a day but lowering intensity will make all of the "on" hours less effective.

To be honest there's no need for ramping the light. On and off is all you need. Having the lights on low intensity isn't going to help plants, it'll only help algae.

 

That looks perfect! I don't use Easy Green myself, but I have heard good things about it. It looks like it definitely has enough potash(ium ) to fix your plant's deficiency, as well as healthy doses of the other two macros. Dose as recommended by the bottle (again, I don't use it myself so can't say how much to dose) and see how it does.

The only side note I can think to add is if your tank is not heavily planted: your plants may not absorb the nutrients quickly enough to out-compete algae. Therefore, you should keep an eye out for algae blooms. Hair algae in particular is quick to grow if the tank has excess light and nutrients. If that occurs, shorten your photo-period by an hour or two until you notice the algae stops growing. Luckily, hair algae is easy enough to eliminate by shortening your light-on time. I personally use a Finnex 24/7+, which I believe has a similar dim-on-to-off affect as your light, but I had to turn off the dimmer controls. DI'm light was not enough for my plants to absorb, but more than enough for algae to bask in and thrive. Now, my light comes on at full power at 9am, and turns off at 6pm. It still provides a ramp-up/ramp-down so the fish are not startled, but I haven't noticed ANY algae growth since switching to that cycle (and I had quite a large amount of hair algae before switching to the custom mode).

I’ll start with the easy green per bottle dosing and back off the excel.

Not “heavily” planted but a good bit of plants I think. I actually don’t mind a little green algae. It keeps my snails and amanos busy. The staghorn was not welcome though!

So running a lower light % contributes to algae? Dang. I guess I need to rethink my on/off times. I just love watching them before bed. I’ll see what happens over a few weeks with the added easy green and follow back up. May need to run 2 photo periods.

 

I stopped adding excel and started adding Only easy green as of Sunday.

I’m see the staghorn coming back now.


Should I use just the easy green?
Or easy green + comprehensive?

I’m also modifying the light schedule to this:
3pm - On 100%
10pm - Off

Do you think that is short enough.... or do I need to not start until 4?