# Some advice wanted



## Tourmaline (Nov 23, 2015)

I have failed with planted tanks twice already, in my divided 10g. My Duckweed and Salvinia Minima died out completely, my Amazon Sword died very slowly and is almost nothing now, my Water Wisteria died faster than anything else, and all of my Narrow Leaf Java Fern died out. I dosed Seachem Flourish and Seachem Root tabs for the rooted plants, yet they all died with the exception of an Anubias Nana that's apparently impossible to kill.

I started another planted tank, in a lightly filtered, stock LED lighted 2.5g rather than something bigger. It's sand substrate, no dirt (they didn't have a bag small enough). I've bought an Amazon Compacta, an Anubias Nana, an Anubias Congensis, 12 stems of Temple Compacta, and an Amazon Sword that came with two separate plants, one half dead, but it has roots.

Is there any advice anyone can offer me in keeping these plants alive? The LED for this tank was fairly bright, that's the only reason I got the Swords. When I looked up information on Temple Compacta, I didn't get any good information. I stuffed root tabs between all the Temple Compacta and Swords, and I dosed the tank with Seachem Flourish.

Excuse the blurry picture, my phone camera is sort of broken.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

What's your water pH and hardness? Too hard and plants won't fare well at all regardless of if you do everything else right. 

I also recommend dosing Potassium, swords and your temple plant will suck that up like it's nobodies business.

Also, the stock LED's, even though they may seem bright to us, they aren't the correct spectrum. Freshwater plants need light in the red spectrum primarily with a bit of blue and white tossed in. I typically recommend Finnex's StingRay lights for a nice low light tank. I know it's not easy to find new hoods or anything, especially on ones like the Aqueon 2.5 LED kit. The only thing those stocks will grow is a Marimo, Java Fern, and Anubias. The swords and temple will wither if you don't get anyting a little better. You could also just use a small dome light fixture with a mini 13W CFL from Wal-Mart as well and that will give you plenty of light. It doesn't exactly look nice...but, it does get the job done if that's what you want.


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## CollegeBettas (Feb 23, 2016)

Salvinia Minima is the plant I have kept the longest. With the stock LED that came with my 10-gallon, they just barely held on to life. They started to hold up better when I upgraded to a bigger light (not a planted light though). Now with my Stingray they are multiplying too fast. I have to take some out every week. By the end of next month, all my tanks may be full.


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## Tourmaline (Nov 23, 2015)

My pH has been 7.9 for a year now. My water.. It's hard. I don't remember what the measurement was but I know it's hard. 

Could that be the cause of every plant I've had dying? I thought Water Wisteria was a hardy plant, and I haven't been able to keep any alive no matter the lighting. I even killed Crypts, forgot to mention those. But that may have been meds that killed them. 

I'll see what I can do about the lighting. I wish they had a light that would fit under the hood of the tank, it's a Top Fin Mini Bow, I don't think I'll be able to find a glass top for it.

My Salvinia _was_ growing well in a stock rail lighted tank, but all of a sudden, it and all of the duckweed started dying and I had decaying plant matter everywhere. I had to vacuum tons of it out every day. I'm not sure what happened there.


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## CollegeBettas (Feb 23, 2016)

My water here at school is pretty hard. It's around 7.6 or 7.8. With a Minibow, a Stingray or anything would be impossible, you need a standard glass tank for those. But you can make a DIY lid with craft mesh and use a cliplight.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Yeah, it's likely the water. Most plants just can't handle a lot of calcium and magnesium in the water (it's what makes it hard) and end up dying like that :-/

You could also use the SolarFlare 6,700K as well! I use this for my nano tanks and love it! The only issue is that it doesn't have an on/off button which is kind of annoying but if you set it on a timer, you won't need to worry about it. It's a huge suction cup on the back. Trick for suction cups: wet the cup before sticking to the surface, it will hold much better. This way, you don't at least have to worry about using a bigger light to fit on there but you'll still have to find something for a top. You can use saranwrap at first or get a small piece of Plexiglass cut for the top, it shouldn't be that expensive and you can likely get a hole drilled for food and such. It won't look pretty but it will be functional.
Deep Blue SolarFlare Micro Gooseneck LED 6700K Day Light | eBay

As for your water, if you can find someone with RO/DI water to mix in with yours about 50/50 then that's great. If not, you can use Distilled water from the market, a gallon jug isn't too bad to buy. I know it's not ideal though, but it's the best chance your plants have at making it. Unlike if you used all DI water, you won't have to add mineral supplements to it because like RO water, it lacks all minerals and should have a low pH. When you mix your water with the RO or DI water, this will provide all the nutrients and minerals your tank needs. This should lower your pH and hardness by a lot if you do a 50/50 mix. 

I would recommend doing water changes only every other week with maybe just a spot cleaning in between, your plants, once they grow, will take care of your fish and they will get more nutrients. One of the fatal mistakes for plants is over-cleaning as well. I know we always recommend once a week and blah, blah, blah but really, every other week for just one fish with live plants will be more than adequate. This will also save you money on the extra water and all.


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

On the left side, the single leaf and the group right next to it. Are those the sword plants? If so then you should not bury the crown of the root ball. Leave e top just above the substrate.

As for the anubias, make sure to bury just the roots and not the rhizome.

Someone please fact check me as I have not owned sword plants in a while.



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## CollegeBettas (Feb 23, 2016)

@InfiniteGlory That is correct, I believe. I usually glue mine to rocks and place the rocks on the top of the substrate. Then, I tuck the roots under the substrate as best I can, but I am not too great at that part.


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

@CollegeBettas Are you using that method for swords? I have only done that with anubias.


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## Mothercrow (Sep 4, 2016)

InfiniteGlory said:


> On the left side, the single leaf and the group right next to it. Are those the sword plants? If so then you should not bury the crown of the root ball. Leave e top just above the substrate.
> 
> As for the anubias, make sure to bury just the roots and not the rhizome.
> 
> Someone please fact check me as I have not owned sword plants in a while.


This is what I've read. I've had two amazon swords for three months, they did very poorly until I learned that I should expose a little bit of the top of the roots. Now they're green and bushy.


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## Tourmaline (Nov 23, 2015)

Like this or more exposed? Excuse Mr. Nosey.


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

That looks good, just repeat the same on all the swords.

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## Tourmaline (Nov 23, 2015)

I never knew I had to do that, maybe that's why my first Amazon Sword in the formerly planted 10g just sort of withered away over the course of 8 or so months. I wish I had come to the planted section of this forum way sooner, I just felt kind of intimidated by it. :s I was only spurred to try it again by the small tank size. I don't really like tanks under 5 gallons, and I felt that I had to make it up to him (and mostly myself) for sticking him in a small tank by getting him live plants.

I forgot to mention. @lilnaugrim the tank isn't cycled yet. It's only been set up for two days, the tank and betta were an impulse buy. Once it's cycled, I should follow that every other week (or at least until nitrates get too high?) routine, correct? Normal "when ammonia gets to .25" until then?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Honestly, it will cycle faster if you do no water changes and just add Prime daily to keep the fish safe. If you do the 25% at .25ppm, it could prolong the cycle a little more, especially for smaller tanks. Some may disagree with me but it's just what I've found to happen. I just finished my saltwater tank, after finally not touching it, it cycled just fine and everyone is alive so, I can vouch for that at least. Plus, Betta's are hardy as heck so he should be just fine. You could do a small water change if the ammonia gets ridiculously light but for just one fish, he shouldn't make that much ammonia at all.

And yes, just until the nitrates get too high or if that doesn't happen within a month (sometimes it doesn't), then definitely do a change at that point.


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## CollegeBettas (Feb 23, 2016)

InfiniteGlory said:


> @CollegeBettas Are you using that method for swords? I have only done that with anubias.


Not yet. Right now I only have java ferns on rocks and some crypts.

As for cycling, you can get bottled bacteria or just change it when it gets to 1ppm if you are using Prime daily. I think that is what I did when I cycled.


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## Tourmaline (Nov 23, 2015)

Okay, that makes sense. I hope these plants do well this time, they'll help with maintenance at least. Unnamed nosey Betta seems to like them a lot.

I usually change when it gets to .50 (usually every 3 days) and dose Prime every day, I've always cycled that way. I could pick up a small bottle of TSS whenever we restock them, but I'm not sure when we get a shipment of that kind of stuff in. I've used a big bottle once to cycle two 5gs, and now I don't have the patience to cycle normally. :/


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

If you've got a Wal-Mart around, they usually have TSS as well in the fish aisle. Cheaper too which is nice.
Just make sure not to use Prime and TSS together. If you must do a water change then fill a bucket and use Prime 24 hours beforehand, by 24 hours Prime has evaporated and makes it safe to be used again. But during TSS you shouldn't do water changes anyway.


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

CollegeBettas said:


> Not yet. Right now I only have java ferns on rocks and some crypts.
> 
> As for cycling, you can get bottled bacteria or just change it when it gets to 1ppm if you are using Prime daily. I think that is what I did when I cycled.


Never thought to do swords that way. I've usually just planted them and they stayed.


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## InfiniteGlory (Dec 17, 2012)

Tourmaline said:


> I started another planted tank, in a lightly filtered, stock LED lighted 2.5g rather than something bigger. It's sand substrate, no dirt (they didn't have a bag small enough). I've bought an Amazon Compacta, an Anubias Nana, an Anubias Congensis, 12 stems of Temple Compacta, and an Amazon Sword that came with two separate plants, one half dead, but it has roots.


Double check that the Amazon compacta and swords are all above the substrate and they will be fine. The half dead one might recover.

Looks like the temple compacta is an easy to grow stem plant. Just remove the bottom leaves and plant it. I only read a few sites but one did mention that the more light it gets the shorter it might grow. 

Are you familiar on how to do the anubias?



Tourmaline said:


> I never knew I had to do that, maybe that's why my first Amazon Sword in the formerly planted 10g just sort of withered away over the course of 8 or so months. I wish I had come to the planted section of this forum way sooner, I just felt kind of intimidated by it. :s I was only spurred to try it again by the small tank size. I don't really like tanks under 5 gallons, and I felt that I had to make it up to him (and mostly myself) for sticking him in a small tank by getting him live plants.


We all start somewhere. Feel free to ask any question you have. This place is full of great people and knowledge.


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