Winged's Tanks

My java fern has started looking really bad. There are holes in the leaves and places where the leaf seems to be disintegrating. A few months ago, there were places that started to look yellow, so I started dosing Flourish Excel, and most of those spots have disappeared, but now it looks worse. All other plants seem to be thriving (with the exception of my red rubin sword). I have several java fern plantlets. My original plant ceased to be after giving me so many plantlets.

I don't know what to do with my java ferns.

This is my 10 gallon shrimp tank in my dorm room at school.



It has an unknown amount of red cherry shrimp. It is planted, no CO₂, no ferts. The light is this one, with the bulbs that come with it. I'm planning on replacing the actinic bulb with one more appropriate for a FW planted tank. Plants include Hemianthus micranthemoides (baby tears), Heteranthera zosterifolia (stargrass), Sagittaria subulata (dwarf sag), Microsorum pteropus (java fern), and Lilaeopsis brasiliensis (microsword).

Here are some pics. You'll have to excuse quality as they were taken with my phone.

I added a CO₂ canister a couple months ago, and a month ago I began adding Seachem Flourish.

Also, since I last updated, I changed the driftwood and the livestock has changed. I lost most of my cories and my sparkling gourami, the latter I assume from old age. So, current stock is 1 pygmy cory (all by himself, I'm planning on fixing that), 3 ember tetras (I managed to track down one to add to my two, but have yet to find more), 7 Rasbora hengeli, and 1 male guppy (who is getting moved to the 45 gallon and is being replaced by a betta).

I decided to replace most of the gravel in my 20 gallon planted tank to Flourite. I say most because I couldn't afford to get two bags. I wasn't sure if I would like how it looked, and the main reason I got it was because I didn't feel lie driving across town to get Eco-complete. But, after I started rinsing the stuff, all I could think was how awesome it would look.

Before the rescape and gravel change:



The bag says rinsing isn't necessary, that any cloudyness, which should be minimal, would clear within twelve hours. I decided to rinse it anyway because I was also putting new plants in and I wanted to see how they looked. I started rinsing and the first time through the water was almost black! I rinsed the stuff for about ten minutes, and the water was still coming out pretty brown. I gave up and decided to put it in my tank. I took most of the water out and all the fish and plants. I then proceeded to pull out some of the gravel and add the Flourite in its place. Once I did that, I started adding water and then plants. The water was nearly opaque. I planted what plants I could, but it was just so difficult to see. Here's what the tank looked like after almost five hours of work:

And the next morning:

The tank still looks like that, though the water is clear now. I need to do some real planting and planning. I have more plants waiting to go in the tank. A couple days after making the switch to Flourite, I started losing my ember tetras. I lost four or five in one day, and one on a couple other days. I am down to two from what was nine. I don't know what's killing them. The two remaining are in a hospital tank, not being treated yet. They are receiving daily water changes, and are being observed to see if I can find any real symptoms. The other seven never showed any, except paled colour, which I attributed to the stress from when I was messing with the tank, and not schooling with the others, which they didn't start to do until about twenty-four hours prior to death. It's been suggested that I treat them with Maracyn and Maracyn 2, but I am hesitant to use meds.

Also, since this is the first time for a post about this tank, I'd thought I'd share some of the specs:
-20 gallon high, measuring 24" L x 13" W x 17" H
-Lighting: 2 compact fluorescent bulbs, totalling in 40 watts
-Ferts: none
-Filter: Penguin 200
-Heat: Marineland Visi-therm Stealth 100 watts
-Plants: microsword (Lilaeopsis brasiliensis), Alternanthera reineckii, java fern (Microsorum pteropus), dwarf hairgrass (Eleocharis acicularis), jungle val (Vallisneria americana), dwarf sag (Sagittaria subulata), stargrass (Heteranthera zosterifolia)
-Fish: sparkling gourami (Trichopsis pumila), 8 pygmy cory cats (corydoras pygmaeus), 2 female guppies (Poecilia reticulata, temporarily)