# New to terh hobby - first tank - Unsure my plants are OK



## jlizard (Apr 27, 2020)

Hey - totally new to this - tank has been running for 10 days - ph is 7.4, ammonia is .5ppm, no nitrate or nitrite yet. Water is treated with Stability (stuck one fish in 4 days ago), Prime and Flourish excel according to directions. Using Tropica planting powder and have 23watts of led lighting for 10 gallons. Some of my plant leaves are starting to yellow and thin and the new growth looks similar. I'm also using root tabs (starting today). Am I doing something wrong? The Monte Carlo is doing great sending runners - that's the medium difficulty plant - all the easy plants have yellowing leaves. Moss is doing well too. Is it too much light? Do I need more micro-nutrients - specifically iron? Thanks you for your help!


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## PEA PUFFER (Aug 26, 2019)

That is a nice tank that you have! i am new to the planted tank hobby as well but it seems like the plants are just melting back, what they normally do to adapt to a new enviroment. i suggest that you just leave the plant to do its thing. if it is melting, the leaves will likely fall off and new leaves will replace the old ones. these plants are normally grown outside of water, so it needs to adapt the underwater enviroments. Dont pluck the plants out, it is a normal thing


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## Gardener (Feb 13, 2011)

Welcome to the hobby! Aquarium plants also require macro nutrients (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium or NPK), in addition to micro nutrients. These are actually the same three numbers that you always see listed on terrestrial garden fertilizer labels, that you might buy for your outdoor plants. A nitrates reading of zero means that your plants are not getting any Nitrogen. They can of course also utilize the nitrogen in the Ammonia, however unfortunately algae is typically better at doing that. Although new emergent growth can indeed sometimes be a lighter shade of green, the brown spots around the leaf margins point to a macro nutrient deficiency. Your comment about the easier plants being the most affected also suggests this, as the faster growing plants will need the most nutrients and correspondingly suffer first. There are a number of standard approaches people use to fertilize and will debate which is best to no end - ha. I follow the PPS-pro method myself and dose my tanks daily, but best to do research both here and via google. https://barrreport.com/ is another good place to start. It can take some trial and error (and the occasional unfortunate war with algae), however I personally enjoy nothing more than the reward of a beautiful, lush, green aquarium. Have fun!


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