http://forum.aqua-fish.net/ A forum devoted to aquarium fish, plants, techniques and fish keeping as a whole. en http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=plants-no-longer-grow#1 About five years ago I planted a common plant in my 600 litre tank. It multiplied readily, growing even in caves under the rocks. This lasted for about a year. For the last four years nothing grows, all plants die. I also have a small tank where the same plant thrives. Can someone please offer an explanation to this strange reversal? original post: May 20, 2007, 6:30 am anonymous 2008-05-03 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=plants-no-longer-grow#2 The problem is probably insufficient nutrition. Are you using any fertilizer? How many fish do you keep? Are light bulbs powerful enough? Are your plants compatible? For example, I am running planted tank for years and first thing where I started was fertilizer. OK, this was working well, but I wasn’t able to make plants grow enough. So later I bought new light bulb and since that moment it’s like "boom". But light isn’t everything. There are many fish (I really can’t count them) in that tank and they produce enough excrements which are necessary for plants. I don’t clean bottom of the tank and everything works fine . Fish are happy, plants are happy too. Moreover I am happy as well. Let me know how much Watts per litre do you have, which plants species do you keep, how tall is your aquarium and if you clean the bottom from time to time. jan 2008-05-03 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=plants-no-longer-grow#3 Thanks for the imput. Firstly I have never used nutrients, not when the plants thrived in the beginning, nor in my small tank where my plants are currently thriving. I am refering to the same common plant in both tanks. (I have no other plants as the more exotic plants simply die.) My 600litre tank has 2 x 40w aquaglow tubes with a large Deacon, Texan Chiclid, Parrot fish and a few smaller fish. I have a few small fish in the small tank. Basically, both tanks are identical except for the size, both have a weir (trickle filter??) with layers of filter material, both have the same water temperature, both tanks are possibly understocked. I hope this additional info is of help. anonymous 2008-05-03 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=plants-no-longer-grow#4 Thanks for detailed description . Here is what you should do: Increase lighting; Something like 250 or 300 Watts will be enough (for 600 L tank). I have a 80 L tank with 50 Watts lighting. When I had 25 W only, plants weren’t growing too much. Buy JBL balls fertilizer (am not advertising it). This fertilizer is perfect solution since it is active for about a year and you simply put it into the gravel. Then nothing else, it works automatically . I would use 10-15 balls in your aquarium. Once you do these "upgrades", you should see progress in about a month. jan 2008-05-03 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=plants-no-longer-grow#5 Thankyou for the advise. A few things that I don’t understand. My tank has many rocks - they are all black with algae. I assumed this is because they get too much light as the section of rock in shadow has no algae. Now to increase the light would surely aggrevate the algae problem?? I have two "aquaglo" fluorescent tubes, 40watt each, 1.5 metres in length. To increase the lights to 250-300 watts would require about seven tubes. I just have no space to install more. The intensity of these tubes decreases with time so maybe, as one tube is about 4 years old, a new one would help? Just a thought. anonymous 2008-05-03 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=plants-no-longer-grow#6 I am using aquaglo too . First, algae grows on rocks no matter how many watt lighting are you using. I have rocks in my tank too (relatively big rocks) and they are "planted" with algae as well. This is not any problem since algae will not grow on plants. If you don’t have enough space, you should consider buying 2 in 1 lighing (1 cover with 2 light bulbs). I have seen such solutions from Atman and they require less space than 2 standalone lighting stands. if you have these already, then I can’t help you. Hm... I have seen people who created their own covers. One article is here: http://www.aqua-fish.net/show.php?cur_lang=2&what=article&id=103. Using your own hand skills you can place 5-6 tubes into a small cover in my opinion. jan 2008-05-03