Nitrates high but plants still melting

[Natalie C.]

Bought this stem plant (Pogostemon Stellatus Octopus) a couple weeks ago and kept it floating. Looked great and healthy when we got it but basically disintegrated. We haven't been dosing with Easy Green as our nitrates are staying at 40 ppm without it. Trying to get those down so we can use a fert again. 

Just purchased a new light for the aquarium as it doesn't get any natural light and we wondered if the kit lights just weren't enough. Our plants are growing pretty slowly overall. 

Any other ideas of what could cause this?

[Ariel S]

Hmmm it could just be transitioning to submersed and going a little be "dormant." If its literally disinetgrating it could be lack of nutrients. I know you said you were not dosing easy green because you already have 40 ppm of nitrates, but plants do need other macro/micro nutrients to survive other than nitrogen and easy green has those other nutrients. Have you tested your water for other nutrients (ie phosphate, calcium, iron?) There are lots of good nutrient deficiency charts out there. Aquarium coop has one on their website thats detailed. 

The plants still shouldn't be melting to the point of disintegrating super quickly even under less than ideal circumstances. Especially not a plant as hardy as pogostemon stellatus. It could be the light, bc the lights that come with those kits are terrible for the most part but still grow plants in my quarantine tanks. 

Id suggest beefing up the nutrients and lights. If that doesn't work and if these plants were purchased from aquarium coop perhaps reach out to customer service to see if they can ship you new ones and help steer you in the right direction. 

[Ariel S]

oh also!

In the past, I've purchased emerged grown plants and converted them in a bucket with lots of light and lots of fertilizers to kind of jump start the conversion. I did this outside where there was plenty of co2 & sunlight and they transitioned just fine one I moved them to my display tank. 

You could also try that! 

[Patrick_G]

I think @Ariel Spretty much covered everything.

I haven’t had trouble with PSO melting but I’ve had other stem plants melt back to almost nothing and then rebound.  The roots on your plants look ok so it’ll probably recover, but it might take a while.