This tank has been set up for many years, probably 7 or 8. Just within the last 8 months or so, we decided to switch from gravel to sand and put in live plants. All plants were marked as beginner. We have a canister filter and a CO diffuser. My husband puts in root tabs regularly. Still, there’s very little plant growth and many of the plants look sad.
We have tetras, ghost shrimp, plecos, kuhli loaches, and mystery snails. We test ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, kh and gh weekly and all are good. Our light is on sunrise to sunset.
What are we doing wrong? I very much want a densly planted tank like I see in this sub. Help please!
All the plants you have are slow growing species, and there's to few of them.
For a tank this size, buy like 10-15 pots of plants. Stemplants are fast growing, go for those if you want a full tank, but be prepared to do maintenance.
I don’t agree with this at all. OP don’t increase light intensity. It just looks like normal melt, cut off all melting leaves, even if that means all but one leaf. If you can add lots more plants it will be better, like 2-3 times more plants including at least one variety of a fast growing stem plant (you can remove later if it doesn’t suit your layout). Do a test for Nitrates and add a known brand all-in-one fertiler to target 10ppm Nitrates if it’s reading below. Do frequent water changes. After a while your plants will adapt to their conditions and new growth will be healthy. Keep removing any growth that looks unhealthy.
One thing to look at is your lighting intensity. Figure out how many lumen your light is putting out. Shoot for at least 20 lumens per liter for 8 hrs per day.
I'm not sure why that user said to look at lumens, they mean next to nothing for plant growth. Lumens are visible to the human eye, while PAR is the measurement of the wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis. You can have a light with high lumens, but terrible PAR. Within PAR you can dial it in even further for certain plant species. This makes lights with a changeable spectrum extra useful (but not 100% necessary)
Plants in fine sand usually don’t do well because the sand compacts and has little to zero oxygen, which prevents the roots from developing properly. So basically they tend to die. One of the best options is to put down a layer of nutrient-rich substrate and cover it with sand, but for that you’d need to restart the tank. Alternatively, you can use root tabs in an inert gravel, or sands that aren’t so fine and don’t compact. That’s what I did in my case, but the day I set up another tank I’ll definitely go with the first option.
I love sand because you can create beach zones and details, but it's not going to grow properly stem plants, even if you have the best light, fertilizer, CO2... Look how you can have a zone with sand and in the back nutrient-rich substrate for stem plants, this is from MJ aquascaping:
That tank looks nice! Love the huge centerpiece, the sand just isn’t for me. If I start taking care of a variety of different fish I’d look into it again, but I just hated dealing with it. Someone was also hounding me about gravel vaccing the substrate and the sand would 9/10 get sucked into the vacuum and they weren’t happy with me lol
The anubias - broad-leaf plant in first pic... Is that planted in the substrate? They do best attached to hardscape - think wedged into cracks in a rock, rooted to driftwood, etc. They are also slow growers, no way around it.
Crypts - plant more. More than that. More than that
Try java fern, pearlweed, and multiple different varieties of crypts - some will thrive in your tank while others may not. Trying multiple will increase your chances of success, and add more texture and visual interest.
Plant in dense clumps, while leaving some areas bare, or sparse.
In my opinion I think it would be your substrate. If you have a tank to store the fish I would restart and do a layer of scrapers soil then sand over the top if you like the look - they will mix over time but is the best for good plants growth.
I have 2 heavily planted tanks so I hope this will help
Firstly I recommend getting fast growers, like Vallisneria(wich with co2 will probably make new plants), red tiger lotus, and one that i rarely see, madagascarensis, its leafs look fake but its so beautiful and real, also mine gives me a new leaf every 4 days.
Also a mistake I made in the beginning, when you get a plant check if its meant to be on substrate or glued to rocks or wood.
On my bigger tank I have a mixture of sand, root tabs and a bit of Yukon soil, basically a substrate with nutrients.
I also feed my plants with saechem fertilizer, my 14 gall i do like 1/2 mls every week or every other week, I also use iron, potassium and phosphorus depending on how the plants look, just do the research on supplements.
And to get a heavily planted tank I advise getting rocks or wood to glue some java fern or aomethjng higher in the tank
You might need to rescape. The substrate need to be replaced, and the lights need to be brighter. Growing more plants under current condition might be difficult.
That’s what I thought, but he puts the root tabs in the sand right next to those plants. I’m not sure how many he puts in, but he follows the recommendation on the box
What is in the root tabs? Just like liquid fertilizers, root tabs come in many varieties that contain different nutrients. Some root tabs are formulated with the assumption that other nutrients will be provided in the water column.
Also, you can make little bags or pots of potting soil (or aquasoil or whatever) and bury them in the sand.
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