Plants yellowing and dying

Ever since I did my last gravel vac some of my plants have been turning yellow and look like they are dying. The trident fern is the exception it just went from green to brown. I have done 1 dose so far with the Flourish excel and flourish comprehensive supplement for the planted aquarium stuff. It didn't seem to help yet..Any advise on what to do? I'm guessing I took the food supply away when I did the vac...oooops

Tested my water today and really don't like the readings. pH was reading 6 which is as low as my test measures, so it's probably lower. Nitrites 0. ammonia .25 and nitrate 0. Is this possibly causing all my plant problems? All my fish are still active and look great my Angelfish just spawned my Kribs just spawned again. Only thing affected are my plants so far. I will be doing another WC to try and get rid of the ammonia. Oh and just to mention PH out of my tap is around 8.

ammonia showing is not a good sign sounds like you are in a mini cycle. WC everyday till the ammonia is 0. What type of ph test do you have and is it not expired? Test kits sometimes go bad even before expired.

Welll...it's an API test kit and it's very possible it's wayyyyy expired lol

Would an expired kit give false pos for ammonia?

Yes it could but usually not with ammonia. all your #'s seem off you should be showing nitrite level of around 5 still sounds like a mini cycle going on it happens

This sooo sucks. I'm going to take a water sample to boardroom and see what their tests say. Not happy my plants are not doing good either

Well with plants dying could cause ammonia spikes also. Good idea to run a sample over.

whats lights are you running, what plants are dying? are you dosing any ferts, is it just gravel your using?

Not sure my lights, but my wisteria and trident fern is dying. I dosed flourish excel and something else. Just plain gravel. My LFS told me to use crushed gravel and neutral regulator in the water and fern conferred with that idea...I'm guessing the GH where we just moved 6 monthsish ago is crazy and the water changes I did messed everything up..ugh And get this the only plants dying are the ones in the front of the tank lol.

If just the front plants I would assume lighting. Did the plants grow to big and the bottoms didn't get enough light so roots are dying? Or overcrowded plants?

I don't think it's the lights, but I'll try something. They aren't overcrowded either. My PH is still bottomed out even with the coral in the filter and the regulator

If Ph is that low maybe you could add little amounts of home made boost.

4 parts of Arm and hammer bicarbonate baking soda
1 part of Borax laundry booster

Use it in small doses as you don't want huge changes just a gradual rise over about a week.

Or just go buy some Ph up and same thing, small doses.

Just to clarify on Ph if you have low buffering capacity Ph will crash, my RO water is 8.4 out of the tap and within a few hours of adding it to the tank it hits 7.2 and than sets at about 7.0

0 ammonia, her kit is bad, the PH is up to 6.5 so the crushed coral is doing its job.
Pretty much just a PH crash and she caught it in time! Those delicate plants make excellent early warnings!
Soooo what color did the poly filter turn?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

It turned an ugly tannish brown lol. The water smells horrible and is all cloudy which I'm assuming the crushed coral is causing that

what plants are dying? whats the names of the plants

if it turned brown all its pulling is tannins. If you water smells you need to do lots of little water changes!

Brown can also be decay plant matter. Do you have an extra filter to throw on the tank? 25% WC at least every 3rd day plus keep your UV running and an extra filter is what I would do.

I have my fluval 205 I can throw on actually It's just packed up with the old tank. Ya think more filtration with the wc would help?

yes the more the better I say.

Well here's what my poor tank looks like now and it's sad lol.




My dinosaur test is finally reading nitrates at 10, nitrites 0, and ammonia there is trace. I know it don't mean much since my test is like stone age old, but at least I got nitrates possibly lol

If they are old just toss them you will not get a correct reading. Have you used any flourish excel? Looks like you could use some.

I've dosed twice with excel. I'm going to get new tests this weekend I hope....if my dad pays me lol

LOL Know the feeling!

any root tabs under those plants up front? they look like e. tellununs or from the same fam.