Noob co2 question

[samh]

Hi guys,

My plants are trying to recover from a co2 deficiency, (timer broke and was left on 24/7 when on holidays). It's now been 2 weeks and i'm still not seeing much improvement, in my pogostemon stellata, ammania gracilis and limnophila aromatica.
Ludwigia inc var cuba and hygrophila balsamica and other plants also have brown algae looking stuff on them.

The pogostemon stellata has stunted tips and rotted from the base. slowly sending out new roots

Ammania gracilis just growing leggy/ if at all

Lim. Aromatica lower half of leaves down stem are melting has had a delayed reaction as i've only noticed it 1 week after the co2 ran out.

Nesaea triflora and pedicellata has black stems and lower leaves.

Current specs are,
KH 7
GH 6
ph 5.9 with co2 - drop checker bright lemon yellow..?
ph 7 roughly without
EI dosing in ppm - nitrate 20, phos 3, iron 2,
162w over a 500l / 130g tank 3ft above substrate
Plenty of flow 8x volume

Should i just wait it out or is there something i can do to reduce the plant stress?

Sam

 

[GillesF]

Give your plants the time to readapt to the new changes in C02. In the mean time, I would manually remove algae and bad growth.

 

[samh]

Ok more time. Thanks

 

[samh]

Just some other questions,

My ph is 7.2 normally with co2 on the fish start stressing below 6, so i have it set just before then 6.05 via ph/co2 controller. With my kh being 7 and gh being 6 does this sound like enough co2? it drops this much in an hour. Even with this amount of co2 plants like ammania and pogostemon don't grow really fast.

I also notice my drop checker is bright yellow

Is there anything wrong?

Sam

 

[dutchy]

Ammania and Stellata's don't grow really fast anyway, but reading your CO2 settings I don't really think that this is the problem. I suspect light is too low. You describe plants getting leggy and I had the same problem with my L. Aromatica when using low light.

162w over a 500l / 130g tank 3ft above substrate

Now I'm not going to tell you to use high light, but I think this is not enough, or you have to drop the distance between light and substrate. I'd drop it one foot and see what happens.

 

[samh]

Hey guys, just an update,

I did that i increased my light until i started showing improvement. Everything was growing nicely i even had some pearling, i stopped at 216w at 29" from the substrate. also switched 1 giesseman aquaflora for a 1100k solarmax tube which seemed to help (total of 2 6500k Giesseman midday, 1 Aquaflora, 1 1100k)

This set-up showed the best growth i've ever had especially with L. Aromatica

However,
I did run into a couple of problems recently with my nesaea pedicellata it had crinkled new leaves, some P. Stellata did it aswell also the crowns melted off.
Which i responded to a calcium deficiency so i added a 2 tablespoon of equilibrium as i don't normally dose gh boosters.

BBA and GSA has started to grow on old leaves of most plants - so i started to monitor my phosphate levels and keep them as close to 2 as possible(sometimes 1-3)

I switched back to a giesseman aquaflora instead of the 1100k a week ago, but i'm starting to see melting of lower leaves of some stem plants(L. Aromatica, P. Stellata, R. sp vietnam) and blyxa just up and melted away in a couple of days.

Could this be caused of too much ca,mg? Too hard water, or too much light by putting the giesseman back in, for the co2 to keep up?

Any thoughts would be awesome... i hate plants ha

Sam


Since then i also swit