# Anaerobic Soil?



## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

What other plants do you have in the tank and what dirt did you use?


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## GraphicGr8s (Apr 4, 2011)

Also how long has the tank been set up?


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## Italionstallion888 (Jun 29, 2013)

What size tank and light?


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Tank is 75 gallons. Dirt is MGOCPM that I sifted then got wet and dried out a few times before I put it in.

Tank has been set up for 8 months.

I have 2x BML Dutch XB on top at about 30 and 40 % each. According to the BML charts these plants should be getting at least 40 par... Plenty of CO2 and all my plants pearl like crazy every night.

I currently have Ludwigia Red, DHG Belem, Limnophila Aromatica, Rotala Colorata, Blyxa Japonica

The Blyxa does VERY well. Everything else is dying down low. Hair grass is spreading a little bit but it should be doing FAR better (had it for at least 3 months.......)

Dosing EI plus a little added K after noticing some deficiencies. Only algae I have problems with is BBA - it attacks the lower leaves that die off and parts of my glass and spray bars.

Getting very frustrated - ready to tear the thing down and start over. At this point I am quite sure that if I had different substrate my hair grass would be taking off.


MY QUESTION REMAINS:
Once a substrate goes anaerobic is it game over?

It smells very foul when bubbles come up...


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## fish jihad (Mar 1, 2014)

Ahhh. If it smells then yes it is very likely anaerobic. Whether your screwed depends on the extent of the problem. It could be one small pocket or half your substrate. Since at least some plants are doing well i will assume some substrate is ok.
The typical cause of anaerobic soil is the dirt is too deep. Most advice i read was the dirt can have a max depth of one inch. And any cap a max of 2 inches for a total of 3 inches of substrate. There are exceptions, such as having large pebbles that allow water to penetrate the substrate. 
My best advice and pull up the substrate in the area of the affected plants. Put more dirt down in that area but carefully watch the amount. My dirt is 3/4" deep, with a kitty litter cap of about 1.5 inches. So far my stem plants are growing very thick stems and very hardy leaves.


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

I'd scrap the tank and not do organic dirt with high tech stems. You don't have enough root mass to supply oxygen to the bacteria that decompose the organics in the miracle gro.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Bummer

Also my dirt layer is not that deep... It is right around 1". It is capped with 1.5 - 3" of Eco Complete

I hate eco complete anyways so using sand as substrate could be a lot nicer


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## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

Could not hurt to try and increase CO2.
If you cannot increase it any more due to fishes intolerance,then you can increase surface ripple which would allow you to increase the gas rate and also use more gas more quickly.
would do this slowly over a few hour's where I could observe the fishes for any discomfort.
Move drop checker lower in the tank and in different area's over a few day's to see what it is telling you at lower levels.
Drop checker's mounted higher in the tank,on the glass, are more easily influenced by higher concentration of the gas as it rises upwards.
One common theme I have witnessed over and over is folk's who believe they have more than enough CO2.
If plant mass is demanding more,lighting is driving demand for more, then reducing light or increasing the gas would be what I would try before I considered tearing down 75 gal .
My substrates are nearly five inches deep at the back (was deeper but has settled) and four inches at the front without issues.
I don't use the gas ,so growth is slower and lighting is moderate ,and plant's still thrive.
I add plenty of nutrient's judging from growth .
Leaves only lack of CO2 for me, and from what I have observed at/on other forums for many other folks as well high tech or low tech. 
If you can increase the gas a little bit,,it may be all that is hampering you.


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## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

Also consider flow might not be distributing the gas/nutrient's to all area's so while one area may be growing fine,the area's where flow is obstructed by décor or increased plant mass ,may not be doin so well as it once did.
This ties in to response above.What may have once been enough gas for plant mass is now not enough.
Maybe flow is conflicting, or colliding, rather than uniform direction from one end to the other or from back to front(better).
Gas peter's out before it can reach the other end, or is not getting deep enough before rising to the surface and escaping.
Would want to check some of what I suggested were it me,before I considered tearing down the tank.
My two cent's


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## fish jihad (Mar 1, 2014)

+1 on what roadmaster said about flow. I had a tank whose plants werent doing well. Had a single HOB. So i added a power head. The plants furthest from the HOB perked up within a couple of weeks. Follow your fish flakes at feedin time and see if they get pushed all over the tank in a coherent pattern. If they they swirl around around in a few places you could have dead spots.
Your soil depth seems fine. Perhaps do some google-fu on causes of anaerobic buildup in substrates. The only one im aware of is depth.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

I will try messing with flow and ramping up CO2 but I have done my best to rule out CO2 as an issue...

I have 2x EHEIM 2217s and run 2x Koralia powerheads in my tank as well. My plants are constantly swaying from the flow. I drop my pH down a solid 1.3 pH during each photoperiod (7.3 - 6). Drop checker is a very light yellow during photoperiod.

ANOTHER QUESTION:

Is it 100% necessary to tear down the tank if I have anaerobic issues? Could I fix this by poking the substrate all the time for a while?

Just curious... I may tear down the tank anyways because I hate my eco complete cap (will never buy again) and would be much happier with just straight sand substrate w/root tabs...


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## Monster Fish (Mar 15, 2011)

Depends on how much rotting organic material is in your dirt layer. You can poke all you want but all you're doing is releasing built up hydrogen sulfide gas. If you add some MTS and try planting some heavy rooting plants (crypts and hygros), you can maybe salvage your substrate. Otherwise, I'd switch the substrate to sand and root tabs.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

I poked it last night and few bubbles came up... Can the substrate be rotten even if there is no gas in there? There USED to be gas coming out of it a long time ago. Not so much anymore.

Either way I think I will tear the tank down in the next month or so - just want to learn as much as possible from this mess...


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## Italionstallion888 (Jun 29, 2013)

anyone thought that maybe a lack of light reaching the bottom part of the stems could be an issue? Lack of flow yes, but if the tops of the stems are blocking light to the lower parts, they will die off. I had this same issue in my 29g, so now I keep the plants thinned out a bit more. I have great growth half way up, the rest was turning black/brown and very thin.


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## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

Italionstallion888 said:


> anyone thought that maybe a lack of light reaching the bottom part of the stems could be an issue? Lack of flow yes, but if the tops of the stems are blocking light to the lower parts, they will die off. I had this same issue in my 29g, so now I keep the plants thinned out a bit more. I have great growth half way up, the rest was turning black/brown and very thin.


 
I used to think this way also ,but it was explained to me that it is not so much the lack of light at the base of the plant's, but rather the plant's upper leaves are able to gather more light more easily and more importantly more CO2 more easily where both are in higher concentration nearer the surface, so the plant will sacrifice the lower leaves so that the upper leaves which are closer to the surface where the gas is can thrive = less energy used by the plant.
Makes a fair bit of sense to me.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Italionstallion888 said:


> anyone thought that maybe a lack of light reaching the bottom part of the stems could be an issue? Lack of flow yes, but if the tops of the stems are blocking light to the lower parts, they will die off. I had this same issue in my 29g, so now I keep the plants thinned out a bit more. I have great growth half way up, the rest was turning black/brown and very thin.


I've considered this too. I am ramping my light up every day


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## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

klibs said:


> I've considered this too. I am ramping my light up every day


 If you cannot increase CO2,fertz as well,then it's just the tail wagging the dog.
You can throw all the light you want over the tank but CO2 or lack thereof is the elephant in the room.
Plant's have evolved to become quite efficient at gathering what light is available.


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## theatermusic87 (Jun 22, 2014)

klibs said:


> I've considered this too. I am ramping my light up every day


If not enough light reaches the bottom, the leaves will die off but not the stem. Ive seen plants in lakes that are 15+ feet tall in dense stands, no leaves on the bottom half but still healthy stems and root structures.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

theatermusic87 said:


> If not enough light reaches the bottom, the leaves will die off but not the stem. Ive seen plants in lakes that are 15+ feet tall in dense stands, no leaves on the bottom half but still healthy stems and root structures.


Makes sense - this is kind of what I assumed as well. I don't think lack of light would cause them to rot the the extent that I am seeing. Old leaves are just turning clear and rotting off as well. Tops seem to be going strong and pearl like crazy... This of course also depends on the type of plant as well as how severe the light deficiency is. I have heard that under extreme circumstances the plant will in rot out the stem so it can float to the surface.

My gut after doing a bunch of research tells me that one of two things are happening:

1 - Lack of CO2 or ferts so the plant 'eats itself' from the bottom up. I dose a little more than EI levels and will tweak my CO2 to make sure that I am getting enough in there.
2 - Soil is toxic and stems rot to escape it. Hopefully I can replace my substrate in the next month and put this mystery to rest in the coming months. If I still get issues like this then I will know that it was in fact not my substrate...


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## fish jihad (Mar 1, 2014)

Klibs... if you do wind up replacing the substrate, lemme know how it goes.
I recently switched some plants that were rotting at the stem to my big tank. So far they are looking much better. Leading me to believe it was the substrate in the old tank. In the old tank, i tried changing lights, ferts, water flow and everything else. Nothing really helped stop the rotting. 
When i broke the old tank down, i didnt notice any rotten smells or air bubbles. However since the only difference between the new and old tank is the substrate im going with that


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

fish jihad said:


> Klibs... if you do wind up replacing the substrate, lemme know how it goes.
> I recently switched some plants that were rotting at the stem to my big tank. So far they are looking much better. Leading me to believe it was the substrate in the old tank. In the old tank, i tried changing lights, ferts, water flow and everything else. Nothing really helped stop the rotting.
> When i broke the old tank down, i didnt notice any rotten smells or air bubbles. However since the only difference between the new and old tank is the substrate im going with that


HA!
Just another reason to tear this thing down. It will be terrible and take a ton of time but it should be worth it in the long run...

I will post here my results in the future.


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## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

If stem plant's are rotting at the base,then the clump need's to be thinned out ,trimmed,pruned.
Can take the tops and plant these and discard the lower portions.
This goes with caring for planted tanks.
If EI dosing,the substrate provides little more than a medium to hold the plant's in place.
If all plant's are performing poorly then you can be sure there are other issues .
I lop off the tops of stem plant's in my low tech tanks about once every three weeks and replant the top portions and discard the lower scraggly portions.


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## Ben125 (Dec 16, 2014)

Mix the dirt with sand and pebbles. Straight dirt gets compacted over time, preventing O2 rich water from getting down there.


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