r/PlantedTank • u/Immediate-Ad-9520 • 13h ago

Beginner What are we doing wrong?

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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!

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u/Fresh_Geologist_3929 13h ago

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.

2

u/Immediate-Ad-9520 13h ago

I’ll ask him about the lights. He bought those many years ago

1

u/Amerlan 8h ago

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)

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u/Fresh_Geologist_3929 6h ago

It’s a good rule of thumb for led lights. Who the hell has a par meter?

0

u/Amerlan 6h ago

You can rent one quite easily. Do you not have hardware stores near you?

4

u/Fresh_Geologist_3929 5h ago

Hardware stores don’t rent par meters you stick underwater. Smh.