Need Help Saving Weeping Moss And Fissidens Fox

[Suneel]

My weeping moss and fissidens fox are turning browner and browner every day, im trying to figure out how to save them.

Here is the current picture of the tank, you can see the browning at the moss on top and fox at the base of the tree and also at the monte carlo on the floor: https://imgur.com/a/bRUIjOP

Here are my questions:
Is there a way to tell if plant is browning(dieing) or if its from brown algae? ( see attached images )
Can there be too much light for low-mid light plants which could cause them to die? Like the weeping moss at the top?
Does indirect light or direct light from a led light matter?
Is flourish Excel moss safe?
Weeping moss and fissdens fox browning, how can I figure out what is causing it?

Detail for those interested
Tank Specs:
7.9 fluvial ebi nano tank
Black Diamond blasting abrasive– inert substrate
Chichiros 25 watt rgb, dimmed to be approx. 16 watt total. On for 12 hours per day to create enough algae for otos.

Dosing:
2 flourish tabs in soil – replaced every 4-6 months
1/5 cap full of flourish liquid once a week
Flourish excel a few drops daily.

Cycle:
Tank about 1 -1.5 months old. Dosed 4ppm ammonia, then used tetra safe start to cycle. Tested daily and its definitely fully cycled. I recently added in plants + oto catfish.

Residents that matter to this posting:
Flora:
Fissidens Fox
Vesicularia Ferriei Weeping Moss
Fauna:
oto catfish
Soon to house blue dream shrimp

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[snarkingturtle]

Excel is moss safe when used at recommended dosages and light will not kill the moss directly, although it can be smothered by algae (which is not the case here). Brown algae is visible stuff, either fine threads or clinging clumpy powder. I'm not the most experienced, but it's possible the moss is dying because of lack of nutrients. There is very very little macronutrients (N, P, and K) in Flourish Comprehensive (which I am guessing is the Flourish liquid fert you're using). Flourish Comprehensive is basically just trace elements (i.e. it is not ... comprehensive at all). If you plug in your dosage into a nutrient calculator https://rotalabutterfly.com/nutrient-calculator.php you're adding 0.1 ppm nitrate whereas you typically want 5+ppm (50x more) in a planted tank. Many on this forum are dosing 30ppm a week. Adequate P and K are also not being added .. I can't say how much ferts might be leaching from the substrate but it might be very little and only what is in the water column is available to moss since it does not have any roots into the substrate.

 

[Suneel]

First, thank you so much for replying and for such a detailed answer, it was immensely helpful.

For now i stopped excel since it seems like there is a 50/50 shot it'll kill the moss or it wont. Ive been googling for hours and everyone has different opinions, im figuring its better to be safe than sorry and just stop using it. For flourish comprehensive, you are correct this is what i was using. Do you have any recommendations on commonly available ferts with macro nutrients that would balance out the flourish comp? I can handle looking up if they are shrimp safe or not, just hoping you can point me in the right direction. The moss is even more brown today and i cant have c02 in the tank either since its a shrimp breeding tank, so im hoping that dosing more fertilizer is the answer.

The substrate is fully intert but i do have flourish tabs in there.

 

[snarkingturtle]

I am using dry salts that I mix into solution myself (this is much cheaper and not too difficult because nutrient calculators like Rotala Butterfly will determine how much of a salt to add to hit a certain target). Thrive+ is a complete fertilizer that I have used and worked well (until some of the compounds precipitated out). In the UK a lot of people use TNC Complete. I know there are other brands (Tropica has one) but I'm not familiar with them so I'd just be Googling which you can do just as well. You can also get the Flourish N, P, and K products and use them in combination with the Comprehensive but that is about the most expensive and cumbersome way to fertilize a tank. I would suggest that you read some primers on planted tank ferts. There's good intro articles on this site (click the articles tab) and start with:

The Estimative Index Of Dosing, Or No Need For Test Kits
EI Light: For Those Less Techy Folks
Non Co2 Methods
Fertilizer Routines, Which One?

When you go to buy more fertizer, you should probably pick up some more moss because I have my doubts that yours will recover at this point.

 

[Julia Adkins]

All living things need basic nutrients for structure building and internal functioning. Macronutrients such as nitrates, phosphates, potassium, and calcium are important structural components. Micronutrients are involved in the metabolism and use of these nutrients. You need to provide both for the plants to thrive. The least expensive way is to purchase fertilizers in dry form. There is no need to pay for water to predilute these nutrients or to pay to have this same water shipped to you.

 

[Phishless]

Seachem root tabs
Total Nitrogen (N) 0.28%
Available Phosphate (P2O5) 0.17%
Soluble Potash (K2O) 0.16%
Calcium (Ca) 14.9%
Magnesium (Mg) 0.06%
Sulfur (S) 12.2%
Boron (B) 0.029%
Chlorine (Cl) 0.55%
Cobalt (Co) 0.001%
Copper (Cu) 0.001%
Iron (Fe) 2.2%
Manganese (Mn) 0.23%
Molybdenum (Mo) 0.0009%
Sodium (Na) 0.14%
Zinc (Zn) 0.0024%

A lot is missing in the way of macro nutrients with these tabs.

 

[Suneel]

Hi Everyone,

To update those who commented, as well as any who may come across this thread in the future, i figured out the solution.

1. Change of fertilizer, i changed from flourish comprehensive to thriveS and the plants instantly started recovering, especially the weeping moss which started to grow.
2. Stopped dosing flourish excel, it was killing both even when not placed directly on top of the plants
3. Moved the light further away from the moss, once i did this not only did new growth continue but the brown of the plant started to come back to life. I guess it doesn't like intense light, which kind of sucks since its at the top of the tree.

Thanks for everyone's contribution and hope this helps someone in the future who may have the same plants!

Thanks,
Suneel