What am I doing wrong ?

This has been an ongoing problem for me, so I hope someone here has an
answer, every tank I have set-up or ran in the past until now (except for
one) I can not get any plants to grow, nor live past 2-3 weeks. I have done
all what the LFS said to do, I have bought several different bottle of plant
food drops, and still they die.

What could I be missing out on for any plant to die after 2-3 weeks.

I have the usual growlux type fluro on about 8-10 hours a day, regular water
changes, plant food drops, different tanks have different substrate, and of
course fish.

-Andrew

If you only have 1 gro-lux lamp running too little light comes to mind. Try
to fit in an extra daylight bulb (best bang for the buck IMHO). You can keep
the gro-lux, though it's not only good for plants but also for algue (ie,
keep a close eye to your tank when upgrading light). If your tank is not
bigger then 40 gallons, you couls also try to use DIY yeast CO2 (a google
search with these terms should provide plenty of info.). Don't use
fertiliser drops untill you actually SEE the plants grow, othersise you are
just acumulating (sp?) the fert. content of the water, then, when you
upgrade your lights, you will probably have an algue bloom.
Try to change 20-30% of the water each week to replenish trace elements in
the watercolumn and remove excess P and N (phosphor and nitrogen molecules).
Limmiting these will hardly effect plant growth but restrict algue growth,
in normal aquarium conditions the fresh supply of P and N would not be a
problem (fish waste).

My advice for now would be to do some waterchanges without fertilisers added
to bring levels to normal, add some root fertiliser at heavy rootfeeding
plants (use clayballs or something like that, as long as it not disolves
into the watercolumn add them near crypts, swords and such..). Then add some
extra lighting, read up about that please, lots of info on the net...
Add diy CO2, you should measure Alkalinity and PH then (again, read up
)and do yourself a favour and buy a Phosphor testkit, try ti keep P as
low as possible (feed lightly, waterchanges). Then, after you see improved
plantgrowth (and you should then) add ** moderate ** amounts of liquid
fertilisers.

Read read read, and then read some more and good luck

Read read read, and then read some more and good luck

I think all beginners should find http://www.thekrib.com very
helpful! If you don't find the answer to your question there, you'll
at least find a link to the answer...
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dave Engle

DFW, TX USA
Independent Associate
Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.
http://www.prepaidlegal.com/go/dengle

"skozzy" wrote in message
...
This has been an ongoing problem for me, so I hope someone here has an
answer, every tank I have set-up or ran in the past until now (except
for
one) I can not get any plants to grow, nor live past 2-3 weeks. I have
done
all what the LFS said to do, I have bought several different bottle of
plant
food drops, and still they die.

What could I be missing out on for any plant to die after 2-3 weeks.
snip

For plants to be dying off so quickly, your water temperature, pH or gH
might be at an extreme. Plants which are substrate feeders might not be
adapting quick enough. Try some plants which will not take as long to
establish themselves. Pennywort feeds from the water column, so would
have more of a chance by feeding itself right away while adapting to your
conditions. Ferns, moss & Hornwort are other possibilities.

NetMax


-Andrew

NetMax wrote:
"skozzy" wrote in message
...
This has been an ongoing problem for me, so I hope someone here has
an answer, every tank I have set-up or ran in the past until now
(except for one) I can not get any plants to grow, nor live past 2-3
weeks. I have done all what the LFS said to do, I have bought
several different bottle of plant food drops, and still they die.

What could I be missing out on for any plant to die after 2-3 weeks.
snip

For plants to be dying off so quickly, your water temperature, pH or
gH might be at an extreme. Plants which are substrate feeders might
not be adapting quick enough. Try some plants which will not take as
long to establish themselves. Pennywort feeds from the water column,
so would have more of a chance by feeding itself right away while
adapting to your conditions. Ferns, moss & Hornwort are other
possibilities.

NetMax


-Andrew

I will check out my LFS if they have any of these and see how much luck I
have.