Floater Melt?

[macdaddy36]

I recently bought some 3 Dwarf Water Lettuce from my local fish store.  They had them in an outside pond. Each DWL included one main plant and one smaller baby plant. After about a week the large main DWL have died back and a lot of roots have fallen off. However, the baby plants multiplied and now there is 9 small DWL.  

Has anyone ever had any experience like this? 

The picture on top is the new growth, and the picture below is the main plants.

[SandBkeeper]

That sometimes happens to my plants when they transition between my aquariums. I think it depends on the amount of light/nutrients.

[Kurt Brutting]

Water lettuce likes lots of nutrients, light, and low flow. When I 1st got my DWL it did the same thing. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep it happy, it didn’t last I had way to much flow in that aquarium. I was just pushing it all over the place. 
Palmer Aquatics has a few great videos on YouTube of DWL care. 

[Patrick_G]

I've also had this happen. The DWL will just melt. The fine roots make a mess when it happens. 

[macdaddy36]

On 6/27/2022 at 8:27 PM, Patrick_G said:

I've also had this happen. The DWL will just melt. The fine roots make a mess when it happens. 

Did yours come back after?

[Patrick_G]

On 6/27/2022 at 6:48 PM, macdaddy36 said:

Did yours come back after?

Unfortunately not, but as long as there are few baby plants left they'll fill in fast. 

[Brandon p]

On 6/26/2022 at 8:48 PM, SandBkeeper said:

That sometimes happens to my plants when they transition between my aquariums. I think it depends on the amount of light/nutrients.

Most plats land or aquatic plants drop leaves or root die back when moved or stressed. Light changes will cause leave to drop. Plants grow leaves that work best to make sugars. So even small light changes require leaves to change. Going from real sun to artificial light even the best there will be a change to the leaves. Once the leaves are not making sugars they don’t need the roots so they lose them. They grow back to store engery(sugar) but to also uptake the nutrients the plant needs to produce sugar. It’s a pain in an aquarium. This is the reason many plants will melt back when put underwater. Plants often reproduce when they are stressed to insure that the species continues or they are doing well and are ready to spread. Some plants make there own herbicides to keep plants from competing with them. Water lettuce doesn’t do this. They use the out grow method which means they grow fast and try to shade or use the nutrients to out compete othe plants. Try to make sure that there are in the water for the plants to uptake. Easy-green would be one,