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I'm melting!!!


Cat23
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I've had my 10 gallon sponge filtered nano tank going since September of this year and every has been really been going great.  Now my Hydrocotyle tripartite's have all but lost all their leave and are melting away.  My levels are right where they should be and I'm adding easy green every 2 days and add CO2 eveyday.  I do have fertilizer pellets in the bio stimulant. I've also been doing 20% water changes about once a week. What am I doing wrong?!?

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Edited by Cat23
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Actually yes, I had my driftwood sooking for about a month and just put it back in the day before Thanksgiving but nothing was moved because i had been trying to get it in my tank and had it already placed but it kept slimming up on me.  Just this past week I added two more little lights to the sides of my tank in case it wasn't getting enough light with the lights that came with the tank hood.  But this melting had been going on now for about 3 weeks. 

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Although I appreciate your thoughts I'm not sure is is my problem.  My leave had not issues they were all really cute full clovers. There was and currently have no black spots or yellow at all.  Plus the easy green contains potassium and iron.  And I also have been using Seachem Flourish Tabs when I first planted.  The other plants I have look fantastic too so far. I took a couple of pic of those and a close up on my clover leaves that I still have on one of the plants.

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On 12/11/2022 at 7:27 AM, Cat23 said:

The other plants I have look fantastic too so far.

Your tank looks great and I hope you figure out what is going on with this one plant!

From what I can tell your other plants are slower growing plants that often do well in "low tech" tanks. I have never grown Hydrocotyle tripartite but from what I read online it is a faster growing plant that does quite well in higher tech tanks (higher light, co2, etc.), but can grow in lower tech tanks but will be less bushy and more stringy (probably the plant's response to not being under intense light -- it wants to grow up to it).

Perhaps think of your Hydrocotyle as a canary in a coal mine. Because it is a faster grower it is probably going to be the first plant that shows problems with any sort of nutrient deficiency.

Having just started in September, I'd encourage you to think of your tank perhaps a 10 year old child in terms of maturity.  It is old enough to perhaps be trusted with some things, but isn't yet ready to be left alone and trusted to take care of itself for any length of time.  It'll be six months or a year before it really settles in and stops going through relatively large changes in balance between different biological processes, nutrient levels, etc. One of the biggest changes is plant growth -- right now your plants are still small compared to what they'll be months from now. It may be as simple as the other plants in your tank growing to the point where a certain nutrient is now limited, and the Hydrocotyle is now "starving."

I said I'd never grown Hydrocotyle but I have seen this pattern with other fast growing plants in my own tanks.  I start out with some Anubias, Java Fern and Water Sprite, and for a while the Anubias and Java Fern just sit there while the Water Sprite grows rapidly.  Then the Water Sprite starts dying off and then after six months or so I have no Water Sprite left, while I still have growing and quite healthy looking Anubias and Java Fern.  These were tanks where I didn't use fertilizers or have strong lights at all.

As far as iron and potassium already being in Easy Green, well, Aquarium Co-op also sells Easy Iron, which suggests that sometimes Easy Green alone isn't always enough. Your tank has smaller fish, and depending on what you feed them and how much, the potassium from the fish food (plus Easy Green) may also require supplementation for the plants.

Long story short: if a plant isn't looking great but it used to look great, and there are no other major changes made to the tank or your maintenance routine, then it is almost always some sort of problem related to nutrients.

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@Cat23 I'm not really convinced you have a problem per se: all your plants (Swords, S. repens, Anubias) seem to be doing fine, except for the Hydrocotyle tripartite which usually prefers medium to high light. I did not see any mention of what type of light you have on the tank, only that you said you added two small lights to the sides of the tank because you were worried about not enough light. Rather than assume you need to change your fertilizer regimen, I'd just say that all your lower light plants receive the correct amount of fertilization, and light, except for the one medium light plant which would probably be happier in a tank with a light with a higher PAR rating. Adding iron and potassium to keep a plant happy that doesn't receive enough lighting to use what already is currently on hand would only invite algae problems like bba. Rather than to go that route to try to make the Hydrocotyle happy, which eventually probably will require a different light, I'd recommend the cheaper route of replacing it with a lower light demand plant like Pogostemon stellatus "octopus", Water Sprite, or crypts. I didn't recognize any other plant nutrient related, or other problems in your tank which looks very nice, so if I were in your shoes I would really just replace that one plant with a plant that will be happy with the current level of lighting, and fertilization because I really did not see any obvious algae problems that would point to lack, or over abundance of nutrients. Hope this helps.

Edited by Jungle Fan
typo
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Thank you I was actually thinking the same thing bc my other pants ate doing pretty good. But I'm a beginner at this planted tank thing so any suggestions are totally helpful.  Maybe I will try another type of plant and see what happens I really love the clover look though dang it. Here are the lights I have 4 of the 6" and the hood light which are weak.

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What struck me when I looked at the description of the Tetra  light actually was one of the reviews that described them as "it's not overly too bright although to where I can see my fishes." Other than this Tetra just describes the light as 12 LEDs, brilliant white light, and it should do well for any of the low light plants you currently have, as can be seen from your pictures, you're fertilizing  at the correct level as well, however the Tetra light probably doesn't provide the amber and red light at the levels the Hydrocotyle needs, and at that point the light becomes the limiting factor for the growth. If you absolutely want to grow the Hydrocotyle then you might eventually want to replace the hood and Tetra lights with something like the Fluval Plant 3.0 Light where you can control the individual light levels, but in my opinion your tank is beautiful and a new light is not an absolute must, there are plenty of plants that will fit in with your current set up as I mentioned; however I can understand the urge to grow certain plants, I've been there myself, and my current set up followed only after many years of wishing and improving my budget, and  set ups over the years, and learning.  I hope this helps, I think your tank looks really nice but in case your heart is set on the Hydrocotyle here is a link for the Fluval Plant 3.0 as just one option: 

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/lights/products/fluval-plant-3-0-led-light

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One additional thought, I couldn't help but notice that your Anubias don't look like that they're attached to rock, or wood, but in some of your pictures they look like they are planted in the soil. I don't know if it just looks like it, or how long you've had them but they are epiphyte plants meaning they need to have their rhizome located above the substrate surface, or they will eventually rot and die. So if you should have them planted in the soil you can attach them to the wood, or rocks by using gel type superglue. Here's a link:

 

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I was wondering that too but there was no direction on how to plant it when I bought it from the pet store.  I will be able to get them attached to my driftwood asap thank you for catching that.  Also I will look into the light. I was thinking about taking the hood light off when I originally purchase it and getting a better light but I didn't know if my shrimps would try to escape lol.  After watching them for the last couple of months they don't ever go out of the water that I have seen.  They will go right up to the tip of my drift wood at the waters edge and that's all.  Thank you for everything for everything!  I've already have learned so joining this forum. 💛

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On 12/12/2022 at 2:56 PM, Cat23 said:

I was wondering that too but there was no direction on how to plant it when I bought it from the pet store.  I will be able to get them attached to my driftwood asap thank you for catching that.  Also I will look into the light. I was thinking about taking the hood light off when I originally purchase it and getting a better light but I didn't know if my shrimps would try to escape lol.  After watching them for the last couple of months they don't ever go out of the water that I have seen.  They will go right up to the tip of my drift wood at the waters edge and that's all.  Thank you for everything for everything!  I've already have learned so joining this forum. 💛

I've got two rimmed tanks where I took off the kit hood to use lights specifically for plants (Finnex Planted+ 24/7 in both cases) and DIY'd kids using polycarbonate sheeting from Lowe's. Cheaper than glass, easily cut-to-fit, and customizable for plugs and hoses, and supposedly transmits more light than glass. Probably doesn't look as nice, truth be told, but low profile enough on my rimmed tanks that they still work nicely.

Oh, almost forgot: my Hydrocotyle tripartita looks like that, too, but in my case, I think my cories uprooted it (I should have let the roots more thoroughly establish but was too excited to get the cories in...). I'm going to try to salvage the last okay-looking stem to a shrimp-only tank and see if that helps. Do you have anything in the tank who might have dislodged it?

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@Cat23 Three reasons why I'd advocate for a glass top under the light, #1 evaporation, unless you want to top the tank off every now and then in between water changes, and #2 when I wasn't using a glass top I found multiple Blue dream Neocaridina shrimp that had "pole vaulted" themselves outside of the tank overnight and I found them bone dry and shriveled up the next morning in front of the stand, an Amano I actually found half way up the stairs from the living room. #3 has to do with algae spores being indigenous to the air in the atmosphere, and while they will find their way into any aquarium one way, or the other the glass lid is just another way to make things even a tiny bit harder on algae, mind you there will be plenty of folks debating that point, and I'm well aware of all their arguments, it's just one of the things I started doing over the years because they make sense to me, and if you have everything balanced out and heavily planted you could certainly do without the lid, but I believe strongly in "every little bit helps.".

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Thank you to all that helped me!  I've bought the plant light that was recommended I will be that next week.  I also attached or hooked for now until I get super glue my 4 plants and I've almost killed because I have very little experience with it comes to a planted tank.  Hopefully everything begins to grow in the next couple of weeks from all of your suggestions. 

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