I’m close to giving up with live plants, they just don’t thrive. I use fluval stratum topped with gravel. The shop near me said not to waste money on anything else if I have the stratum that’s enough.
What can I do, also the stratum gets pulled to the top whenever I redo my tank so then that gets agitated and settled on all my plants and wood etc and makes my tank look dull, I cap it some more but now I’m like 3 inches of substrate.
I’m a bit lost and close to giving up with my tank, it’s been about a year and just can’t get it to thrive.
I’ve just done a water change and moved some plants that’s why the water is not clear.
Posted by goofygoober0905
14 Comments
Sorry to hear that, OP. Have you tried not moving your plants at all? They need time to take roots and I find that the “set and forget” method works, especially with Fluval Stratum. Is there any reason as to why you keep moving your plants/ redoing your tank? How is your lighting?
Maybe you need a better light
Do you have a decent one? Is it on for long enough and strong enough to reach the bottom of your tank?
Moving plants absolutely stunts plant growth. They take a while to get established after moving. Then they start growing, slowly. Especially in an aquarium without CO2 injection.
Your plants actually look great all things considering.
Looks like the tall one in the back is new with emersed grown leaves.
You said it in the second and last sentence. It sounds like you are messing with everything too much. Your lights seem a bit on the darker side (which could be because of the cloudiness). Fluval is king, that is correct. Plants can take months to set up, and pulling them to move them “resets” their cycles, they have to spend more time rooting themselves.
I suggest, leaving it alone. Check your light, light cycles, root vs column feeders, and dose accordingly.
Not sure what you are trying to do, but with enough clean up crew, you shouldn’t have to be doing much to your tank outside of slight water changes.
Dont do C02, Its not needed. Maybe if you wanted to dabble after you get everything laying flat to boost growth maybe.
TLDR: Light looks inadequate, and you are moving things around to much
Try a fast growing plant like rotala or star grass, once mine started growing taller i cut it in half and plant the tops. After a while it became a dense bush.
Having only a couple plants can make it tough for the plants to thrive. I dont know why, but when I started my second tank I put a ton of plants in at once and it was way easier to get going than my first tank which was planted very sparsley.
This was me a few months ago. I had a few different issues 1. I was burrying all my plants to deep, maybe look up the type of plants you have and see if planting them to deep could he an issue. 2. My light SUCKED, what is your light wattage/how long do you keep it on? 3. I had to try lots of different kinds to see what would actually survive in my tank, so far corco screw val, anibis and pink water Lillie’s do best. Don’t give up! Look on DAKU aquatics website he has great plants for decent price and they come in really good shape. Maybe the plants you’re buying are already in badish shape and the move shocks them? I almost gave up on live plants and i just tunned something’s and now my tank is looking good. Maybe watch girl talks fish she has a vid on plants
Hello! I haven’t had much success with plants either. Most of them slowly decline after a month or so, and the only ones that consistently do well for me are Amazon swords. They’re very hardy plants. I don’t use fertilizers or nutrient-rich substrates, just plain gravel and ambient light.
A lot of it comes down to the specific plants you’re trying to keep. Some species are much more tolerant of a wide range of conditions, while others need more precise parameters to really thrive. For example, certain plants struggle in alkaline or hard water, while others handle it just fine. Like terrestrial plants, each species has its own preferences.
The tank looks great. The biggest problem is probably just that you’re bothering the plants too much.
Have you tried aquarium safe fertilizers like root tabs or the liquid you put into the tank? I was having a lot of issues as well… started dosing them and now i have trimmed and shared some with my son for his tank
Being that literally EVERYONE has a different tank, different water conditions, different substrate, different lighting types and schedules, different stocking and feeding schedules, different filtration setups, it’s impossible to generalize. I have a low tech, out of the box aquarium with built in light, gravel substrate, nothing fancy and grow plants just fine. Having said that, they were/are not all equal in growth habit. I learned over time which ones did best in “MY” tank and stuck with those varieties, and eliminated the ones that didn’t do so well. Also, I don’t disturb the rooted ones once they are in situ. Just trim when necessary
With heavy root feeding plants, you can get fertilizer tabs or make fertilizer capsules yourself and bury them underneath the plant and that will provide extra nutrition. Like what everyone else is saying you need to stop moving the plants a lot of times plants that they sell in stores are grown out of the water and when you submerge them completely in water, they need to read themselves of those leaves and grow out new ones which can take several months easily
The plants all seem fine to me, I would just give them some time to settle in and give them sort of fertilizer.
You should really watch “father fish” on YouTube. I now have amazing aquariums with little to no maintenance.
maybe im the only one who dont have any plants in my aquarium but so far my fish are happy, water is clear, i do 2 weeks water change, vacuuming the gravel.. so far so good no plants needed..