# Fertilizer causing cloudy water?



## TripleP (Aug 7, 2015)

I am still just venturing into live plants and I already feel like I am messing up. Long story short, about 2 weeks ago I got two amazon swords and some dwarf hairgrass. In the last week they have shown progressive yellowing. I read online that this could mean they need more iron so yesterday I got some API root tabs with iron and put them in the gravel when I did a water change last night. Today the tanks water has been super cloudy and shows no sign of clearing up. Should I be concerned? Is it possible this could cause any harm to my betta? And what should I do about it? I guess if it's not harming him I could leave it be another day or so, but I really hate seeing it so cloudy. Please help!

Also, as a side note, do you have any recommendations for plants in my tank? Its a 6 gallon filtered tank with just my betta. I am currently waiting on an additional light that I ordered, once it gets here I will have 2 watts per gallon. I dont have a Co2 system but do have Seachem Excel on the way to help with Co2 if needed.


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## Olivia27 (Nov 26, 2015)

The yellowing might simply mean they're adjusting  you should see that within a week or so they'd start growing back. 

Personally I don't use API's root tabs, but mine never did anything to the water so that's pretty weird. Oh and not all plants like Excel. Some don't do well with it at all. And I doubt you need a CO2 system unless you have a very, very needy plant. 

Oh and look what I found on an aquatic plant blog  

_Its not uncommon for some Amazon Sword leaves to begin to die soon after being added to a tank. If this happens, don’t panic. Just gently trim the dead or dying leaves at the stem from the bottom of the plant. As long as all other conditions are proper, the plant should adjust to its new home and begin to grow new leaves._

I can't find the same for dwarf hairgrass but look what I found about API root tabs:

http://www.myaquariumclub.com/api-root-tabs-277198.html


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## TripleP (Aug 7, 2015)

Thanks so much for the information! When looking closely at my substrate this morning I saw what looked like broken up pieces of the root tab. I believe what may have happened is when I first added the new water to the tank I may have done it a little too forcefully and it stired that one up. The cloudiness still hasn't gone down so I am going to do another water change tonight and maybe that will help some.

May I ask, what kind of root tabs do you use? I am sure there are better ones out there than the API ones but they are all my Petsmart had. 

Thanks for the information about the Excel. I had read that somewhere but I have read so much I can't remember which plants it mentioned so I will check it out again. I think I am going to start another thread to specifically get help with what plants I may could add. Thanks again for all the help!


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## Olivia27 (Nov 26, 2015)

I use Osmocote Plus. I'll be honest with you though I can't find root tabs anywhere I go here, so I searched for "root tabs" on eBay and this one pops up first. So it's not an educated pick at all. Osmocote has their fertilizers in the form of these tiny green balls, packed into a transparent capsule. Their 50-capsule pack is $5.39 off eBay. Anyway I pushed the capsule into this... white fuzzy substrate thing where my live plants' roots grow, and then the capsule will melt. The green balls will slowly get smaller and smaller. They last more than a couple of days. So I suppose this thing is the exact opposite of API root tabs that dissolve in an instant. My only complaint is that this thing doesn't have an exact dosing guide, so I can only learn via trial and error  must say I definitely see growth in my microswords though! Can't be sure about Anubias since they're super slow growers


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## Ximirokerney (May 29, 2020)

I just did the same mistake


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## AbigailMcLeans (May 29, 2020)

It might not be anything like a ''mistake''. Just like a guys said above, this might mean that the plants are still adjusting. However it is just a maybe you know. I am not the best specialist in this domain so i couldn't actually tell you how you should solve this.


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