Help! I’m a serial plants killer 😭

[Karen B.]

Greetings!

I bought many new plants but, sadly, they all seem to be dying on me/rotting and I was wondering if there was anything I could do to prevent any further damage or at least save some of them.

I bought two types of vallisneria (spiralis and americana), Egeria Densea, some sort of cryptocoryne, some sort of bacopa (caroliniana?) and 2 others we didn’t know the name.

My substrate is Seachem flourite black sand, with a lot of seachem root tabs and I use a liquid fertilizer (sorry, I live in Canada and can’t always get coop products).

I think my first fatal mistake was to bathe the plant in peroxide to sterilize them. I read somewhere to do it for 20 minutes in a 3:1 ratio. I then let them rest still in their original ring and mossy thingie in a bucket with a light. Everything seemed fine until I wanted to transfer them in my 10 gallons quarantine tank (with light and sponge filter). The cryptocoryne disintegrated basically in my hand, the Egeria doesn’t look healthy, and the vallisneria are getting worst by the day… 😞 the tall plant leaf are all turning yellow/brown.

Is there anything I can do to save my plants?

First day in the bucket after peroxide bath

2-3 days later when I transferred them in the quarantine aquarium 

vallisneria 2 days after

[nabokovfan87]

What is the light you're running? Are you seeing algae issues or just melting?

If it's just melting, it could be a water parameter issues.  Hard going to soft or soft going to hard water and that causes a lot of issues for some.  Something to look into, but there's a lot of possibilities and a lot of information to dive into before anyone can say what's really going on.

Edited October 27, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Tanked]

Melt is a real possibility, but all of the plants melting at the same rate seems odd to me.  There are a lot of variations on the net, but the average peroxide soak seems to be 5 minutes.  20 minutes in the peroxide was probably too much.  I'm assuming that your ratio was 3ml. peroxide to 1 Gallon water.  The Val seems to be the hardest hit, but may come back from the roots or produce runners..  If they were mine, I would trim the plants, and increase the light period, followed by patience. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

The bushy ones look like anacharis to me.  If they are, I've found they do better as floating plants.  Mine have always been unhappy when planted.  If the leaves melt off, remove the leaves with a net or something, but leave the stems in the tank floating around.  The sides of the stems will then develop roots and new, fresh, green leaves.

It's normal for new plants to melt.  Depends on where they are coming from. Most aquatic plants are grown emergent (partially out of water).  If the plants do not spend enough time fully submerged before they get to you, they are going to melt in your tank.  Not to worry though.  Most will spring back. It's just part of the acclimation process from growing emergent to growing submerged.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea