# Bad call, too much messing around/w



## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Well I guess I just can't leave well enough alone. Been putting my new tank through hell the past few
weeks with changing the lights back and fourth plus just dropped the Excel but increased the ferts.
Well the lights are back to what that tank started/w. 2 T8's 1x Hagen Power Glo + 1xGE Daylight 6500K
both 18" on a ten G.
That green sheet algae is taking over fast since I stopped the Excel. Heard one too many times it hinders
mosses.
The intended remedy is to stop all ferts being added. Then in the next 2 days I'll do about a 40%
water change 20+20 in 2 days and then on the weekend do a regular 20% and just continue the regular
weekly change after that but with no ferts being added. BTW I had two Java Ferns in there but for some
strange reason only one of them turned black over most parts of the leaves. Then today, about four days
after it started doing this I noticed that those black arias of that plant had decayed but not the rest of
each of those leaves. The one that did this is a narrow leaf and the other is a Philipine Java Fern which
seems unaffected. But a couple of leaves of the dwarf Sebulata are pale in color like their dieing. Not
the whole leaf though. Just at the top ends of a couple of leaves. Hoping someone will recognize the
symptom on this one. But if not...
I've concluded that I over fertilized the tank but if any of you feel there may be a different reason please
let me know.I plan to start reducing the fert level tomorrow by water change.


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## Goby (Mar 21, 2012)

Raymond S. said:


> Well I guess I just can't leave well enough alone. Been putting my new tank through hell the past few
> weeks with changing the lights back and fourth plus just dropped the Excel but increased the ferts.
> Well the lights are back to what that tank started/w. 2 T8's 1x Hagen Power Glo + 1xGE Daylight 6500K
> both 18" on a ten G.
> ...


You sound frustrated. I can relate to "too much messing around"...I've never been able to leave my tanks well enough alone. 

There's so many different causes of black or pale foliage on water plants...everything from starvation to too intense lighting to not enough light to chemical burn/saturation. If it's a disease you might lose the whole plant but if it's an acute issue it'll likely sprout new stuff. Sometimes die off is just part of it's life cycle. Frustrating none the less. 

It will get better.


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Only(major) parts of it are doing this and it sure looks weird having a part of a leaf in almost perfect condition with pieces of it gone.
The plant(s) affected have had multiple light changes over the past 4 weeks but are now back to their original light. Seems fairly
likely to be chemical burn as I have(Java Fern don't get nutrients from gravel mostly rather water) Eco-Complete over Pure Laterite
for substrate and dose Pride/Flourish Comprehensive weekly but just ADDED API Leaf Zone like an idiot. Surely if some is good
then 39 gallons would be great...LOL...my favorite saying...experience is the best school but has the highest tuition.


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## Goby (Mar 21, 2012)

Raymond S. said:


> Only(major) parts of it are doing this and it sure looks weird having a part of a leaf in almost perfect condition with pieces of it gone.
> The plant(s) affected have had multiple light changes over the past 4 weeks but are now back to their original light. Seems fairly
> likely to be chemical burn as I have(Java Fern don't get nutrients from gravel mostly rather water) Eco-Complete over Pure Laterite
> for substrate and dose Pride/Flourish Comprehensive weekly but just ADDED API Leaf Zone like an idiot. Surely if some is good
> then 39 gallons would be great...LOL...my favorite saying...experience is the best school but has the highest tuition.


Oh you took the words right out of my mouth! (...or would that be off my fingertips?)

I wouldn't even know how to act if I succeeded at something on the first try. And adding more will surely work better...right? Yeah, I totally get you. :fishGreen:


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Can you take pics and post? Sort of sounds like cyanobacteria...."sheets of green" reference.

You could totally stop ferts. If you think lights are too much, remove a bulb or cut your time in half. How many watts was this?

I would rub off as much as I could, suck it out during your water change and change about 75% of the water all at once.


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Goby said:


> You sound frustrated. I can relate to "too much messing around"...I've never been able to leave my tanks well enough alone.
> 
> There's so many different causes of black or pale foliage on water plants...everything from starvation to too intense lighting to not enough light to chemical burn/saturation. If it's a disease you might lose the whole plant but if it's an acute issue it'll likely sprout new stuff. Sometimes die off is just part of it's life cycle. Frustrating none the less.
> 
> It will get better.


Forgot to mention...that plant was improperly planted. A Java Fern should not have it's risome planted and I didn't know that when I
planted it. So the plant has not grown but many new ones have started at each leaf tip. The old leaves started turning brown two
weeks ago but about four days ago the new sprouts all got black arias on them. Tried to wipe it off but no luck.
Now those parts of the leaves are gone but the parts which were green are still there...go figure.
As soon as my camera batteries charge I'll put as good of a picture as I can get of it. Back of tank behind other plant. Also for
what the heck value I'll include a pix of the algae so no mistake about what kind. Somewhere I have a chart which identifies
all kinds and what it says about that kind(when you read between the lines) is "oh well guess your stuck/w it except for manual
removal."


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

jrman83 said:


> Can you take pics and post? Sort of sounds like cyanobacteria...."sheets of green" reference.
> 
> You could totally stop ferts. If you think lights are too much, remove a bulb or cut your time in half. How many watts was this?
> 
> I would rub off as much as I could, suck it out during your water change and change about 75% of the water all at once.


Pix in a while. 3W pg/ 8 hrs per day...10:00 A.M. till 6:00 P.M.
No more ferts till I think it has leveled off. Then half value. And no more double up/w two types which have same ingredients.
Since this is a liquid fert, would it not be beneficial to do a few water changes, say two at 20%(my normal change) between
now and the weekend when I'll do my regular one and no extras after that just weekend changes of 20% ?
Though I'm putting pix, I intend to pull out that plant(the one worst effected) but not the other less effected one.



The original plant leaf is coming from the bottom up and dark brown. The new plant which formed at the tip of
the old leaf is almost dead center of the pix...leaves about 1.5-2" long and has roots coming out from it going
towards the left. See how the leaves look like old bombed out buildings from WW1. Color is bad as is focus
because of point and shoot camera..focusses on what it wants to. 
Notice plant in front of Java Fern...Dwarf Sebulata...normal leaf to right and effected leaf to left. Can see two leaves.
Plant to the left is Rotala indica...uneffected.

This is the algae...still poor focus but...


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## Goby (Mar 21, 2012)

Thanks for taking the time to post pictures. 

Ya know, I've seen worse...done worse. The leaves look sorta burned to me...chemically, just like you said, but it's hard to say for sure. Regarding the algae picture, as jrman mentioned...I wouldn't totally rule out cyano in that picture, I just can't tell. Do you know what cyano on plants looks like? That's really a whole different conversation and plan of action. 

At this point, I don't think it's necessary to discard anything entirely. As long as the leaves aren't melting and don't feel slimy, I suggest pruning the bad stuff off and letting new stuff sprout. New stuff will come more quickly if you get the struggling stuff off and new growth from an established root generally looks/does better anyway. But if the leaves start to melt...check the roots. If they're brown/dead, it's likely done.

As far as fertilizer goes...have you ever thought about feeding the roots directly instead of putting fertilizer in the water?


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

I bought Eco-Complete and API first layer "Pure Laterite" as a substrate thinking that it was enough in that aria.
But I have used Tetra Pride for a while now and used that/w it till I got the idea to add Flourish Comprehensive.
And so it was for a couple of months(started this one in Jan. of this year)till I got that"wonderful" idea of adding
API Leaf Zone to the whole mess. Never have gotten very good growth, fair but not good in this tank. Did well
when I put the T5's but I've been hearing about the bad effects of Excel (forgot to mention it was in with those others)
on mosses. So knowing that if I left the T5's but removed the Excel I'd be over run in no time/w algae so I put the 2 T8's
back on the tank and then discontinued the Excel but never thought about how much ferts were going in there.
Plants may have been able to handle the ferts as high as they were with the T5's AND the Excel.
Pretty much the whole list of plants in there are water born fert users except maybe the Dwarf Subulata. Someone even
recently told me that the Rotala indica get a lot from the water as opposed to say Amazon sword plants which get too
big for my ten. Hard finding the "right" plant for it so mostly been trying to see if the exotic ground plants would like it
in there but none so far. The fissidens were doing OK till the algae covered them. Did great/w the T5's...oh well.
There is another issue here. I went back to T8's because I recently got four Banded Pigmy sunfish and this tank is home
for them. They wouldn't come out/w the T5's but it may have been the shock of settling in a new tank. Pellia is one of the 
mosses that wouldn't grow in there with the T5's and the Excel. Christmas moss wouldn't either or grew scragly at best.
In all tried about 7 kinds but no luck and BTW I asked one of those Aquascape people about all the light and algae and
he candidly said all his display tanks are heavy in algae killing chems. There is a direction/w this as daphnia/cepopods
scuds are part of having Banded Pigmy sunfish and algae chems and those don't mix. So yes there is a reason to
not go back to the T5's...unfortunately...sorry for running my mouth so long but this is trying me a lot...


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## Goby (Mar 21, 2012)

Raymond S. said:


> I bought Eco-Complete and API first layer "Pure Laterite" as a substrate thinking that it was enough in that aria.
> But I have used Tetra Pride for a while now and used that/w it till I got the idea to add Flourish Comprehensive.
> And so it was for a couple of months(started this one in Jan. of this year)till I got that"wonderful" idea of adding
> API Leaf Zone to the whole mess. Never have gotten very good growth, fair but not good in this tank. Did well
> ...


Wow...it sounds like you've done your homework and put in a lot of time and effort. I can really appreciate that. And it also sounds like your new plan of action is a good one. 

I've kept many aquatic pants...more out of necessity w/fish than for beauty. I'm not up on all the modern name brand products with regards to aquatic plants but I can share with you what I learned from my Mom who was into it big time for many years and we were her "helpers". For substrate we used cheap pure clay cat litter on the bottom...that stuff had to be rinsed about a bazillion times. Then we'd put a mix of sand and gravel on the top...we literally had a pile of each in the yard that we'd shovel into pails and wash...nothing fancy at all. Less than 1/2" of cat litter and then I dunno...3 inches of gravel/sand? We fertilized 5 days per week dosing the macronutriends M,W,F and the trace elements on T,Th. We did water changes on Saturday and not a damn thing on Sunday. I hated being a plant helper. For bulbs we used T12s, 10s and 8s. My dad had the ceiling rigged for sunlight too but it was so steamy in there I wonder if it did any good. She only used T5's in recent years and just on her personal aquariums in her house. Her only carbon source were pressure cylinders w/C02 that she used for certain tanks. We occasionally fertilized the roots directly, but not often...can't remember that schedule but I know she placed a lot of emphasis on it. That's it. She could grow about anything...and did, well. Me not so much, despite the fact that I originally went to school for Natural Resource Conservation and Plant Biology. I think I just got burned out on it and ended up switching to Conservation and animal sciences. 

I can relate to your frustration. My son and I have had our brains wrapped around everything salt water for the last couple years and it seems it's rare to get the same advice twice...even from the same exact person. So we just took what we knew for certain, jumped in head first, and sought advice from the pros as we went. We failed at times but succeeded more often than not...what more could we ask for? It's been a blast and is turning out to be one of the most rewarding journeys I've taken with one of my kids. I don't see myself ever leaving the hobby and see it turning into something much more.

I hope you stick with it. Learn as you go. Ya never know where that 10-gallon tank that's frustrating the hell out of ya might take ya.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Can you tell me what light fixture you have, wattage of the bulbs, type of bulb (T5, T8, T5HO, etc), and the spectrum they are in? WPG rules are worthless.

As an initial solution, I would cut use of any fert and excel - totally. Not sure you need it yet. Remove leaves or plants that are covered in algae and dying because of it - they likely will not recover from that. Cut your lighting time in half until you see no more new algae starting. Re-adjust time up in 1-2hr periods weekly until about 8hrs.


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## Goby (Mar 21, 2012)

I believe he's using two 18" T8's over a 10 gallon tank...one 15 watt 18K Hagen Power Glo bulb that's blue spectrum and one 15 watt GE Daylight 6500K bulb.


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