Help, aquarium plants leaves turning transparent!

Are your aquarium plants going transparent? This happens pretty often in tanks. First the leaves lose color, then they turn transparent and eventually get slimy and waste away. Not what you want in a planted tank, of course.

But what’s the cause of aquarium plants leaves turning transparent? Well, this is a classic CO2 problem! Most of the time you’re adding too little CO2, or you’ve got too much light over your tank.

Tip: download my free e-book about CO2 deficiencies on my site.

The solution to aquarium plants leaves turning transparent

There are several ways to solve this. Below I’ll walk you through, step by step, what you can do against aquatic plants transparent leaves

1. If you have a CO2 regulator: slowly increase the amount of CO2 in your tank bit by bit, week after week. Keep a very close eye on your fish and shrimp while you do this. If they act weird (gasping at the surface, hiding, …) you’re probably too high and should dial it back.
2. Lower the amount of light over your tank.
3. Doing both is most effective: more CO2 and less light!

Most important to remember: more light means your plants grow faster. That’s nice, but don’t forget that stronger plant growth also raises demand for nutrients and CO2. If you don’t meet that demand, you’ll get poor plant growth (e.g., aquarium plants turning transparent) and algae—very often black beard algae and thread algae. By dimming your light, you’re artificially lowering the demand for nutrients and CO2, which means less risk of algae, weak growth, or aquarium plants going transparent.

A few tips against aquarium plants going transparent

Here are a few extra tips I can share:

• Check the flow. Poor circulation can cause very local nutrient deficiencies because nutrients simply don’t reach that spot.
• A liquid carbon source together with CO2 can definitely help.
• Dose other fertilizers according to the Estimative Index or use my All-in-One.

Still struggling with growth issues in your aquarium plants? Download one of my e-books or read my other blog articles!