10 months later, my tank still sucks

[jassz]

My husband is chanting, 'Stop the insanity! Go artificial!', but I am now I so committed with chemicals and test kits (not to mention a very expensive light) I hate to abandon the whole thing.

The advise I have had to date has varied, and I couldn't possibly sum it all up (if I had known it would be so difficult I would have taken better notes). So I'll just tell you where things are at now.

I have a 10 gallon community tank with an LED plant light that is on for 2hrs in the morning, and 4 hrs in the evening. (I was having it on for only 4hrs due to a black algae problem, but I recently added the other 2hrs in case my problem was not enough light).

Once a week I do about a 25% water change (I was trying 50% for awhile as was recommended to me here, but I was losing a fish every week so I cut it back to 25%). At the time of the water change, I am adding Prime, and (the rest are all Seachem products) Equilibrium, Fluorish, Fluorish Iron, Fluorish Phosphorus, Fluorish potassium, and Fluorish Excel. Once in between water changes I am adding another dose of Phosphorus adn Flourish, and occassional Iron (more on that in a minute). Every other day I am adding Excel (I was adding that 2x a week and then someone told me to increase it to daily. I was still having problems so someone else told me to cut it back to 2-3x /wk, so that is what I am trying now.

Somewhere along the way, I was told that I needed to test my water for more parameters than I was doing so that I could find out what it was that I was missing. So I started testing for Iron and phosphorus, and low and behold I found out my iron was 0. Aha! I thought, I'll just add iron and that will be it. But no, not that simple. The whole dosing /testing thing is a bit bizarre. One day, for example, I tested the water and it was 0, so I added the recommended dose for that size tank, and suddenly it was 1.0 (top of the chart) and of the toxic variety. Huh? I didn't really believe it, and didn't do anything about it. The next day I tested again, and it was back to 0. It always seems to drop back to 0 pretty quickly.

Here are my parameters today, prior to doing my water change:
pH= 7.6
NH3= 0
Gh = 5drops (that's counting the first drop that changes it to the first colour, I can't figure out if it's supposed to be included or not).
KH= 3 drops (same as above)
PO4= 0.25
Fe= 0

I did the water change, then retested the iron, and now it is at 0.25.

The dosing for the iron states a recommended amount, then says, 'or as much as required to maintain a level of 0.1'. So, part of me thinks that I should be adding Fe every other day, as it will probably be back down to 0 tomorrow (that's usually what I find), but part of me is not that confident in the kit adn I don't want to over do it.

I usually have between 7 to 10 fish in the tank. I don't have a way of testing Nitrates (well, I tried it with my salt water test kit and it was 0, but I wasn't sure how much to believe that). Do you think it might be nitrates?

I think I have actually had mulitple problems going on, but so far combining 'prescriptions' has not really helped.

Can anyone help stop the insanity??

[discuspaul]

I'd like to help, but I don't have enough info.
What are the actual problems you'd like to clear up ? Is it the condition of the plants shown in the 2 images attached to your post ?
You have 7 fish - what size & kind ? Is you tank med/heavy planted or what ?
What type of filtration do you use & what media ?
At first blush, it sounds to me that that you're dosing more of a variety/quantity & frequency of ferts that you really need to. You'd be getting some trace elements from your tap water with the wcs - A 10 gal tank is a small body of water & doesn't need a lot of fertilization for plants to do ok.
I too have a 10 gal fairly heavily planted, and dose a small amount of Excel & Flourish C.S. once a week at most, along with occasional use of Plant Gro NPK, and the plants are doing very well. I now house a few Celestial Pearl Danios, Ember Tetras, Chili Rasboras & a Chocolate Gourami.
Here's a couple of pics of my 10 gal for you to have a look-see - 3 pics interspersed with photos of my 75 gal discus tank:
2tanks pictures by discuspaul - Photobucket
Let us know, & we'll try to help.

[discuspaul]

BTW, I'm running 2 X 18w T5 bulbs - 8 hrs./day

[Treasure chest]

Seems like your tank is not heavily planted and I agree with Emile that you may have dosed more trace then what you probably needed. Try to add more plants, get some fast growing varieties and get some KNO3. BTW, if you over dose excel, it could also kill your fish.

[jassz]

Wow, I wish my plants looked like yours! What I am hoping for it plants that thrive rather than die.

I know it sounds like I'm dosing a lot, but it has sort of evolved that way over the last months. I started off quite simply (with no success either), but I have never had plants thrive for very long. It always seemed like something is missing. I still wonder if that is not the case, as I also have a planted brackish tank. I make up the same water for the brackish, except I add salt (of course). I have a water sprite in that tank that is thriving, but dying in the other tank. It made me wonder if the difference is minerals in the salt (Instant Ocean Marine salt is what I use). The only other difference is of course the light and the inhabitants (a lone puffer in the brackish tank).

Anyway, to answer your question on inhabitants, at the moment I have a betta, a rainbow, a clown pleco, 3 ottos, 1 catfish and an aquatic frog. I know it's an odd assortment, but it also evolved that way for numerous reasons. I would love to have a heavily planted tank, but until the plants I do have are thriving it seems pointless to keep adding more plants (I have gone through quite a few, so at times it was quite heavily planted.

I have 2 hang off the edge filters on this tank, one an elite 10 and the other an Aquaclear. One is on the side and the other is on the back. This is my light GroBeam 500 LED Light Strip (1-12W Natural Daylight)

[discuspaul]

OK - let's try & tackle this one or 2 baby steps at a time.
Your light system seems good @ 6 hrs./day. - 25% wcs/weekly are fine.
As an aside, imho the Elite 10 filter is practically useless - what size is your AquaClear ?
You should have at least an AC 20 on your tank, preferably a 30.
Now, this could take a certain amount of experimentation to see what works & how it goes, but my suggestion would be to cease your dosing of all those products, except for (to start with) just a half capful each of Excel & Flourish Comp. Supp. once weekly - nothing else for now - stop the iron & other Seachem products.
Get just a few more plants over time - Ludwigia, Rotala, Hygro, Dwarf Sword, Crypt - whatever - to see how it evolves.
And no offense, but your stock selection leaves something to be desired for a 10 gal tank (Not that this has much to do with your plant problem) - but your rainbow, pleco, catfish ? (kind ?), frog, and even Otos, can grow quite large for a 10 gal tank.
Suggest you re-think your stocking mix over time, if you've a mind & pocketbook to do so.
That's the best I can contribute for now - but would appreciate your thoughts & comments.

[jassz]

Yeah, I knew someone would comment on the ecclectic combination of fish. It just sort of evolved that way. I used to have several of the dwarf neon rainbows in another tank, but over the years the others died and this is the only one left. I should take her back to the FS I suppose, but I've had her so long... The betta chases her, but she is so much faster that you can see she really isn't even worried. The betta has to stop and shimmy so he never moves too fast. The clown pleco is a recent addition... I had gone to the store to get a otto, as one of hte 2 that I had had died with a water change, but the guy convinced me to take the pleco instead (these ones stay pretty small). He actually seems to be doing quite well. But I still wanted an otto. I wanted one, but the lady scooped up 2 so I said I'd take them both. They stay quite small and are such great cleaners. The frog... again, I used to have several in antoher tank but all the others have died or ran away. I've had this frog for years. The catfish is a pepper cory, about an inch and a bit long. I know it seems odd grouping, but they mostly seem to cohabitate fairly well. The tank usually looks like there is no one in the tank, since they are mostly bottom dwellers (even the betta likes the bottom), but I dared not get anyone else for the upper tank since both the rainbow and the betta can be pretty territorial of that space. I also have several nerite snails in there as a clean up crew. I think it would all be fine if I could just get the plants growing a bit better.

So I should start back at the beginning? Do you really think once a week with excel is enough? Should I add more plants before I see if this works?

Thanks!

[discuspaul]

I certainly don't profess to have any botanic or biological skills, but my best guess from the look of your plants is that they've been getting 'too much of a good thing' - overly-heavy fertlization which is causing growth/development problems, and that perhaps you need to get back to simple basics. I may be wrong, & others hopefully will chime in with other views.
As I mentioned before, 10 gals is a small water body, and I think you need to slow down & re-start your plant care. Start off slow with the Excel & other ferts, building up over time & see if your plants can bounce back. And I do feel that adding a few more plants now could help your tank move back in the right direction - since some of the plants you now have may have suffered too much damage & may not make it. That's my 2 cents.

[2wheelsx2]

It might be helpful to post a full tank shot and a summary of your dosing amounts and target amounts so that we can see it at a glance. Your LED plant light, what make/power is it and hung far is it from the plants, etc. Sounds to me like a case of getting advice piecemeal and trying too many things at once.

In additional to providing the above, I would suggest going back to basics and dosing EI with your Excel and doing an 8 hours lighting period depending on the light you have and doing a 50% water change once a week. What is the tank temperature?

[tang daddy]

since your tank is smallish....and you've invested quite abit into the lighting, I have a few recommendations.

1st: why not try some better substrate like ADA, florabase or fluval.
benifits to having use these substrates is dosing less, plants have all the nutrients they need to grow and you have more time to sit back and enjoy rather than being a chemist!

2nd: lots of people have the right advise although one thing Ive learned is planted tanks have to have a balance, and sometimes when the balance is off you can run into lots of problems... too much light equals algae, too many chemicals equals burnt leaves and melting plants, while I know you test as you've stated above how much are you really putting in?? you may be overdosing certain things, also maybe there isnt enough nutrients in your gravel thus starving your plants from food.

I use a simple approach that has worked for me with all my tanks, I have done alot of experimenting and found that less is better. I use ADA soil in all my planted tanks, add water and light, nothing fancy. With the addition of CO2 I find my plants grow like weeds, however the other tanks without CO2 still grow plants, just not as fast. I use to use all sorts of ferts like EI dosing with my ADA soil but found that it was overboard and more often than not ran into problems with algae.

I am not trying to promote ADA like I work for them and there are lots of other substrates out there that grow plants well aswell. I have seen larger tanks with gravel and tons of fish that does the same but as some have said with a smaller tank its hard to have a large fish load to produce waste for plant food!

I would suggest that instead of giving up and putting fake plants in your tank, try to do some research on the substrates I recommended above. Maybe if you decide to switch the substrate and start over, it wont be a big deal for the livestock you have now, just use a seperate tank to hold them with 1 of your 2 filters for the time being. And do a fresh restart with new substrate and plants, I guarantee you will be smiling in a month.