Plants don't grow

Hi I have a 200 L tank. I have pool filter sand as substrate and I have some plants but my plants don't want to grow and there is a red algae in my fishtank. I dose seachem excel and have three pumps in my water. I use 2 lights from chamberlains, each produce 20 Watt of light. I also live in Pretoria east and they say that the tap water is not good here. Please help if you can and also check the fotos.

 

Hi Buddy.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Pool filter sand don’t contain nutrients to promote healthy plant growth.
And also on a 200l tank you require about 140watt of lighting power as a minimum.
Fish Tank Electrics | Aquarium Tools

 

Lighting seems entirely inadequate for a 200l tank, especially if it's a deep tank.

Also there are many nutrients that won't be dosed if you're only putting in Flourish Excel... which is basically just carbon. Given that you seem to have no nutritious substrate there's actually nothing in your tank for your plants to feed on.

You need to consider a better substrate and consider the 3 macro nutrients NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium). The N is probably OK if your Nitrogen cycle is going (at least for my modest requirements it seems fine), the P depends on what your phosphate levels are... more on that in a moment.... and I dose Potassium. Other things to look at are Iron (likely) and Trace elements (unlikely), I had growth problems due to the plants depleting the Iron in the water within a day or two. PLANTS LOVE IRON! Also my phosphate levels were far too high and that seemed to inhibit plant growth. Phosphate shouldn't be 0 as plants use it, it's fertilizer, but too much can not only cause problems for plants, but can poison your fish... And it can come in via tap water or can build up due to waste in your tank.

I don't know what exactly "they" mean when "they" say your tap water is bad, but I'd guess this could have something to do with high phosphate levels and/or bluegreen algae? You'd have to test your water (or have it tested) for various parameters to know.

Now, the lights: You're using "cool white" bulbs which are really plentiful in all store, but are not what you want to use. Moreover you've gone too low on the lighting as well. My 130L tank has 2x 2ft tubes running it's length... and it's pretty much on the marginal low-end of how much light I actually need. Your tank needs to be lit up like a rich American's house on christmas day.

"Watts" is a very tricky and misleading calculation, but it's safe to say you don't have enough light and it's the wrong colour temp. You need "daylight" 6500K (colour temperature) bulbs, these you will probably NOT find in 99.9% of shops, but most of those shops will happily custom-order them for you and they're not expensive at all. "Cool white" is going to be extremely inefficient at delivering usable light to your plants, IMHO you're mostly wasting electricity if you use them.

 

Thank you for advice. The pumps and seachem excel is fine? So I will get new lights and more and some substrate for plants but its anubias and java fern which are leaf feeders?

 

Either water column or substrate would be an improvement, at the moment you have neither.

 

What is water column?

 

And you maybe know where I can get cheap substrate?

 

What I mean by that is nutrients you add to the water instead of using in substrate.

I wish I did, but sorry no it is a bit steep.

 

@Franske, are your anubias and java planted in the substrate/poolfilter sand?

 

It looks like most of them are planted in the substrate, Anubias and Java Fern should be tied to wood/rocks.
I wouldn't change the pool filter sand, yes it is inert but you can supplement it with root tabs, either buy some commercially available ones or make your own ones with Osmocote.
Of course if you recently won the jack pot and want to splash out on substrate, ADA is the best -lol
Got to agree with the advise given so far, your lighting is very much on the low side.
Having said this, Anubias and Java Fern really are low light requiring plants, but you will struggle with other more demanding plants.
You need to supply some ferts to your plants via the water column (unless you use heavy root feeders like Amazon swords).
Perhaps have a look at EI dosing, much cheaper than buying the whole range of Seachem bottles for example.
Good luck and provide us with feedback on how things develop.

 

I have 3 coolwhite 20W phillips lights in now and 4 14W warm white lights in now, is that better?

 

And what is EI dosing? Sorry I am a bit new to all of these fancy stuff but I am trying

 

And the plants are planted in the ppol filter sand and thanks everyone for the help.

 

What ferts can I use through the water column?

 

One tip I can give you is that Anubias in general grow the best if you connect it to a driftwood with a piece of rope or cable tie like I do.

@Charsubo gave some good tips. I use to test iron once a week to calculate the amount of iron and other nutritions required for plants. I stopped with plants as my Giant gourami end up eating everything.

 

Seachem flourish is a good general purpose fert

 

In short, this is a method of dosing ferts so that all required 'elements' are provided and there is no lack of any specific nutrient.
You need to do a 50% water change weekly to reset the balance as to not have an accumulation of a specific nutrient build up.
There is a wealth of info out there on this subject (and on here), you need to read up on things as it will be difficult to replicate it all here.

Rather than thanking people for the help you should follow their advise. Java Ferns and Anubias do a lot better when attached to hardscape so take them out of the substrate.

 

Better? Maybe if you're lucky ... you've completely ignored my comments regarding colour temperature so whether it works or not is up to fate now. Good luck.