# Limnophila Heterophylla going white



## ifb-online

Hi all, my first time here and pretty new to the aquarium thing.

I have just planted my new tank (Juwel Rekord 120, which is 120 litres or around 26 imp. gallons or about 32 US gallons). I have four plant types; a couple of Echinodorus variations and the inevitable Java Fern.

I also have a Limonphila Heterophylla, but it's not looking very well - after just a week the tips of the stems are going white. All the other plants seem to be OK. Only the highest part of the plant, closest to the light, are going pale. It's also sending down what look like feeler-like roots towards the gravel. Interestingly, it opens up in the morning and also at night it closes up, but *before* the light is turned off - do plants have their own internal clock?

The tank's pH is 7.5, the water is moderately hard (calcium carbonate from local chalk) and, of course, it's still cycling. There are six small Danios in the tank, but no other fish. Currently, Nitrite levels are at around 0.1mg/litre and defintely not more than 0.25mg/litre, total ammonia is no more than 0.25mg/litre. I haven't done a nitrate test yest.

I'm a bit confused as to why the parts of the plant closest to the light are going pale. All help very welcome!

Ian


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## Bert H

First, welcome to apc! 

From your post, you mention you have measurable levels of nitrites and ammonia. That's not good. Since this is a new tank, you need to have it very heavily planted. If you do, then there are no cycling issues. If you don't, there will be problems with cycling, or lack thereof. 

How are you fertilizing your tank? How much light do you have, and do you have CO2? Pale new growth can be a sign of nitrate deficiency as well as iron deficiency, but keep in mind oftentimes the growth closest to the light will show some redness which you might interpret as lighter coloration. The internodal roots that you describe are common for stem plants. You can trim them as they grow, learn to live with them or just plant something in front of them to hide them if it bothers you.


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## ifb-online

Hi Bert,

Well, the tank has been filled for barely two weeks, so it's definitely still cycling and I guess this could continue for several more weeks. The Ammonia levels seem to be under control - present but not excessive, but this evening Nitrite levels are higher than they have been, so I did a 20% water change for the sake of the fish.

This is the tank a day or two after it was first planted. The Limnophila is the feathery plant second from the right (ignoring the small one-leaf Java fern on the far right) as viewed but not showing the tip-paleness yet:








With the light off, the tips of the Limnophila don't appear to have any red in them, just a paleness; almost white - as if they have been bleached by the light. The tube that comes as standard with the Juwel Relord 120 is 25W and has a reflector built in to the hood. Only the Limnophila is affected. I mentioned the roots because this suggests the plant is actively growing - which I assume is a good sign!

I'm not feeding the plants or providing additional C02 at this stage.

Do you think the symptoms are simply a by-product of the cycling process? I'd guess this is a moderate planting rather than heavy, so is CO2 really needed and is this advisable while cycling with fish? Ditto for feeding.

Thanks again!

Ian

PS I forgot to mention, the tank temperature is 76F and the dimensions are 101L x 46H x 31W cm.


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## Bert H

Hey Ian, if I understand correct, you have 25W on a 32 gallon tank. You will have difficulty growing much in there. With this info, I would say the paleness is due to insufficient lighting. The swords might survive under those circumstances, and you might be able to maintain some Crypt wendtii, but imo, even the java fern will have difficulties with that little lighting. If you can manage a second 25W strip for the tank, it would still be very low light, but you would increase your chances of plant survival/growth.

With that low light environment, I wouldn't add ferts or even CO2. I would go the low maint, no water changes route. Check out this link for some info along those lines.

When we talk about not needing to cycle with heavily planted tanks, we mean _heavily planted _tanks full of fast growing stem plants. In your case, I would say that's a light planting you have there, and except for your Limnophila you don't have any stems in there. So stay on top of your nitrite and ammonia levels here at the beginning so your fish don't suffer. The swords also have emersed leaves which will eventually wither away underwater while the new submerged leaves appear.

HTH.


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## yildirim

> do plants have their own internal clock?


Yes they have in their way. They start to open just before the lights on and closes an hour or more before the lights off. When you change the lighting period you will see that they adapt to it in a few days.

Even tough your lights are low, you can still add some more plants which do not require too much, it will help greatly at initial stages. Later you may take them out if you do not like.


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## ifb-online

Bert H said:


> Hey Ian, if I understand correct, you have 25W on a 32 gallon tank. You will have difficulty growing much in there. With this info, I would say the paleness is due to insufficient lighting. The swords might survive under those circumstances, and you might be able to maintain some Crypt wendtii, but imo, even the java fern will have difficulties with that little lighting. If you can manage a second 25W strip for the tank, it would still be very low light, but you would increase your chances of plant survival/growth.


Thanks Bert - makes sense. But a couple of things are still making me wonder; why is it that the parts of Limnophila closest to the light are bleaching? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Secondly, Juwel seems to make a selling point of its hood design in my tank, quote: "_Monolux 100 - The complete lighting hood for all aquariums measuring 100 x 30 cm. Like all Juwel Lighting Systems the Monolux 100 is waterproof. The Monolux 100 features a 25W light tube and, to double its light output, a built - in reflector. This is sufficient to maintain aquarium plants even in higher tanks. The Monolux 100 lighting hood is standard feature for our highly successful Rekord 120 aquarium_. " They also talk about the design not needing condensation covers, so preserving more of the transmitted light. So is this just nonsensical marketing spiel?

I'll be frank, I don't aspire to a lavishly planted tank. I'd mainly like a tank with a nice amount of greenery that allows the fish enough swimming and hiding space and I was hoping that the plants would have a secondary effect of assisting (not replacing) the filter in conditioning the water.

I'm rather alarmed that despite best intentions, this might be quite a challenge! 

Ian

PS Latest update on the cycling - Ammonia levels are detectably dropping and Nitrites are on the up (and I'm keeping a daily watch on this in case a water change is needed), so it looks like the tank is entering the middle phase.


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## ifb-online

yildirim said:


> Yes they have in their way. They start to open just before the lights on and closes an hour or more before the lights off. When you change the lighting period you will see that they adapt to it in a few days.
> 
> Even tough your lights are low, you can still add some more plants which do not require too much, it will help greatly at initial stages. Later you may take them out if you do not like.


Thanks yildirim - always been fascinated by things like this 

It does look like I should have researched my plant choice better before purchasing...

Ian


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## Bert H

> So is this just nonsensical marketing spiel?


Yes. Even if it used the ahs reflectors, which are imo the best in the business, it's still only 25 watts.

But that doesn't mean you can't have some plants in the tank. I gave my old 29gal tank to a friend of mine. It was an old established tank which I had heavily planted and with pressurized CO2. I removed all but a couple of stems of Rotala rotundafolia and a few small Crypt wendtii's. He set it up at his house and all he had for lighting was a 20W strip with a lousy reflector. To make a long story short, the Rotala died, but the Crypts kept on going. They grow very slowly, but to my surprise, they didn't even melt at the changeover from high tech to very low tech. So what you're looking for can be done with what you have, you just have to choose your plants accordingly and be aware that growth will be extremely slow. Check out the plantfinder for low light plants. Read up on non-CO2 low tech tanks. I gave you a link on my prior response about low tech tanks.

To get back to your concern about the light colored new growth, my guess would be that if you added a touch of ferts (NO3, PO4 and iron) they would green up. But be careful with fertilizing such a low light system, you definitely do not want to add too much. This kind of system makes use of fish waste, etc for most of its nutrients since it isn't driven by the lighting.

HTH.


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## ifb-online

OK, Bert - I've seen some articles on DIY addition of a second strip and controller to the Rekord's hood and it looks fairly straighthforward. By the way, the original tube is apparently 30W rather than 25W, so I can upgrade to 2x30W = 60W rather than 25W. Would a tube like the Arcadia Original Tropical be OK?

Ian


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## Bert H

> Would a tube like the Arcadia Original Tropical be OK?


Sorry, not familiar with that. But basically as long as it has a color temperature between around 5500K - 10,000K it will grow plants.


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## zig

ifb-online said:


> OK, Bert - I've seen some articles on DIY addition of a second strip and controller to the Rekord's hood and it looks fairly straighthforward. By the way, the original tube is apparently 30W rather than 25W, so I can upgrade to 2x30W = 60W rather than 25W. Would a tube like the Arcadia Original Tropical be OK?
> 
> Ian


I would give the Arcadia origional tropical tube a miss, this is a _very pink_ light for viewing purposes and these tubes also lack intensity IMO, it will grow plants fine but you will probably prefer the Arcadia freshwater tube, much better for viewing purposes, or even better go for an Interpet daylight 6500k tube.


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## ifb-online

Thanks Zig - the product information did kind of imply that. I'll look out for a more white light tube in that case - if the original tube is warmer, I'll replace that too.

Ian


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## yildirim

> always been fascinated by things like this :smile:


Wait and see for more, when your plants pearl, flower underwater or over the surface, some flowers turning to seeds and creating new plantlets and esp. seeing the changes during the emmersed-submersed transition of some plants.........


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## ifb-online

*Fluorescent tube rating confusion!*



Bert H said:


> Sorry, not familiar with that. But basically as long as it has a color temperature between around 5500K - 10,000K it will grow plants.


Now I'm confused!  I visited my local aquarium store and they had a range of aquarium tubes on offer from I think three manufacturers. The tubes branded for promoting plant growth were all low Kelvin temperatures - as little as 2800K. And what is tri-phosphor?


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## ifb-online

OK, I'm going to have a stab at answering my own question after doing some research!

The reason plants are green is that visible spectra are absorbed by the leaves leaving green to be reflected back. Human eyes are very sensitive to green and normal fluorescent tubes are green-biased as a result. But this would mean the energy of the lamp would be ineffeciently deployed if the main object is to be absorbed by a green plant. This sounds like why so-called plant-specific tubes have a pinky or purply tinge. 

Does that make sense?

Ian


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## ifb-online

*DIY lighting upgraded completed!*

I deciced to go ahead and add a second tube to my Juwel Rekord 120 Monolux hood.

I spent rather a long time visiting all the local aquarium stores (well, within a 10 mile radius!) and was rather dismayed at the poor stocking levels of tubes, reflectors and control units (chokes) and the large variation in price.

I still hadn't made up my mind what tube to get, but I decided that I needed one that didn't have a strong green response in its spectrum. The Hagen FloraGlo looked great, but the most expensive shop I visited wanted £23 for the 895mm 30W tube I needed! In the end I settled for an Interpet Triton (£12.65), which boasted nice peaks in the spectrum either side of the green area. I managed to pick one of these up at World of Water, near Watford, along with an InterPet control unit and a Juwel 900mm metal reflector. The latter was meant for a Juwel Multilux hood, but it suited my purpose fine and was reasonably priced at £6.25. All the bits totalled £37, give or take a few pennies. Had I bought everything at one of the other stores I visited, I'd have paid almost £50  - and not had such a good choice of components. I'd have saved even more online though.

Once I'd decided on the arrangement of the reflector and the tube end-holders and clips, using the clips (attached using bolts drilled through the front of the hood) to hold the reflector in place, it took literally 15 minutes to drill the holes, screw things in and check things over before re-positioning the hood on the tank.









_Here's the finished job on the breakfast table! The new tube and reflector are at the top as viewed._​
Once the cables had been tidied and plugged in, on went the switch and the new tube took a while to 'catch', but it worked fine - with a noticeable pinkish tone. But with the original white light tube in place the result is actually very pleasing. Switching between the two lights revealed just how dark the tank was with the original light only.









_Here is a close up fo the clip supplied with the control unit to locate the tube end holders. The clip is fixed to the front of the hood using a bolt through a drilled hole and the edge of the metal reflector is trapped between the bottom of the clip and the inside of the hood, holding it firmly in place with no need for extra screws or bolts._​
I can do more - there are two very large flaps for access to the tank without removing the hood and these could be painted white, or a reflector could be added to the centre of the hood - indeed, there is room for a third tube in-between the two I now have.

I just hope the extra light will do something to help my rather bleached looking Limnophila Heterophylla!









_Here is my sickly Lymonphila; hopefully I'll be able to post a shot in a few weeks time with it looking decidedly less pale!_​
Two weeks since it was first filled, the tank is still cycling - Ammonia is now zero, but Nitrite measured last night remains high - eagerly looking for it to start dropping!

Ian


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## ifb-online

A day after the new tube was installed, some encouraging signs - bubbles accumulating under some of the leaves; presumably oxygen (fingers crossed).

One concern is that the additional tube has caused the day time temperature to rise a couple of degrees, from around 77F to almost 80F. 

As the heater maintained the 77F temperature successfully before, I'm not sure turning the heater thermostat down will make a difference, but I'll experiment tomorrow.

Ian


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## Bert H

Nice job, Ian :thumbsup:. I wouldn't worry about a temp of 80. My tanks rarely get below that for 6 months of the year.


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## ifb-online

Thanks Bert, I've also added foil to the understide of the two large flaps to maximise the reflectivity. Fingers crossed now that the plants respond! Thanks for the reassurance about the temperature. Room temperature here is currently around 21-22C or about 70F, but this could rise to 80F on a hot summer's day, so I'll be monitoring things. The two large acess flaps might provide necessary ventilation to keep the tank temperature under control.

If there is a change, I'll post some more pix in due course 

Ian


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## sistimblue

Wow I nice light rig Ian and I also recently just purchased this plant at my LFS and was surprised to learn it is a high light plant. I was thinking Medium to HIgh. How is the plant growth in your aquarium going ?


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