On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 21:19:30 GMT, "Dunter Powries"
wrote:

Ross Vandegrift wrote in message
om...
Hello everyone,

My 20Gal long tank, with 2wpg, had something happen to it a few
months ago. My plants stopped growing well. I've been too busy with
school to worry too much about, but I did the obvious things as the
plants slowly died off - stopped dosing fertilizer so much and cut down
the light. It was bad - all of a sudden all my Java Fern died. Sunset
Hyugro won't grow in the tank now.

Finally, I got sick of the algae and the bare tank, so I hit up
the LFS and lucked out - just had a fresh shipment! Picked up some
awesome looking camboba, red tiger lotus, giant hygro, and something I
forget that looks like bacopa with smaller leaves. Planted em up, went
back to some fertilizer dosing, made sure my DIY CO2 reactor was
running, and turned the lights back up to 10 hours.

This was last friday. Most of the new plants are dying already.
The camboba seems to have rotted almost the instant I planted in the
gravel. The bacopa-like plants' leaves are slowly turning brown and
getting ready to fall off. The red tiger lotus is ok for now, but I
suspect my 2wpg won't be enough for it ultimately.

So, more or less, it was a total failure. I'm wondering what on
earth could be wrong. My water parameters are normal. I change 3-4
gallons on a monthly basis. And this tank, exactly as I'm running it
now, was previously very, very successful.

I thought that perhaps the tank had been contaminated, but this
seems unlikely - I've had fish in it through all of this (australian
rainbows, ottos, and bolivian rams) and they've been healthier and more
beautiful than ever.

Any ideas for something I'm overlooking?

How old are the lights? Flourescents should be changed every 6-12 months,
CF every 18-or-so months. They may still be working - in other words,
turning on - without providing sufficient spectrum for photosynthesis.


I have had plant problems in the beginning, last year December. My
first tank, 75 gallons, would look nice with its new plants, but I
would eventually lose them or I got black hair algae so bad, I just
replaced the plants.

That was then, now, 12 months later, I have 5 tanks ranging from 75 to
10 and my final solution, low light plants, and lots of them are doing
fine. I have not changed my lights. I don't like the bright lights.
I decided to buy low light plants (1.5-2 wpg) and rely on "survival of
the fittest." All of my tanks are doing well, in fact one of the
lessons I learned to defeat major algae problems, was to keep the
hours of lighting down from 16 to 12 hours a day. Two of my larger
tanks I can switch off part of the lights, so I reduce the watts when
I see algae starting again.

I see plant selection as the solution. Pick plants that like lower
light.

By the way, I change about 20 percent of my water weekly. I have
dense fish populations and assume the nutrient levels are high so I
feel I am diluting the nutrient levels.

I am not an expert, just experienced with problems and learning as I
go. I enjoy what others share and take those ideas into
consideration. However, I am often surprised when something works for
others that seems to be different from my sucesses.