Live plants have not being doing so well in my tank so far, can someone help me understand why?
Here's my setup:
- 7-gallon tank
- 14-watt fluorescent bulb, on for 12-14 hours a day
- 2.5" of eco-complete substrate with 0.5 - 1" of gravel on top
- I have 1 guppy and some snails
- no CO2 injection
- I fertilize with Flourish "comprehensive supplement for the planted aquarium" after each weekly water change.
- My pH is 8
- gH and kH are both at the lowest possible reading
This tank has been set up for about 3 months. Anubias nana has done well so far but my other plants have gradually turned brown and lost leaves. Foxtail was the first to go. Baby's tears looked good for a while longer but now it is starting to lose leaves too. The lowest leaves turn brown and then become trasparent.
Today I moved the tank across the room to the window, where it will get a lot of indirect light all day and about half an hour of direct light in the afternoon (since the plants that died so far seem to have higher light requirements than anubias nana, I was thinking maybe more light will help). Also, after reading some of the other threads today, I removed the carbon cartridge from my filter and just left the spongy cartridge (whatever it's called).
Do you think the changes I made today will help my plants? If not, what else should I do? Ideally I would like this tank to stay low-tech, maybe I am just not picking the right plants for a low-tech tank.
Here's my setup:
- 7-gallon tank
- 14-watt fluorescent bulb, on for 12-14 hours a day
- 2.5" of eco-complete substrate with 0.5 - 1" of gravel on top
- I have 1 guppy and some snails
- no CO2 injection
- I fertilize with Flourish "comprehensive supplement for the planted aquarium" after each weekly water change.
- My pH is 8
- gH and kH are both at the lowest possible reading
This tank has been set up for about 3 months. Anubias nana has done well so far but my other plants have gradually turned brown and lost leaves. Foxtail was the first to go. Baby's tears looked good for a while longer but now it is starting to lose leaves too. The lowest leaves turn brown and then become trasparent.
Today I moved the tank across the room to the window, where it will get a lot of indirect light all day and about half an hour of direct light in the afternoon (since the plants that died so far seem to have higher light requirements than anubias nana, I was thinking maybe more light will help). Also, after reading some of the other threads today, I removed the carbon cartridge from my filter and just left the spongy cartridge (whatever it's called).
Do you think the changes I made today will help my plants? If not, what else should I do? Ideally I would like this tank to stay low-tech, maybe I am just not picking the right plants for a low-tech tank.