# Plant Leaves Turning Brown



## Suess00

I bought two plants couple of weeks ago to put into my 75 gallon tank which was cycled if that makes any difference for plants I dont know lol.

I bought two medium-small sized plants and they were doing great but the last couple of days on the plants is getting a brown leave. I dont know the name of the plants but I bought them at Petsmart, I will post pics of both of them later tonight. 

The only kind of plant care that i did was put in "Plant Care Solutions Water Conditioning Fizz tabs Plust Trace Elements" from Jungle. The first week i put a little more then told and the second week i put in regular amount as told once a week.

The other plant is getting two tiny holes in one of the leaves but besides that looks green as it can be, also the plant that is having the brown leave the other leaves are green as it can be.

My water levels are where they are supposed to be and my inhabs. for the tank is a two inch peac_ock eel and one albino sucker fish 3inch.

What am I doing wrong and what can i do to fix this?

Thanks

Chris


----------



## ThatFishKid

It's very likely that its just the natural dying of the occasional leaf (makes room for new ones). Also, from what I've seen, some plants tend to "die off" when first placed in a tank, but then they return to life once adjusted. If it's not either of these, then it could be a lack of lighting. What's the WPG (whats per gallon) on your tank?
maybe substrate too


----------



## Suess00

Well I got two florescent lights on top and the tank is kind of near the window...

How would i find out the watts per gallon?

My tank is half substrate(smooth rocks right) for my eel and the other half is black and red rocks


----------



## Guest

Do you have 2 4ft lights or 2 2ft lights?

4ft fluorescent bulbs are 40watts and 2ft are 18 or 20 watts. 

If you have 2 4ft bulbs, then you are doing better than if you have 2 18 or 20 watt bulbs. 

Plants have varying lighting needs. Lower light plants can survive and thrive in lighting as low as 1 watt per gallon (which would be 75 watts over your tank). If you have 2 40 watt bulbs then you have just over 1 watt per gallon, meaning that you'd have a handful of plant choices that would do fine in your lighting.

If you only have 36 or 40 watts over the tank, then you won't find hardly any plants that would make it in that lighting and would be better off (if you want to have live plants) getting another light fixture. As you can see, 40 watts over a 75g tank is about 0.5 watts per gallon, which is very low.


The watt per gallon rule isn't a great one, but its fine for a baseline to figure out what your lighting can (or can't) grow.


----------



## Suess00

i got 2 two foot lights...how would i add another bulb?


----------



## ThatFishKid

on the bulb it should say the watts. add those to find the total wattage. divide the total wats by the gallons of water. then you have haw many wats per gallon there are. It's best to have atleast 2 watts per gallon or more
EDIT: if you don't use Co2 (like me) then you may need a bit more light than average.


----------



## Guest

You'll have to get a whole new fixture to add wattage. You could add more fixtures (not bulbs), but it wouldn't increase your wattage enough, IMO.


----------



## ThatFishKid

very true......that would be why the 80-90 WPG on my 29g doesn't seem to be working..... I wish a weren't so cheep.


----------



## Suess00

If i added Co2 would that help out and would not have to buy another fixture?


----------



## Suess00

I got a question for ThatFishKid what kind of water conditions do you need for your dragon goby?

Also back to topic if i put those air bubles inside the tank would that help any at all?


----------



## Guest

Nope, adding co2 with that amount of light would do next to nothing. CO2 need increases as the lighting goes up, so you don't have to inject co2 until you get around 3 watts per gallon. 

Air pumps won't make up for lack of lighting. Sorry!


----------



## ThatFishKid

justonemore20 would be the one to ask about co2, but i think you would still need a good bit of light.
As for the dragon goby.....he's brackish. they can survive in freshwater, but they show nice navy blue, green, yellow, and powder blue when in pure brackish, making them much more happy and healthy. If you're even a little new to the hobby then you really don't want one..not quite sure of my brackish paramms. , but since he'll get 2 feet long, and i can't afford a big tank, I'm going to try to sell him at the auction tomorrow. When you buy them at petsmart they are listed as beginner-moderate...but that's a load of crock. But I digress. they are AWESOME fish....just not for most home aquariums.


----------



## Suess00

thanks for the info. At our Petsmart they are labeled Expert along with the BlackKnife which I had many people tell me is easy to take care of and also Petsmart says they will only get 12" so they are probably wrong like always lol

C02 is different then the air bubbles that you can put in your tank right or are they the same thing? I just dont want my plants to die

If i increase the amount of Plant nutrition tablets that I put in my tank will that help out any or will it have no effects at all?


----------



## RSidetrack

Kristin (JustOneMore20) is definitely the one to talk to about CO2 and plants. She helped me out a good bit and now my plants are looking great.

I got my plants from Petsmart as well - while some of them turned out to not be aquatic at all :-(, the others were looking pretty miserable and she helped me figure out the wattage needs. 

Also - just to mention - I had several brown leaves at first, trimmed them off and even trimmed the brown tips that some got off (since it seemed to get fuzzy stuff on them). Once I got my new light up and running my plants have been thriving. I went and put 75 watts (compared to 18 watts) over my 29 gallon.

I also use a DIY CO2 system, the plants are growing, how much being a result from CO2 I do not know.

BTW, lighting ballasts and such can be found at: www.hellolights.com - a great site IMO which is where I got my VHO (very high output) ballast for my 2 foot tube - 1x75w.


----------



## Suess00

thanks it is helping out alot. I will post some picture as soon as i find my adapter to my camera to connect it to my PC. 

I will keep yal updated


----------



## Guest

Suess00 said:


> thanks for the info. At our Petsmart they are labeled Expert along with the BlackKnife which I had many people tell me is easy to take care of and also Petsmart says they will only get 12" so they are probably wrong like always lol
> 
> C02 is different then the air bubbles that you can put in your tank right or are they the same thing? I just dont want my plants to die
> 
> If i increase the amount of Plant nutrition tablets that I put in my tank will that help out any or will it have no effects at all?



CO2 is different from the air bubbles. The air from an air pump is oxygen. CO2 is carbon dioxide and either you use it pure, in a pressurized form, or you can use a yeast/sugar mixture which produces co2 (biproduct). Once you get around 30 gallons though, DIY (yeast method) of CO2 production isn't as effective. You need more co2 the larger water volume you have and unless you have multple 2 liter bottles (like 4-5 on a 75g) you wouldn't be doing much good.

Also, when you have very low lighting, the plants won't grow much, if at all, so the need for co2 won't be very much at all. If they don't grow, they don't use co2.

I really don't think adding nutrients to the tank will help the browning. You have very low lighting and thats the reason the plants aren't doing well.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.


----------



## Suess00

*Update on Plant NEED HELP!!!*

I got some pics of the plant that I am having problems with and its getting worse.

Can anyone figure out what it is or even what plant it is.

Thanks

Chris


----------

