# Are my plants melting?



## poissonkimbo (Dec 21, 2010)

It's been one day shy of a week since I set up my first NPT and I have a couple of questions about the health of my plants. Most of the anacharis has dead leaves as seen in the pictures below. Also, the micro sword and sagittaria has brown leaves, but they have new growth. Should I be worried or is this part of the process? I did pull out several dead leaves yesterday on the bacopa and ludwigia.

A few tank specs are 20 gal long with HOB filter. Ammonia reading vary from .25-.5 when I check everyday and I have yet to have any nitrite readings. Inhabitants are 6 neon tetras and snails of unknown origin. They aren't eating anything but the dead leaves, so I am cool with them. In fact, I kinda like them.

Also, should I be doing water changes everyday or am I reducing the ammonia necessary to take me to the nitrite phase?

Thanks!


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## hornedtoad1 (Jun 24, 2011)

how's that tank doing? 
if you bought your plants from a dealer they were probably grown out of water (except maybe the sag), and will take some time to adjust to life underwater--old leaves die, new growth comes in. good idea to remove the dead leaves.
also, some plants will do well in your setup and some just won't. trial and error. if the anacharis doesn't do well, try another stem plant. your bacopa will probably do well.
you might add some floating plants--amazon frogbit is good stuff--to help remove ammonia etc. they also help to keep the algae down. daily water changes shouldn't be needed; monitor conditions and just do w/c's when necessary. 
i set up my first npt tank 3 months ago and was changing water every other day, but the tank was overstocked (9 platies and a betta for a 10 gallon). but even so, the ammonia never got over .25-.50. once i reduced the load, things settled down and i could change once a week. for the last month or so i haven't had to do more than top it off.
amquel is handy in a pinch if the ammonia spikes.
keep an eye on it, and trust the process. 
good luck with it.


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## Skizhx (Oct 12, 2010)

I would expect some leaves to take a hit when a new plant is establishing itslelf, but not to melt away like that.

I don't wanna go filling your head with bad advice, but I'm watching to see if anyone doesn't suggest insufficient lighting, because that's what I'm suspecting from the pictures.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

I've had two bad experiences with plant-melt that were not a normal acclimation.

One was my first attempt ever and I put approximately 4" of soil as a substrate, lots of organics and very fine textured soil, and it went anaerobic. Everything seemed great for a while but every plant melted and the critters I didn't get to in time died from the death gas.

My second was in a tank where I took the necessary soil precautions and set the tank up fine, but the lighting hood did not arrive as scheduled. So my 1-2 days of black-out turned into almost 2 weeks of using small lights from around the house to try to fit the bill over a 125 gallon tank. I lost most of my stems, but the others pulled through just fine.

Questions would be: how dense is your tank planted; is there enough bioload to feed them; is there too much bioload feeding them; did you mineralize your substrate (I do a "partial hybrid" myself to keep a lot of organics, but remove the overload and some of the tannins); how deep is it and what is the texture of it (is there gas exchange throughout the substrate); were some of the plants sold in there emmersed form and need to transition to submersed (obviously not an issue with aquatic-only species)...and so on. So many variables...

Hope it all works out.


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## poissonkimbo (Dec 21, 2010)

Thanks for the advice everyone, and I am sorry that I haven't been quicker to reply. I just started my first teaching job, and time has been limited.

The tank looks pretty good now. The anachris has exploded and is a beautiful, vibrant green. The bacopa is doing quite well, and the sagittaria has filled in beautifully. I tried lloydiella but it is just not going to grow in my tank and I have removed it. 

My java fern has sprouted new leaves, but has a few black spots on it. The amazon sword has a few greenish leaves, but also some brown ones. I touched the stems of the brown ones and they don't feel rotted. My chain sword has a ton of runners and I think I need to clip them and plant them because they are just floating right now. I will take pictures and post them tomorrow. (The lights are off right now for a siesta).

The tank parameters have stabilized. As for bioload, I have six neon tetras, pond snails, MTS snails, and I found a ramshorn last night. I am considering trying to remove the ramshorm to a non planted tank because I know that they CAN eat plants. None of the plants with healthy leaves look munched on. I like the snails because they are keeping the algae at bay.

As for lighting, I don't remember what I have in there because I went on the recommendation of the guy at the local fish store, but I know that he keeps high tech tanks. If anything, I worry I might have too much light. I have the tank in front of a window that gets mid morning light, but have closed the curtains, because I have noticed thread algae. I plan to try to scrape as much as I can tomorrow.

The substrate is one inch of MGO, that I soaked overnight then put in the tank. The cap is one inch of eco complete.

I will say that I ordered too many plants and ended up getting a 5 gallon and a 2.5 gallon to handle the overflow. Both are same on substrate with a bioload of nerites, pond, and MTS snails. The lighting is a daylight bulb from Walmart and a plant grow bulb from the LFS. They are both doing fabulously!

Like I said, I have somewhere to be in an hour, but I will post pictures tomorrow.


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## poissonkimbo (Dec 21, 2010)

Oops. Forgot to add that I am using hornwort as a floater in the big 20 gal and the 2.5 gallon. I hate the look of it in my 20 gal. In the 5 gal, the bacopa is growing emergent. I love it.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

If you don't like hornwort you could use red root floater, or frogbit. My favorite is Najas sp "Roraima". It's a nutrient hog but doesn't shade things.


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## poissonkimbo (Dec 21, 2010)

Texas girl, that's pretty. I assume that like hornwort, it can be planted or float.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

poissonkimbo said:


> Texas girl, that's pretty. I assume that like hornwort, it can be planted or float.


It's really hard to plant this. It's really a floater. It's easy to remove. It's a great plant for watching that you have enough nutrients. It's my favorite in this category. I always keep some around.


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## poissonkimbo (Dec 21, 2010)

Finally got around to taking some pictures. I think I need to trim and plant the micro sword. I know I need to pluck off the dead leaves. I just didn't have it in me since I spent a lot of time in another tank.

Please tell me what you think.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Looks like your new growth is nice and healthy. I think they were just acclimating to your tank.


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