# Established Crypt melt in established tank.



## wabisabi

Has anyone run into this problem? I have a submerged established tank with C. cordata, C. keei, C. uenoi and a few others. Most of these plants have sent out runners and have keiki plantlets. I just noticed today that a lot of the C. cordata leaves have melted and also some of the C.keei leaves. I immediately did a water change in hopes of changing whatever parameter is causing the melt. Felt the rhizome of the C. cordata and it's still firm so I am hopeful everything will bounce back. 

Geez, I'm having some issues lately with my plants!

Any thoughts? suggestions? experience with this? 

Thanks.


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## looking4roselines

Did any fish or shrimps died in there without you noticing? I had the same issue in the past where a fish died and got caught in the corner. I didn't really notice until my tank got cloudy and my crypts started melting.


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## wabisabi

That could be it. I recently added a pea puffer to take care of some snails/scuds. Next thing I know I see a half decayed carcass on the bottom. I removed it, but haven't done a water change for a while. That was just this past week. I hope that was the issue and the water change will bring parameters back into the crypts favor.

Funny thing is, my water was still clear. I do have shrimps in the tank also, so any dead organisms usually get eaten relatively quickly by them. I just hope that was it.


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## ddavila06

i had teh same happen with cordata and now suddently with wendtii bronze..i noticed it happened after i dosed excell to rid of BBA...i melted my balansae red in the middle too' darn excell!! hope urs bounce back soon


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## illustrator

I had _C. affinis_ melting/leaves dying when I shut down the filter for a few days (to see possible effects on fish - which i did not see). I think that pretty much any larger change in whater chemistry, water current, light regime and temperature can cause such a reaction, as well as some parameter reaching a critical value.

While a single dead fish can trip a balance, I more wonder why the fish died in the first place, maybe the water was already not too good in some way ...

Water can also be clear because it is too poisonous for algae and bacteria to grow in, I wouldn't trust "clarity" as the only indicator of "purity" ...


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## wabisabi

The puffer died out of my laziness. I plucked him from one tank and threw him in the tank with the crypts. No acclimation.

I also have some crystal red shrimp in this tank. They all look happy and healthy so I don't think the water parameters could have been 'toxic'.


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## wabisabi

ddavila06 said:


> i had teh same happen with cordata and now suddently with wendtii bronze..i noticed it happened after i dosed excell to rid of BBA...i melted my balansae red in the middle too' darn excell!! hope urs bounce back soon


That sucks. Were you mega dosing the excel?


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## ddavila06

wabisabi said:


> That sucks. Were you mega dosing the excel?


im sure it has been called that.
i drained the 75, i doubled dosed as if it was full so at half way we can call it four times the recommended dose on the bottle :tape2: but only for 5 minutes until i filled it up!! [smilie=l:


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## DogFish2.0

ddavila06 said:


> .... we can call it four times the recommended dose on the bottle :tape2: but only for 5 minutes until i filled it up!! [smilie=l:[/QUOTE]
> 
> 4Xs????
> 
> BEFORE you wage an more chemical warfare read this thread: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/146403-h2o2-dip.html


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## ddavila06

DogFish2.0 said:


> 4Xs????
> 
> BEFORE you wage an more chemical warfare read this thread: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/146403-h2o2-dip.html


sorry if we highjacked the original thread btw-

it was a one time thing, im not willing nor interested in pulling anything to bleach deep.. have you seen how large the roots to a crypt usteriana get when full size? a nuclear amount of excel took care of the bba..some side effects, nothing mayor..[smilie=l:


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## Erirku

My established crypt tank just started to melt also! No dead fish that i could see. though I started to change the water every other week and started to dose some ADA fertz! Hopefully it is not the water change or ADA fertz that caused this!!! ahhhh, hopefully they will bounce back!?!?!


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## illustrator

If you didn't change water for a long time and then suddenly started with changing a lot, this is a big difference in water chemistry and this can trigger melting. The plants need to produce new leaves which are adapted to the new water. 

If you now stop with water changes, you could make it worse, because the dying/rotting leaves can also make the water quality poorer. Because of this, maybe check for nitrate/nitrite during/after melt. 

I try to change 1/2 of the water each week, but in practice I do it twice a month because I never find the time for it. No problems because of water changes here, but I have a good quality spring water and I concentrate on those crypts which easily grow in my type of water. I use a different fertilizer here (the one from Tropica), but I don't think that this matters much, for some time I even used a very diluted houseplant fertilizer with no visible adverse effects.

I am struggeling with Crypts from time to time, but I think that this has a different cause. Also, occasional problems make it more interesting to experiment, don't you think?


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## HeyPK

I have seen crypt melt when they have become low in nitrogen and then there is a sudden increase in nitrogen level. If crypts are nitrogen deficient, N has to be added cautiously, in very small doses.


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## bsmith

There are a lot of good leads in why your plants have started to melt. But if you can't attribute the issue to any of them here is a story about when I had the same problem. 

So this was in my mini-m which housed many of the harder to find crypts which a few you have in your tank as well. I also have CRS in there aswell. All of a sudden my plants started melting and after a closer inspection (and comparison of pics I took of the tank in the past when everything was looking great) the plants looked sickly. I wondered what could cause l of these plants to have these unwanted response all over the tank. I first thought that maybe my ADA AS was running out of nutrients but then I realized I put root tabs in not that long ago and the chance that the AS ran out if nutrients in all these locations at the same place was a far shot. After going thought a couple other things (water params, ferts, etc) it dawned on my that the spiral PC that I had lighting the tank was pretty old and that I had a fresh one in my desk drawer. 

Fast forward two weeks later and every single plant that was melting or had melted was now sprouting at least one new, vibrant beautiful new leaf. The bulb was bad and it was as simple as that.


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