# plants not doing well. too much light??



## sephnroth (Jul 30, 2013)

The plants in my living room aquarium are not doing great. Black on the java fern leafs and other plants just looking unhappy and browning a bit at tips of leaves. Ill try and take photos when work has finished. 

i have a gravel substrate and that's it, no soil. I occasionally use liquid fertiliser. The java ferns are tied to drift wood. I have no co2 thing (nor do i really understand what it is). 

was very confused cuz i have small tank in kitchen and it has plants that are thriving, going to have to trim them soon they wobt stop growing! It has NO tank light and i use no fert.

big tank with struggling plants has an 18w tube light which came with tank and i used to leave it on all day figuring the plants would love it but someone recently told me i might be "cooking" the plants with too much light?!?! Now i only switch it on when i get home from work.

alot of the plants arrived in bad condition and i was just hoping to see signs of recovery by now


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## sephnroth (Jul 30, 2013)

So how come the plants in other tank thrive with no co2 thing, no light and also only gravel substrate? O.O

will co2 affect my fish?


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Sephnroth,

First off, how many gallons is your "big tank"? My initial suspicion is a nutrient deficiency coupled with low light. 18W of T8 light with no reflector (I'm assuming) is low light for even a 20 gallon tank. Also, with regular gravel, you should be adding some root ferilizer tabs, available at any PetsMart of PetCo, in addition to your liquid plant supplement.

CO2 isn't necessary, but it does help. You can achieve better CO2 concentrations by adding an air bubbler, to break up the surface tension and promote gas exchange, whereby CO2 is diffused into the water from the surrounding atmosphere. It won't get the CO2 concentrations up to 30 ppm like CO2 injection can, but it will still help.

Hope this answers some of your questions!


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

What frequency of the spectrum is the light in? A light in the wrong spectrum will do very little for your plants. It should be somewhere in the 5500k to 10000k. I don't think the type of fert used will matter much. Low light tanks need very, very little added nutrients.


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## sephnroth (Jul 30, 2013)

my big (maybe i should say "bigger"!) tank is 96 liters, i dont know about gallons im sorry  i dont know about light frequency, i didnt buy the bulb it came with it! i took a photo which i will add in a min with the others, it just says 18w tropica daylight bulb on it.

if by air bubbler you mean one of those blue airstones making a jet of bubbles - yup got one of those! Let me show you the plants

<iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=DC89528214610020&resid=DC89528214610020%21713&authkey=AGvtjGaMmMf4BpY" width="320" height="180" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
http://sdrv.ms/1akWNQ7 stem plant infront of the bubbler, bit hard to see but its lost so many stems and the tops are brown: 

<iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=DC89528214610020&resid=DC89528214610020%21714&authkey=AD9sRd7n9YVeBkk" width="320" height="180" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
http://sdrv.ms/185O7yK the plant on left and right had leaves from top to bottom, now really only at top! they've just.. gone! occasionally i find a stem or leaf floating at top of tank.

<iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=DC89528214610020&resid=DC89528214610020%21716&authkey=ABQ-e2DE10Nfse8" width="320" height="180" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
http://sdrv.ms/1cZH2is java fern - maybe the black stuff is normal but its not pretty 

<iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=DC89528214610020&resid=DC89528214610020%21715&authkey=ABteTS2NL3MI5A4" width="320" height="180" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
http://sdrv.ms/185OpWh this plant was one of my healthiest! now it looks like its been.. eaten? and has gone transparent in some leaves!

<iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=DC89528214610020&resid=DC89528214610020%21718&authkey=AMeBF1BFuMBzRes" width="320" height="180" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
http://sdrv.ms/1akXk4u here is the light bulb.

any suggestions about what to do appreiciated. i have liquid fert but my local store (im in england) doesnt seem to sell fert pellets that i put in the gravel


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

If it is a screw-in bulb, get a 6500k CFL bulb in place of it.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Bad links for your pix, or just blocked by my work.

Air stones help bring CO2 concentrations up to 3 ppm during the daylight hours when plants consume CO2 from the water and try to lower that concentration. With CO2 injection by either a pressurized gas system, paintball system, yeast fermentation system or liquid supplement, you can achieve concentrations as high as 30 ppm, but with low light it's not really worth it as the plants can't fully utilize all the extra CO2.


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## sephnroth (Jul 30, 2013)

Giz: if you give me a minute ill upload them somewhere other than the cloud so i can embed them instead of link


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## sephnroth (Jul 30, 2013)

i used html to embed the pics FROM the cloud, i dunno if that will work for you gizmo? i was actually sorta shocked the forum let me use html and iframes in a post, seems a bit dangerous!


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Zoo Med Ultra Sun Daylight Compact Fluorescent Bulb at PETCO
That is what jrman83 is talking about IF you have a screw in bulb.
The Watts on that thing look odd. Look at this list to see what I mean. And BTW this is the bulb I'd recommend.
Zoo Med T-8 Ultra Sun Super Daylight Fluorescent Bulb at PETCO
This is also good for plants but has less visible light.
Zoo Med T-8 Flora Sun Max Plant Growth Fluorescent Bulb at PETCO
You likely got lucky on the choice of plants in the other tank as far as light type is concerned(how much the plant needs).
Any plant that has a color other than green needs more light. Some to have that other color but some just to survive.
This can help keep you in low light plants. 
Tropical freshwater aquarium fish: Find plants
Hard to see from the pix but I thought I saw one that was green from about half way up but red from there down.
Bet that's the new growth on top ?
With low tech, you don't need ferts and Co2. Just a T8 bulb. The fish supply the ferts.
Just in case...LED lights with less than 1W per bulb are a waste for plants no matter how fancy they talk about them.
Corporate America is absolute expert at deception by way of mis-directing you attention and with true info at that.
Otherwise you might dispute what they are saying. It's carefully programed to both deceive and be sound, undeniable
info which only serves to cloak the true pertinate facts they don't want you to focus on. Now that this rant is over may
we continue...LOL...
That "favorite" of yours will probably not make it. Some/w color other than green will grow but only in green while
some may die. Not to forget...plants are often grown in direct sunlight at the farms. Or with intense gro-lights.
There is also a environmental difference other than the light which needs getting used to. So some will just change
a bit or a lot but it takes time to settle/adjust. Almost all of my ferns like Java/Philipene loose size on the first
generation of growth after getting them.
Keep this as it may come in handy.
Aquarium Gallery - Nutrientdeficiency
If it's not a large number of leaves you can trim the black ones off the fern.
You might get a Walmart light timer $7 and use 9-10 hrs after you get a good bulb but 12 till then.


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## sephnroth (Jul 30, 2013)

I got a new light  couldn't find the exact brands suggested, i think because I'm in England. But it was labelled T-8 full spectrum, thou it said 6700k couldn't find 6500 in either store i went to! But its making a much nicer light, i hope its right cuz it wasn't cheap!


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

It's better than "right" so to speak. I just got a reality check in a thread about LED lights and my research about it.
Seems I missed some important info along the way to my conclusion about what is and what is not a good plant LED.
So...my perception of the info which I had collected said that Watts were critical, when in reality it is spectrum which
rules. It was the additional info I got when investigating the thread contents which made me re-evaluate my older info.
Just saying that this statement also is subject to re-evaluation later...LOL...
Seems to me that the more expensive brands of those bulbs list 6700K where as the lessor brands list 6500K.
Thus I would suggest you have one of the better ones(for plants).
Due to it still being a single bulb, I'd start/w 10 hrs for a couple of weeks or a month to see where it gets you.
The less a plant has been declining due to lack of light, the quicker it will respond to this bulb. But I still
wouldn't expect a visible change in one for the first three days most likely. You will like the results though as I
believe it to be one of the better bulbs.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Not that 10hrs is bad, I would much rather start with 8hrs. Leave that way for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. Pushing 10hrs can just invite algae. Once that starts it can be difficult to control. Just remember that everything that will grow in your tank, to include algae, is controlled by your light. Control the light, control the algae.


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## quinn808 (Jul 12, 2013)

8-10 hours is when photosynthesis peaks, any longer than that and your doing nothing but cooking them. I suggest getting some fertilizers for your plants I use just a liquid c02 for now until I buy a c02 set up, your common pet store should have these like if you have a near by petco or something.


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## sephnroth (Jul 30, 2013)

Thanks for all the advice all  i will aim for 8hrs a day then! I also have liquid fert i can add, thou in always nervous adding anything to my fishes water!

tank is looking nicer already though!

http://sdrv.ms/17yX6G0

and a video 
<iframe src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=DC89528214610020&resid=DC89528214610020%21724&authkey=ACCUgbGj-jRP6OA" width="320" height="180" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>


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