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re:Plants just hanging on in 10g

>From: david at joshua_medimg.emory.edu (C. David Cooke)
>
>I have a 10 gallon in my office, where the plants are just hangin' on.
Tank
>specs:  ph 6.8, total hardness ~120ppm, total alkalinity ~20 ppm, temp 78,
>1 15watt aqua-glo (minimal, I know but all that will fit in the hood for
now),
>5ml of Kent's freshwater plant supplement twice a week; fish load 5 gold
>tetras, 1 neon, 2 albino cory's, 1 oto.  I would call this a sparsely to
>somewhat moderately planted tank, depending on your definition :>) java
fern,
>hygrophila difformis (sp?), hygrophila angustifolia, and micro sword.  All
of
>the plants are just kind-of holding their own, and maybe even slowly
>diminishing.  I am filtering with an aqua-clear jr., no carbon, no CO2,
and
>admittedly sparse partial water changes.  Any idea why the plants seem to
be
>doing so poorly?

One thing to do is to make sure your canopy is clean and isn't blocking the
light with carbonate deposits.

Another thing you can do is to go up to a 15w Power-Glo.  They put out a
brighter light than the Aqua-Glo tubes.  

One last things that you might do is lower your water level as much as half
way.  Your fish load might be too much for this, but your plants will
probably grow much faster with the tripled light intensity and ready access
to CO2 that they will get when growing emersed.

There is also a slight chance that you might be over fertilizing, but
usually the fish will show this before the plants unless your nitrates are
off the scale.

David W. Webb           Enterprise Computing
Texas Instruments Inc.  Dallas, TX USA
(214) 575-3443 (voice)  MSGID:       DAWB
(214) 575-4853 (fax)    Internet:    dwebb at ti_com
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