Plants dying at roots in dirt tank.

I planted a a bunch of anacharis in the tank about a month ago and left some floating as a test. All my plants are doing relatively well but sometimes there would be anomalies with my amazon sword ( 1/4 the plant has dying leaves) and ludwigia has bottom half covered in green spot algae ( though I've heard because those bottom leaves are covered in shade). However, I would like to add that all of my dwarf sag is doing extremely well.

Anyway, almost all of the anacharis have turned extremely yellow especially near the roots. It is as if the roots that tried to grow in the dirt have melted. The entire anacharis cluster that was plantws are extremely fragile. The anacharis that was floating turned out extremely green with lots of new growth.

I should mention that the tank is fairly heavily stocked and there is a consistent 1 cm of fish crap that I try to clean out every week. It makes me wonder if there is something a muck with the dirt.

I add liquid C02 and half of the recommended amount of ferts into the tank such as iron, potassium, and seachem flourish.

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Permalink Reply by Mr awesome on July 8, 2012 at 11:03pm

Float them for a few days under the light and see if they come out of it

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Permalink Reply by Anthony F on July 8, 2012 at 11:25pm

After reading the forums a bit, I learned not to clean the gravel too much, and I bought some MTSs. Yee!

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Permalink Reply by Hilary on July 8, 2012 at 11:45pm

I used to have my anacharis in a non-dirted tank, after I converted, it all died back and turned yellow as well. I left them in and after about 3 weeks it all came back and shot up really quick. Every single stem got new growth and within about 2 weeks, it started to come back it doubled in size and I've since had to hack it down about half way to let it keep growing without coming out of the water too much.

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy robinson on July 9, 2012 at 1:44am

I had the same problem with my tank when I first dirted it. My sword plants were wilting so I started using fertilizers thinking it was a lack of nutrients. After experimenting and consulting someone at my local pet store I came to the realization that to much nutrients in the water can cause your plants to melt. If you recently dirted your tank try laying off on the liquid fert for awhile it has worked for me.

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Permalink Reply by Erik Rozenbergs on July 10, 2012 at 2:05pm

First off after reading that the thing that jumps out at me is the "heavily stocked" tank. More fish = more waste "1 cm of poop" = Lots of algae. Less is more here. i try to stock my tanks half the gallon of tank per inch of fish... or less. The dirt is doing its job as you can see by the sag growing great. if you cant move the high load of fish to another tank i think the only thing you can do is do BIG water changes 2-3 times a week. like 70% big. and fill full of duckweed and plant more heavy.

I recently did my first dirt tank and its doing amazing! I have a 10 gallon tank heavily planted with duckweed and other plants. only stocked with 5 corys. my sword shoots up a new leaf every week!! full sized leaf in week!!! so bi weekly one leaf is fully grown while another one is popping out! i do 3 big water changes a week and get absolutely no plant melt. water changes are key too.