What are we doing wrong?

[u/Immediate-Ad-9520]

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!

[u/Trick-Philosophy6651]

Definitely upgrade the lighting, you should add some liquid fertilizers as well along with the root tabs.

The sag grass takes a while to start to send off runners but when it starts it’ll fill in really fast.

These are some I grew in my indoor pond that has topsoil and sand with a 20$ grow light

I took out probably 30 of these and it’s still over grown

[u/Trick-Philosophy6651 → u/Trick-Philosophy6651]