sea grass turning yellow

[reefs4life1]

hey i have a 29 gallon aquarium with a six inch deep sand bed with turtle grass in it i have had the grasses for a few weeks now and they are starting to turn yellow. new leaves are growing but some of the ones that looked healthy are starting t turn yellow fasster than usually? i have 120 watts or 6500 k lighting and i was wondering if i shoulld fertilize the plants and if they are not getting enough nutrients???

 

[Anonymous]

Yellowing grass more sounds like a lighting issue rather than a nutrient one.

 

[reefs4life1]

well the lights seemed to be working until now than the grasses were growing a lot now theyre just turning yellow???

 

[Anonymous]

Well, a few weeks isn't a lot of time. I'd do a google search on macro algae tanks and see what you come up with.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree. It's hard to say without having had direct experience myself, but it could be your lighting, it could be nutrients, it could even the way that particular sea grass responds when transplanted. Sorry not to be able to offer any helpful tips.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, a few weeks isn't a lot of time. I'd do a google search on macro algae tanks and see what you come up with.

But isn't sea grass actually a vascular plant? If so, then there are two very important factors to keeping it healthy I believe. First is light, I completely agree with you there. Second is nutrients. If I had a terrestrial plant that was yellowing my first thought would be to get some nitrogen into it.

Vascular plants can easily utilize NO3 & NH4 (nitrate & ammonia). So, is your tank too clean? Perhaps the fish load isn't enough to feed the seagrass. What bulbs do you have over it, again? I think you went with the CFLs. They actually might not be sufficient, especially the further away from the grass itself they are.

I would take some of the seagrass and put it in a container to get it RIGHT up under the light, just some of it. See what happens. Does it green up? If so, there's your answer. If not, it's either going through its natural cycle or it needs food.

 

[Anonymous]

I have heard the turtle grass requires a "mature" sea bed with some organics in it. Like peat moss, or mud or what have you.

Also it may be a iron deficiency. What I do is dissolve a ferrous gluconate pill in a 12 oz water filled old coke bottle. Then dose a capful each week. Wall greens has ferrous gluconate 100 -240 mg tablets for like $6 or so.

But that is just what I have heard and I have no direct experience with any sea grasses.

my .02

 

[Anonymous]

That makes a lot of sense. I've spent some time in areas with extensive beds of seagrass, and they were very silty-bottomed. Plenty of organic material underlying, to be sure.

 

[Anonymous]

I have turtle grass in my main display. It started with a 3-4" sandbed, but now there is barely any sand in the display and the grass is growing fine.

Lighting would be your main issue, but if there are new ones sprouting as the others die, I wouldn't worry so much. Most of the time the new "leaves" grow out and are deep green. Then, over a two to three week period, they begin to yellow and then brown and fall off. As that happens new "leaves" are growing.

 

[reefs4life1]

ya i think thats it cause some of them are starting to grow smaller leaves again! it was weird it was like for 3 weeks everything seemed as if it was starting to die??? does this usually happen every once in a while just to help the new leaves grow???

 

[Anonymous]

I have had times where there were almost no leaves left and new ones grew.