The leaves grew back but very slowly. The color of the leaves went from dark green to a light green with a yellowish hint. The back of the leave had a slight hint of white. Could this be caused by having too much light for my plants?
Please only people who have real knowledge about aquarium plants answer.
Audrey A
Favorite Answer
This could be happening for a couple of reasons.
Too much light is definately one. Different types of plants have different lighting requirements. A good thing to do is research the type of plants you have to find out what type of light they prefer.
Plants require food too. Even aquarium plants. Another explaination for what is happening is a lack of nutrients, specifically iron. Most aquarium stores, including Petsmart and Petco carry "plant food" in thier aquarium section. There are different mixes, but most have all the nutrients plants need to stay healthy. Look for one that has a balanced ratio, and you should be good.
Another thing that I have found that helps a lot for my aquarium plants is a CO2 diffuser. This infuses much needed carbon dioxide into the water.. which of course is what plants "breathe", resulting in much healthier plants. They in turn release more oxygen into the water, helping the fish as well.
I hope this helps. Good luck!
Zoe
Many plants are grown out of water, emersed, before they a sold. When you move them into your tank (submerged), it shocks them, sometimes causing them to lose all their leaves. Some plants like crypto can take over 2 months to recover fully.
When the leaves do grow back, though, they should look green (or whatever colour they are supposed to be) and healthy.
It is likely not a problem of too much light. How much light do you have, though? Anything between .75 and 2 watts per gallon is fine for most low to mid light plants, and even if you have more than that it shouldn't a problem. If ever you do have high light issues, your plants will look tall and scraggly because they are growing rapidly towards the light, but not pulling enough nutrients from the water.
Do you fertilize your plants? I use Flourish and Flourish Iron in my tanks; Flourish Iron is not always necessary, but plants like Crypto need iron to glow healthily. If you do not fertilize, I suggest you start. Don't follow the directions on the bottle (they are VERY generous, and you'll get algae growth). Rather, start with a little bit (a half-dose) every other week. You can increase until the plants look healthy or until you see minor algae formation, in which case, cut back a little bit.
As for the iron, half-dose as well, and increase if required.
Do you have CO2? If you do have light and lack CO2, you will get poor plant growth. Not all plants require CO2, mind you - "easy" plants like java fern, java moss, amazon sword, vallisneria, and pennywort, for example, do not need CO2.
If you do want to go with CO2, the easiest, cheapest way is a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) reactor.
What you'll need:
2L pop bottle
Electric drill (or souldering iron)
Airline tubing
2 cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking Yeast
Warm Water
A difuser
Take the 2L coke bottle and rinse it. In the cap, drill a hole that is slightly smaller than the width of the airline tubing. Take the airline tubing and cut it an angle so it has a point; poke the point into the hole and pull it through with pliers or your hands. Inside the bottle put the sugar, and then fill it with warm water to about 2" below where the bottle starts to curve in towards the opening of the bottle; let it disolve, then add the yeast. Close the bottle.
At the end of the airline, you'll need a diffuser, which puts the CO2 into the water. You can either just use a CO2 airstone, or you can buy a diffuser on E-bay. Or, if you have a canister filter, you can put the end of the airline into the filter intake and the bubbles will disolve on their way through the canister.
Hopefully these suggestions will improve your plant situation :)
magicman116
No, it's not too much light, it's most likely not enough iron in the water. This is a very common situation in a planted aquarium. A quality aquarium store can help you with an iron supplement. Be sure you take a water sample with you and also have the phosphates checked as they may also be low. While there you may want to replace your light bulb, so be aware of what size you need. If your bulb is more than 6 months old it has lost some of it's intensity and spectrum and isn't quite as good as new.
Please don't be talked into a cheap all purpose plant food for your tank. These are usually loaded with phosphates and nitrates. Not only do you most likely have plenty of those chemicals already in the tank, they also feed algae and cancause plenty of other problems for the tank.
Don't assume a shop knows plants because they sell plants. You want a shop that has at least one planted display tank in the shop and seems to truely love plants.
Anonymous
I don't beleive you can have "too much" light on most plants. There are very few species, such as the Apontogen family of plants that prefer lower light levels. Most plants benefit from very intense light. If anything, you've got the light just right & the plants are missing out on other key nutrients like co2 or iron. Either that, or the light is indeed too low.
I have around 190 watts on my 55 gallon planted tank, and I'm trying to find ways to get more light on it, only there's physically not enough space above the tank to put any more on.
My reccomendation would be to research constructing a DIY co2 reactor with yeast & sugar in 2 litre bottles. Try it for a couple weeks & see if it makes a difference. Usually a working setup can be assembled for under $15 in materials.
Anonymous
Without going into too much detail, it does sound like the typical emersed=>submerged transition many plants go through as they are grown emersed by most nurseries (including nature). Knowing what kind of plant you have would really help. But most emersed growth is darker and the leaves differ in shape too from submerged growth. Rooting takes it's time too and it's toll on existing leaves, if you have new growth occurring this is a good sign and you'll likely be able to tell more from observing the new growth than the old should any deficiencies or abundancies really exist.
As for too much light, it's possible, but I doubt it as you'd know (your wallet would know too) if you have "that much" light on your tank. My brightest tank to date is 7 watts per gallon and while algae problems can be a pain at these levels if you make a mistake, none of the plants I used had any negative reactions to the amount of light.
As others noted, a CO2 setup of some kind is always great for a planted tank. Although I don't feel this is related to your problem it can certainly make your plants healthier overall and allow you to keep some plants that otherwise would not be an option for you. If you like you can refer to my article on DIY or Pressurised CO2 here:
http://www.gpodio.com/articles.asp
Hope that helps