Help: what to do next to save my plants?

[janesc2003]

Hi, there:

Here are some basic parameters of my 65G tank: PH 7.5 (while tab water ph 6.8), KH 3 degrees, temperature 73 F(used to be 76), lighting (2X96W, 10,000K coralife bulbs), plain gravel with 8 root tabs tablets underneath.

I've got 1 java fern (brown holes all over some leaves and decaying after I added in flourish and excel), some java moss ( looks not that bad but not growing), hornwort (dropping needles and at least 50% died within these two weeks after fertilizing with excel and flourish）. Some other floating plants like frogbit melt away.

I really don't know what I can do next to save my plants. Some member suggested I should lower ph down to 6.8. The staff of J&L told me it's better not to adjust my ph. It made me so confused. I know I'd better replace the bulbs I'm currently using. But what else? Please help me out! Thanks in advance.

Jane

[roadrunner]

I'm not an expert, but from my personal experience, it looks you're low on nitrates and potassium and you may have high levels of phosphate. I don't think there is a test for potassium, but you can test your nitrates and phosphate and you should look into dry ferts dosing that has been explained in the sticky in this section. This chart should help explain.
Aquarium Plants Deficiency | Aquariums Life

[AquaSox]

Do you have any pictures of the situation?

[janesc2003]

java fern01.JPG
plant01.JPG
plant02.JPG
hornwort.JPG

[Atom]

Jane, you may want to check my thread a few threads below yours. It looks like we have a very similar problem. I'm told it is because I'm lacking macros. There were a lot of helpful tips from other members in my thread.

[AquaSox]

A picture truly is worth a thousand words. Now I can see what at least half the problem is: the Anubias and java fern rhizomes are buried in the substrate/gravel. These plants are epiphytes and the rhizomes will rot and the plants will die unless you've anchored them to wood or rock. You could also place these plants on the gravel, being careful not to bury the rhizome and holding the roots down with some small rocks. (BTW the rhizome is the linear structure that produces the leaves).

Also if your plants are new they may be melting because your water parameters are different than where you got them from. It will take a while for the new plant to acclimate to your aquarium.

[janesc2003]

I checked atom's thread and talked to Patrick of Canadian aquarium. According to Patrick, my tank's got a higher PH possibly due to the plain gravel substrate (for I tested the PH of my tap water 6.8, tap water with 1/4 cup clean gravel 7.2 and tank water 7.6). Patrick suggested that I should either add pressurized CO2 setup, replace all my current substrate with another substrate that wouldn't affect PH or I can use acid buffer. If it's the case, I'm wondering if there's anyone here who has pressurized CO2 setup for sale? It's quite expensive to buy it new. Any other suggestions? Thanks.

[AquaSox]

All of your plants will tolerate a pH of 7.6. Your pH is fine...I wouldn't worry about it unless it's fluctuating wildly.

CO2 is completely unnecessary in your case. You could use it to target a lower pH, but these plants do not require CO2 supplementation at all. Again, the plants you have are very "low-tech" friendly.

[cpool]

Yup it looks like you are lacking macro fertz, and the good news is they are cheap. Patrick also sells them. For something like $15 you can have a several year supply.

[Captured Moments]

Your plants are in pretty bad shape but you should be able to recover them if they start having the right conditions. I don't think the PH has anything to do with your situation. I think your plant problem is nutrient related. I know your lights are 10000 K but you should still be able to grow them well and from what I recall the wattage is sufficient for these types of plants. As for carbon, well you said you started dosing Flourish Excel so that takes care of that.

Nutrients:
Your types of plants (fern/anubias/floating hornwort) don't take the nutrients from the substrate so adding the ferts spikes in the gravel is not going to help. Having a substrate made for plants is not going to help you much either. Your type of plants will take the nutrients from the water column. You need to dose the water column with both Macro (Nitrate, Potassium, Phosphate) and Micro (trace elements). Flourish is mainly micro and I think a few people has mentioned that you need to dose Macro since it seems your plants are lacking most likely Nitrate in this case. You can buy Seachem Nitrogen, Seachem Phosphorus, Seachem Potassium but that is expensive. Cheapest would be to get the dry powders (KNO3, Kh2PO4, K2SO4) from Patrick as cpool mentioned above.

For these easy plants, you don't need Co2 or expensive substrate.. maybe something to consider later as you want to progress into more difficult and various other types of plants.