# Shedding Hornwort



## Red_Rose

I know of someone who had set up a NPT and they had Hornwort in their tank but they said that it sheds a lot.

What causes Hornwort to shed its needles? Mine did that when I first added it to the tank but it doesn't do that anymore. Would water hardness have anything to do with it?


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## lampeye

A sudden change in water chemistry can do it.


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## Homer_Simpson

In my experience, some plants display strange behaviour when they are acclimitizing to new water conditions. I have seen this in practically all the tanks that I have set up. Sometimes, like the Crytocornes, the leaves will melt and new ones will grow within a few weeks. When I first placed some egera densa in one of my tanks, they looked so pathetic that I thought they would die. I just left them and they rebounded with new lush green growth, aerial roots and they are shooting new stems out all over the tank.

I have had problems keeping hornwort in a tank, but as others have mentioned, this may be due to the fact that I had a UV sterilizer running in the tank. The hornwort would lose all its needles and eventually turn brown and practically melt. However, I never kept hornwort stem long enough in the tank to see if it would rebound with new growth. 

Sorry for the long winded response. I believe that plants have to go through acclimitization process, some taking longer, others taking shorter, and the hornwort losing needles may be due to the hornwort acclimitizing to its new surroundings.


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## Cliff Mayes

Hey Homer do you think that the UV is the way to get rid of Hornwort?

Many years ago a lot of us thought it was the best thing since sliced bread but after a while we have learned to view it like some folk look at Duckweed. It seems that one small piece will blossom into a whole new plant which smells bad and cannot be gotten rid of. It is great for fry but it is miserable getting it out of a large well planted tank.

Maybe you have found the way. I am going to buy the next decent UV unit that comes up at Auction. Hornwort comes up at the Auctions all of the time and we make jokes about it as if it were a bag of Convicts. I like the stuff and it is useful but it would be nice to be able to disappear it when it gets bothersome.


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## Homer_Simpson

Cliff Mayes said:


> ...Hey Homer do you think that the UV is the way to get rid of Hornwort?


I had the hornwort in a 40 gallon tank with a UV sterilizer and a 20 gallon with a UV sterilizer. In both cases the hornwort became more and more scraggly looking, kept losing its needles, turned brown and eventually melted. At first I thought I thought it was a coincidence that it melted in both tanks that had a UV sterilizer running. Then, I came across a post by Diana Walstead on this forum where she talked about how some floating plants like hornwort could be adversely effected by a UV sterilizer. I will try to find the link and post it. It had something to due with the UV sterlizer neutalizing the iron levels in the water column or changing their chemical structure making it unavailable to the hornwort to absorb. The hornwort literally dies of iron deficiency and adding iron to the water column does not fix the problem because the UV sterilizer changes its chemical structure. The process literally starves the hornwort of iron and kills it. The UV sterilizer does not effect the iron content in/on the substrate.

Perhaps Diana can chime in and explain better.


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## Cliff Mayes

Thank you.

Interesting. I will try it. If it works we can start using Hornwort again which is very useful.


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## Red_Rose

Who knew that a plant could shed or melt it's leaves or needles when acclimatizing to new water conditions. I guess that's why my hornwort was shedding needles when I first set up the tank.

Thanks, everyone!


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## mark b

I know I am replying to a post that is a couple of years old, but I wanted to share my experience.
I had a flourishing Hornwort that was doing ok...
I have a UV sterilzer that was working, then the lamp burned out and the hornwort really took off after that happened (I didn;t replace for a month or so...
During that time, I had some blooms of diatoms, brown/black beard algae that I treated with H2O2 (Hydrogen Perixode) some of the affected plants with...
I did three or four doses of 1 ml per gallon of water in the tank...
The hornwort stems stays green as well as the leave/needles, however the plant has shed / lost all of them...
My guess is that the plant does do better with out UV, but Peroxid will cause damage pretty quickly.
I dose iron as well as micro / macros, inject CO2, and have 2.5 watts per gal of 6700 and 10k lighting that is on for about 10 hours a day with the 10k as a midday burst of 2 or 3 hours.


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## Noto

I must admit I cannot understand how a UV sterilizer would have any effect on a plant confined to the display. Hornwort does usually collect some periphyton which may protect it from photorespiration, but even that should not be much impacted by the UV.

Another poster mentioned hornwort smelling bad. I keep plenty of the stuff and have never noticed this (admittedly, my sense of smell is not the best). I wonder if this might be a case of mistaken identity; _Chara_ (aka stonewort or muskgrass) looks quite similar to hornwort and has a pungent odor.


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## bradac56

I was thinking the same thing, my hornwort has never smelled bad.
I know there's several plants lumped into the generic 'hornwort' name that look very similar.

- Brad


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## cojack22

I have the same problem in my NPT. There are a lot of dead needles laying on the bottom of the tank. Whats the best way to remove them? Or should I just leave them there as food for my living plants?


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