Helping melting

[chiquitaemia]

How do other deal with melting and how do I help it? Bought some horn wart for my aquariam it started to melt back alittle adding easy green( thank you aquariam coop) is there anything else I can do

[Fish Folk]

Hornwort is a plant that is sometimes easy, sometimes very tricky. I'm sad to say... the Hornwort in your photo may be too far gone.

I always just let mine float -- never try to plant it in the substrate. Hornwort will melt if it gets too much light, or too little nutrients from the water column. Try just giving it 8 hrs of light a day. Dose / feeding it Easy Green (or Flourish) regularly will help. I do not recommend using Flourish Excel on hornwort, Anacharis, or other softer-tissue plants. If your pH crashes, that may affect your Hornwort. It is a type of plant that either thrives, or will shed all of its needles at once...

like the old Charlie Brown Christmas tree...

 

[chiquitaemia]

On 10/7/2023 at 9:42 PM, Fish Folk said:

Hornwort is a plant that is sometimes easy, sometimes very tricky. I'm sad to say... the Hornwort in your photo may be too far gone.

I always just let mine float -- never try to plant it in the substrate. Hornwort will melt if it gets too much light, or too little nutrients from the water column. Try just giving it 8 hrs of light a day. Dose / feeding it Easy Green (or Flourish) regularly will help. I do not recommend using Flourish Excel on hornwort, Anacharis, or other softer-tissue plants. If your pH crashes, that may affect your Hornwort. It is a type of plant that either thrives, or will shed all of its needles at once...

like the old Charlie Brown Christmas tree...

 

Thank you. I tied to small stone because I wanted to have look like a plant plant. Am trying to set up shrimp friendly tank and am new to this. I am using easy green for now and finally notice some new green when turned light on check on the fish. Hoping good sign. 

[Fish Folk]

On 10/7/2023 at 9:46 PM, chiquitaemia said:

Thank you. I tied to small stone because I wanted to have look like a plant plant. Am trying to set up shrimp friendly tank and am new to this. I am using easy green for now and finally notice some new green when turned light on check on the fish. Hoping good sign. 

I just let my hornwort float at the top in this tank. I does the aquaponics bin up top with Flourish weekly. The nitrates from fish help of course. Once hornwort "likes" your tank, it will grow well. But it is sensitive to major chemical changes. Huge water changes... pH crashes... leaving a light on too long... loads to things will make it "grumpy" and the needles will all fall off at once.

[chiquitaemia]

Do you have to do water changes with all those plants?

[Fish Folk]

On 10/7/2023 at 10:01 PM, chiquitaemia said:

Do you have to do water changes with all those plants?

No, I really do not. I top off water each week. But the Aquaponics system is so efficient, my Nitrates are zeroed out. The only reason I _occassionally_ change water is that salt slowly builds up in any aquarium where live Artemia nauplii (baby brine shrimp) are being fed. I'm trying to encourage my Swordtails and Bluefin Killifish to spawn in there over the winter, so live BBS is stimulating. I do "wash" my shrimp so that the salt doesn't kill the herbs...

Edited October 8, 2023 by Fish Folk

[chiquitaemia]

I like your tank...couple of the plants look like herbs