What is my tank deficient in?

[kieranhunter]

Hello people, I really can’t get plants to grow well in this tank, I’ve spent way too much on new plants and just cannot get anything to grow well.

300L tank 4ft x 2ft tall
Fluval 3.0 running at 50%-60% for about 6 hours
Using TNC Light 4mm every day auto dose. I use lite because I have heavy fish load.

Plants are a little bit yellow and basically falling apart, swords aren’t too bad and large Vallis isn’t too bad but I’ve tried so many other different species. So many crypts and other easy plants all fall apart completely and die. And now this Wistieria is falling apart please see photos.

Any help is appreciated, anything at all please.

[TropicalFishForums]

[Pleco Fan]

 If you really want them to grow you could try using Co2

[kieranhunter]

Hello, I really don’t want to get into co2 lol. I used to have a 60 litre tank that grew plants so well without co2 or ferts, but I just can’t seem to do it with this big aquarium.

Do you think the size of the aquarium matters, bigger aquariums need co2 whereas the smaller 60 litre ones don’t?

[Pleco Fan]

Size should not matter, I can recommend EASYLIFE PROFITO with EASYCARBO also try root tabs,  these days I use Co2 and my plants shoot up.

[Stephen]

Hi Kieran

I have similar issues with similar plants, some work some don't.
The ones that work for me are the Amazon swords (Echinodorus species), Hydrocotyle leucocephala, Tiger Lotus Nymphea Zenkeri Red and very few others.
Some plants do require a high-tech set up (CO2 etc..) and others are fine with a low-tech set up.
Try liquid carbon with the TNC Lite to see if things improve.

All the best
Stephen

[Martyn87]

Looks like you have a deficiency in a nutrient there. It’s always hard to accurately identify what.

How heavily planted is your tank, what substrate do you have, are you dosing any fertiliser? The plants you’ve noted working for you are all heavy root feeders, so a fertiliser and liquid co2 could fix all your problems if you aren’t dosing already.

What ever changes you make do it one at a time and do it slowly.

[kieranhunter]

Hello Martyn thanks for the reply. I reduced my new Fluval 3.0 plant light from 100% to 50% and the plants have done much better! I dose liquid ferts and apply root tabs to inert substrate.

[Martyn87]

Hey, so what ferts are you dosing, a complete or a trace elements only? Wisteria is pretty hardy and grows under most conditions. Just interested to see what you changed to fix it? Was it just the light or ferts as well?