# Hemianthus callitrichoides melting, help!!



## jazzlvr123 (Apr 29, 2007)

hello, recently i bought about 15 pots of Hemianthus callitrichoides "Cuba" and put it into my 180 gallon tank with about 3.25 WPG metal halide lighting, Co2 and daily pps pro dosing and today i noticed my Hc was melting away from the middle and i wanted to know what i could do to prevent it from completely melting away, i took the heater out of my tank when i initially got the HC but the metal halide lighting even with a ventilation system in the hood is keeping the tank at about 80 degrees all day and about 75 at night. would this be the reason my hc is melting? if so i was going to build a chiller for my tank out of a mini fridge. what do you guys think i should do to keep the rest of my Hc from dieing? any help would be greatly appreciated thank you for looking


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

The chiller probably couldnt' hurt. Many plants don't like the temperature to warm. 80 should be tolerable though. Are you dosing traces too?


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## jazzlvr123 (Apr 29, 2007)

AaronT said:


> The chiller probably couldnt' hurt. Many plants don't like the temperature to warm. 80 should be tolerable though. Are you dosing traces too?


yup i use csm+B the elements i dose are:
In 1 liter bottle:
59 grams K2SO4 (Potassium Sulfate)
65 grams KNO3 (Potassium Nitrate)
6 grams KH2PO4 (Mono Potassium Phosphate)
41 grams MgSO4 (Magnesium Sulfate)

Micro Solution

In 1 liter bottle:
80 grams of CSM+B

I dose 18 ml of each solution prior to lights turning on.


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## mikenas102 (Feb 8, 2006)

I used to grow HC in a Nano Cube where the temp never dropped below 78F and had great success with it. HC loves CO2 or Excel. Are you using either? You also mentioned you bought the HC in "pots". I assume if it was in pots it was probably grown emersed. It could be that your HC is having a difficult time adapting to being submersed. It should pull through, however it may need some time to adapt and be pretty stagnant with any growth until then.


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

Try upping your micros a bit. I find that the CSM+B isn't as strong as Flourish. Melting is usually a sign of deficiency of some sort.


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## Kelley (Aug 27, 2006)

Before you build your chiller, you could try some cooling fans.


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## jazzlvr123 (Apr 29, 2007)

just an update, i upped up my co2, csm+B dosage and purchased two metal halide aquarium cooling fans on ebay i hope this will solve the problem once they come because it reached 106 yesterday and my tank got to 85 mid day just cooking the hc, its green on the top but turning brown towards the roots, i found a clump or two of stems that have de-attached from the rest of the HC plant when i turn on the lights the past couple of mornings leaving a brown dead spots in the hc clumps theres still a decent amount of healthy stem though to if i take care of this soon i can still save it


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## rbittman (Apr 27, 2006)

Jazz, how is the HC doing now? Did the extra traces and CO2 help? I have the plant too and am not very happy with its growth so far. I also use metal halide lighting, though in combo with fluorescent, ADA ferts and pressurized CO2 plus a little Excel. The HC took forever to just get rooted and in the process, some rotted. Now, it is more or less steady state, after about 5 weeks in my tank. However, it's new leaves are small or not at all; I do not notice any significant growth from day to day. Something is not right. I wondered if you had solved it yet.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Never forget that you do need to keep enough CO2 in the water with that much light. If you use a drop checker, with 4dKH water from http://liquidarthome.net/khstandard, you can be sure you have enough. No other method is that accurate. And, plants need carbon more than any other fertilizer, since plants are built mostly of carbon.


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## dstephens (Nov 30, 2005)

I recently planted 4-5 pots of HC and had a similar experience, with the exception that my tanks temperature never exceeds 75-76 degrees. It's a small tank though, the ADA 60-P, I think it is about 17 gallons. I keep a clip on fan from walmart for summer temps. After a few days the HC started to head south, rotting all over, turning brownish, becoming slimey. It turns out it was transitioning from emmersed to immersed growth. I put 2-3 Amano shrimp and about a dozen small cherry shrimp in the tank and between them and the snail population, they keep it looking pristine. It is thriving now sending out new runners all over the place. The total time of this transition has been approximately 30 days. My experience with HC is that it does not show its best at higher temps. It has grown best under similar parameters I keep for my moss tank, consistently low temps, small granuled substrate (Aquasoil Amazonia II powder) and regular dosing of micros. However, other contributors here have had different experiences when it comes to this plant. I don't know that anyone could pin down the perfect, exact parameters for success with HC. I have an ongoing love/hate relationship with this plant.................... Good luck.


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## jazzlvr123 (Apr 29, 2007)

i bought metal halide fans to fan the surface of the water and it diddnt do jack so i had to invest a pretty penny to keep my tank at 77 (i read online that 77 is the ideal temp for hc) the chiller comes in about a week, ill probably buy some more hc and start over then with my carpet


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## jazzlvr123 (Apr 29, 2007)

lol my chiller came and now this stuff is gorwing like a weed and bubbling like crazy, yayay


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