Ok, I have amazon swords, wysteria, java fern, and one of those top floaters that you can plant (I planted it), and some grass that has some green spots all over it.
Any ideas would be awesome! And sorry the pics arnt that great, I dropped my good camera just before Christmas.... anyone know of a good fujifilm repair shop?? lol
your plants look good in your pics the only brown i can see is on an edge of a leaf on your sword have you hear about using root sticks? and as pittiepride asked what kinda of light and wattage do you use and your light cycle? (hours its on for) your tank is also lightly stocked (in my opinion) and your not getting a lot of fish droppings as natural fertilizer so you might wana pick up a bottle
You probably have enough light to grow java fern and barely keep the wisteria alive and definitely not enough for the grass, if it is an aquatic grass, it appears that it may be a type of semi-aquatic, which means that it may just do nothing untill it dies.
With stock lighting, which is sounds like you have you are very limited. You can start with an all in one fertilizer or you can go to the N-P-K in seperate bottles and fertiize individually, you would need test kits as well. My suggestion, unless you want to go to a high tech type setup, increase your lights, maybe get another small light bar, to bring you just over 1 wpg, get an all purpose fert and see what happens. Also get a nitrate test kit and use this level to determine when to fert or do water changes.
For example, my 30g has two standard 20w light bars on it, one over glass and one that fits where the lid would go down. I have giant hygro, java fern, wisteria and use a multipurpose fert. I have to cut in half my plants every 2 weeks. With just one light (which i have now since one burnt out) I can barely keep the plants alive, they aren't growing, so I am not fertilizing much and the leaves are thinning, algae is forming. So I know they need more light, even for these fast growing, easy keeping species.
Ok, I took my 10 gal tank down (it has a crack in it) and moved the 15w light from that over to my 45. I also got some under root tabs for the swords.
Crossing my fingers that they will start to flourish.
With 55watts now, do I have enough lighting or should I look into getting a double light. And, would the kind of double flourenscent light bar that would be used in indoor house lighting work for on top of my tank? I have one of those that I could sit on top, its white, but I could spray paint it black to match the stand.
Last edited by LittlePrincess; 01-05-2008 at 03:43 PM.
Reason: adding info
The extra wattage will help. Sometimes you can't always tell untill you try. Try what you've got and see wether things perk up. If not you can consider buying another fixture all together. I really like my Coralife fixture, it has two lights with two switches and fans to cool the lights. It sits on a glass tank cover. However, I have more light than my plants can use without CO2 and specific ferts so I only use one light (65W) with a boost of both lights for an hour or two a day.
Some of the high output flourescents can pack more wattage in than the old style so you can consider getting another light that puts out more for the space of the two you have now.
With an all purpose fert and the root tabs for the swords you should be ok. Let us know how it goes.
i use a double light that i got at home depot cheap....well cheap compared to aquarium light prices.lol. though i am thinking of adding another 2... with a bit bluer light... looks like sunshine in my tank and i cant take pics worth a darn, makes everything look yellowish.
omg What is the gourami that is in the third picture! I have one like that but was told by the petstore that he was a fire dwarf gourami of course after I looked on the internet that he wasn't and I havn't figgured out what he is yet!
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