New Tank. Plants Melting. Please Advise

Hi everybody,

I'm new here on this site but I have spent some time reading through the beginner threads and I really appreciate the expert level advice that many members, including Tom Barr himself, provides. Right now, I really need help as most of my new plants are melting.

I feel as though as I've had black fingers ever since I got into this hobby. I couldn't even keep Anubias alive in a well lit fertilized low tech tank. I finally had enough and decided to dive deep into the aquascaping and planted tank hobby, sparing no expense.

My problem:
I just installed a new high-tech CO2 planted tank in a fishless cycle. More than Half my species of plants are melting/ completely melted away.

Background Information/ Set Up
I followed the esteemed South East Asian aquascaper, Dennis Wong, who takes quite a bit of inspiration from Tom Barr. I watched all 25 of his indepth planted tank videos where he discusses CO2 to nutrition to trimming.

Plants:
When I first set it up, I planted the following tissue cultures:

1. Rotala Rotundafolia
2. Rotala Macandra
3. Hemianthus micranthemoides (Hemianthus Glomeratus)
4. H. Tripartita
5. HC Cuba (dwarf baby tears)
6. Pogostemon Helferi
7. Staurogyne Repens
8. GlossoStigma
9. Ludwigia Sp Red (only non tissue culture plant)

Tank:
My current tank had the dimensions of an ADA 60, so 60cmx30cmx36. So around 15 gal or 57 litres.

Hardscape:
I used garden crate to give shape to the scape and hold the rocks in place
Ohko Stone (dragonstone) was used for the Hardscape

Soil:
As my tank has a very steep slope, I filled in a lot of it with non-aquarium soil
Foundation bottom Layer: Burnt Soil
Mid Layer: Garden Soil with Osmocote Fertiliser
Top Layer: recycled ADA soil (2+ inches) from a previous tank. The previous tank with the ADA was very sparsely planted and only used for 6 months.

Fertilising plan (first plan from Dennis):
Intial fertilisation:
Daily: 2ppm K (from potassium sulfate)
3 times a week: 4ppm NO3 (from Calcium Nitrate as potassium nitrate is illegal in my country)

After the tank stabilsed I planned to introduce:
Daily: 0.05ppm-0.1ppm Fe/ Traces
3 Times a week: Phosphorous (in Potassium Sulfate)

Temperature:
25.5C/78F via Arctica 1/20hp chiller. Measured with a thermometer and it's accurate.

CO2:
between 2-3bps. Between 30-100ppm.
Varied as I kept trying to dial it in, raising and lowering it every 3 or so days.
I had a lot of difficulty in deteriming the CO2 level as the API ph test isn't clear cut. The ph was between 6 and 6.4 and the kh between 3 and 4.
I wasn't too worried about running higher than necessary CO2 as everyone seemed to advocate that the more CO2 the better.

Lighting:
Twinstar 600E. Used by George Farmer. Supposedly provides 50 par of light at the corners of the tank at substrate level. Never tested myself.

Water:
Relatively soft water with low ph used for Water Changes. Did not use RO water. Kh between 2-4 and Ph 7.6.

Filtration:
Eheim Pro 2028. Flow Rate - 1050/hr (277 gal/hr). (perhaps too much flow? is that a thing?)
Viv Intake surface skimmer. No surface scum as a result. High gas exchange and I presum, high O2 levels
Glass Lily pipe outlet.


What happened in the first week:
1. I forgot to add dechlorinator for the first 16 hours. In the mess of setting up my first planted tank, I forgot to add sechem prime.
2. All my plants started to melt EXCEPT H. Tripartita and Hemianthus micranthemoides (Hemianthus Glomeratus). Both of which started to grow at a decent rate. S Repens melted first.
3. Everything else started to melt.
4. I attributed this to the chlorine I forgot to remove.

What I tried to do:
1. I reduced CO2 to 1.5bps (didnt check what the actual ppm was) and reduced lighting hours from 9 hr to 7 hr
2. Doubled the amount of NO3 and K I was dosing, going all in.
3. There was ADA "dust" and decomposing plant bits all over my tank.

Did a water test:
Ammonia (NH4): 4-8ppm
Nitrite- Oppm
Nitrate- 5-10ppm


Second-week problems

Plants introduced:

Topped up some more old plants of:
1. Hemianthus micranthemoides (Hemianthus Glomeratus)
2. Staurogyne Repens
3. Rotala Rotundafolia
Introduced new plants:
1. Monte Carlo
2. AR Mini

1. I did a 30% Water Change and added the new plants. This time I remembered to add Seachem Prime. Immediately, the S Repens started to melt away. This was followed by the Monte Carlo
2. Surprisingly, the Hemianthus micranthemoides started to melt too, even though it was the one of the only 2 plants that were flourishing in the first week. Hc Cuba was actually doing better than Monte Carlo, but is still barely hanging in there.
3. Also surprising, the Rotala Rotundafolia grew really well. They are currently pearling and the pink leaves are starting to show. Pogostemon Helferi from the first planting is doing well now too.
4. AR mini is hanging on as well but not growing and is always covered in ADA dust or brown algae (diatoms).
5. My tank became infested in brown sludge (diatomsy?) and green string algae.

What I tried to do:
1. I did some research into the problem and specifically looked for Tom Barr's Advice. I found info detailing how high Ammonia Levels from a new tank can actually kill off some plant species. (It's a herbicide I belive he said) . As my ammonia levels were quite high (4-8ppm), I started doing 50%+ Water Changes 3 times in the second and third weeks.
2. I also starting P 3 times a week and fe/Traces twice a week

Week 3 Problems

1. Rotala Rotundafolia is now pearling and growing very nicely,
2. H. Tripartita is constantly covered in brown sludge (diatoms?) but looks to be doing fine. The H. Tripartita is not growing as quickly as before.
3. Pogostomen Helferi looks to be doing well, with new "bunches" of leaves growing out.
4. H Cuba, Glosso, H Micranthemoides are just barely hanging on.
5. Rotala Macandra completely melted off in the first week, S Repens completely melted down to the roots in DAYS, Monte Carlo melted down over the second week and Ludwigia melted from roots up to the leaves.

Ammonia is now between 0.25ppm to 1ppm with all the water changes done, but the melting plants are still melting, the brown sludge is increasing, and short green algae keeps taking over the Ohko Stone. Something of note is that my tank has not been clear since the frequent water changes. The water is translucent. I expect it's due to a bacteria bloom?

Please help me fix my tank. Heck, I'm willing to pay whoever can help me and donate to whatever page necessary. I have wasted so much money and time trying to get to the bottom of this. I do not understand how everyone seems to have immediate success with high tech planted tanks for at least the first months whereas more than 2 thirds of my plants are melting away.

Current issues:
1. Brown sludge (diatoms?) growing very quickly. Visible layer on the glass just after being removed 2 days earlier.
2. Most plants melting as discussed.

My theories on the problems:

Too much flow? 18 turnover rate shouldn't be too much right? Well, the rising oxygen bubbles from pearling do not go vertically upwards, they get blown away in the mist of CO2 and O2 gases in the tank from the high flow.

Too much Co2? Ph with CO2 is quite a bit lower than my tap water. In fact, I would not be surprised if my tank water's ph is lower than 6 but my test kit isn't working. Could very low Ph (acidic) levels be killing my plants?

Lurking effects of ammonia. Even though ammonia levels are quite low now due to so (SO) many water changes, perhaps the herbicide effects of ammonia that affected the plants a week ago are still occurring.

Not enough nutrients? I dose 4ppm of K every day and 8ppm of Nitrate three times a week. It's not exactly lean dosing but it isn't Tom Barr level EI either. Dennis Wong (mentioned previously as my primary source of knowledge) has a lot of success with 2ppm K daily and 4ppm Nitrate 3 times a week ONLY.


Doubtful. Even George Farmer uses these lights on high tech tanks. Also, I increased lighting to 9 hrs in week 3 but no changes for the plants.

What do I do next? Please please advise.

Best Wishes and Much Appreciated
Ian
Novice Aquascaper

 

Current state of the tank:

AR Mini hanging on, Pogostemon Helferi and H Tripartita growing but slowly. Note the cloudiness in the tank.


Rotala Rotundafolia is growing well and pearling. The pearling only began in week 3


This is the current state if the tank. The large patches of soil show where there was once H Micranthemoides, Monte Carlo and Glossostigma.


Hardware: Co2 system with a timer, Eheim 2028 filtration and Arctica 1/20hp Chiller.


Hardscape: Only the base and mid layers of burn soil and garden soil with promote plus has been added. The garden crate is used to hold up the ohko stone and give th tank shape.


Soil. There are 3 layers of soil. Burnt soil, Garden soil with osmocote plus and reused Ada soil.

Planting:


First planting


Second planting


3 days after the second planting. Melt is visible. Brown algae is consuming everything

 

I see. Thank you for your advice. How many weeks did you do these very frequent water changes for?

 

Can you please elaborate.

 

Thank you Kya!

 

Thank you for your encouragement and in-depth advice. It's rare to find a community that reassures it's members and provides guidance as well as barreport does.


What I've done

I did four 80% water changes in a row to remove all the organic waste from the 7 tissue culture cups that rotted. It did take a while but I think I got most of the decayed plants out.

I've been doing some tests and it looks like my tank is mostly cycled after 3.5 weeks, with Ammonia and Nitrite at zero and nitrates at 80ppm (before the massive back to back to back to back WCs I just did.) I think it helped that I used some established filter biorings from an older tank in week 2

I also reducing lighting, as per your recommendation, to 6hr/day and have ordered a PH meter online to measure CO2 more accurately. Will be measuring atmospheric equilibrium CO2 as well.

I will be dosing phosphorous more regularly now (I meant Potassium Phosphate).

As my Rotala is flourishing very nicely, I think I'll propagate it around the tank to take up excess organics.

What should I do next?
I'm planning on leaving the tank to mature for another 2-4 weeks and will start planting again once my H Tripartita begins to flourish again. It seems to be a strong plant and has endured a lot but I not growing much now.

I'm assuming that if I starts to grow nicely, it'll be an indication that my tank is ready for other plants.

As for other plants, what should so start with? I don't want to plant a bunch of tissue culture for it to melt on me again and have to clean up the whole mess. Not to mention the growing cost.

These are some plants that I want in my tank

Pearlweed (Hemianthus micranthemoides)
S Repens
Hc Cuba
Monte Carlo
Rotala Macandra Green/ or Red.

I think that it'll be wise to plant pearlweed first and see how it does? It seems to be a decently hardy plant and did grow in my tank during week 1.

Once again, thank you.

Much appreciated,
Ian

 

Thank you for the advice I will keep you updated.

 

Hi.
My plants are doing well now. Even my HC cuba is carpeting and pearling. I don't have a perfect tank and some growth is slower and weirder than I'd like, bit overall, things are going very well.

I'm 90% confident that my plants were dying due to the ammonia spike. Ammonia was between 4-8ppm. I had the impression that plants did fine with ammonia and even enjoyed it as a source of nitrogen.

For one, I assumed this since I had cycled tanks with plants before and they turned out fine. In hindsight those were very hardy plants like anubias and swords. After doing some reading, I have learnt that tissue culture plants are especially sensitive to ammonia and will just melt away. Secondly, I always saw aquascapers plant immediately after laying down the soil/aquasoil on youtube. Eg, The green machine, tropicatank, ADU etc. Thus, I assumed that even though ammonia would be released, that it would be fine. I No longer believe this and am peeved that they would mislead us in that manner. I used a very thick layer of soil, burnt clay and aquasoil so I'm sure I had higher ammonia levels than normal (and those scapers) and those aquascapers, but I still wish they would have included this vital piece of information.

It is worth noting that I increased the nutrients levels in the tank as well, esp Micros, Iron and Phosphorous. I raised them to EI levels. Perhaps this contributed but I strongly doubt that a lack of nutrients was the underlying reason I had plants melting on me in a matter of hours (e.g. Staurogyne Repens).

Other parameters like co2 and light were unchanged. (30-35 ppm co2)

I quickly cycled my tank using media from an old aquarium as well as used seachem stability. I'm not 100% convinced in its efficacy, but many notable aquarists swear by it. Within 2 weeks ammonia was down to 0.

I then bought more tissue culture plants and replanted. Everything survived and is doing well now. I was very very satisfied when my dwarf baby tears (HC Cuba) started to grow.

Hang in there! Half the fun of this hobby is in problem solving.

 

Thank you so much for your guidance.