Plant difficulties

"blair thompson" wrote in message
...
I used to be able to propagate plants in my tank. Not the really
demanding ones, but the duckweed, etc., but now, absolute NOTHING
thrives in my 20 gallon tank. The fish seem happy enough however.

Our water is fairly soft, and I pay attention to the PH, though it
tends to run towards acid... 6.4 when I tested it today.

This is too low for many aquarium plants.

I use an
outside box filter (Eheim) which doesn't give a whole lot of aeration,
though the fish are not gasping. A couple of sprigs of Hygrophila
Polysperma as floaters have just "passed away".
I was giving the tank
at least 8 hours of fluorescent light per day, Water changes of about
25% weekly.I was told by a LFS that this plant is pretty hard to
destroy, but for me, no problem!

Before buying any aquarium plants it's best to see what PH they need to
thrive. My Hygro' thrives at 7.4, the PH of my tanks now that I add rain
water. Don't forget to fertilize them with a good aquarium plant
fertilizer. My lights are on 12 hrs a day.

I have 4 corys, a pair of Siamese algae eaters, 4 neons and 4 cherry
barbs. Down to one solitary male guppy now.

Guppies do better in water over PH 7 and slightly hard to hard water - in my
experience.

Should I try a plant supplement, get a Gro-Lux tube or what?.
Bulletproof plant suggestions would be appreciated. Wouldn't mind
repopulating with some more livebearers, so some sort of
surface-floating plant to provide a a safe haven for fry would be
preferable.

Just a suggestion but I'd get that water PH up a little more. Is that what
comes out of your tap?


This aquatic brown thumb needs advice. Thanks.
Blair.
--

RM....
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
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