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Re: Plants are not as green! Help!



>I've been running my 25 gallon (100 litres) heavily planted, with a DIY
>yeast CO2,  for 5 weeks now.  I wonder there is a problem in my tank as
>the
>plants are not as green, look very yellowish! Is that because I add too
>little liquid fertilizer? (I'm using Tetra Floral Pride.) I began to add 6
>drops daily on the beginning of this 5th week. ( 5 days ago) after I've
>read that yellow plants is dued to the lack of iron and other nutrients.
>Do I have to wait longer for the plants to absorb the nutrients and turn
>green again?

>Also I've another problem with Algae. I've got a green thread-like algae
>floating around the leaves.  Is that because I dose the fertilizer too late
>again? How should I fight with it? I use toothbrush to remove them off
>every day. My tank is now full of yellowing plants and this algae! Please
>help.

Allow me to go out on a limb here..you have a nitrate deficiency and to many
nutrients ;) To confirm otherwise get a nitrate tester and if it reads zero
then you have to either add nitrate supplement or cut back on supplementing
things like iron. How large are the thread like algae leaves? if they are
1-2mm it could be black beard algae, or hair algae but usually hair algae
can grow 8cm, just use a toothbrush to remove that, both are usually because
of excess iron. Algae is caused from what I understand is the plants aren't
using up all the excess nutrients so things like phosphates and iron is
still left in the system, alot of times this is caused by a nitrate
deficiency, and nitrate deficiency's are caused by excess nutrients and not
enough nitrate to create a "balance" if you will, so my suggestion would be
test for nitrate, phosphate is optional, but cut back on your dosing and
dose a little nitrate supplement if you want, but monitor nitrate levels,
once nitrate starts returning then your algae problems will disappear and
growth will turn a lot greener. Also on your plants, if you have any RED
leaves then you know it's a nitrate deficiency, otherwise they turn
yellow-green if not red. Hair and BBA is caused by phosphates and iron as i
understand it. Let me know how it turns out and the results of your test.

- Matt