# Is my plant rotting or is it just snails eating the leaves?



## cozmoz (Nov 7, 2006)

Is my plant rotting or is it just snails eating the leaves?

Please find the pictures here:










Also any advice on helping clear this up would be appreciated


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## dukydaf (Aug 31, 2004)

I belive your plant is rotting. If there were snail bites there would have been clear cut holes.

There could be a number of factors that affect Hygrophila polysperma. Not knowing the parameters of your setup I could only guess that it is light or N deficienty .


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## cozmoz (Nov 7, 2006)

Hi dukydaf, I have two 9 watt PL Arc Pod lights over a 5.5 gallon tank for 11 hours a day. I am using potting soil for the substrate and supplementing with Seachems Flourish Excel and TetraPlant PlantaMin.

Is there anything you would recommend to raise the Nitrogen?

Here are my levels day before water change:

PH 7.2
KH 6
GH 16
NO2 1
NO3 25


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## dukydaf (Aug 31, 2004)

I wouldn't raise Nitrogen any more. Because you have potting soil as a substrate I don't bealive it to be any "deficiency". Because you dose Excel that would rule out the CO2 deficiency.

What remains is the light.Does your light cover the hole length of the aquarium?
Anyway you now only have 1.45 watts per gallon (wpg), that's lowlight. 

If you only want to grow java fern, bacopa and other (very) low light species , your lighting is suitable. However H. polysperma needs a little more light to prosper, something like 2wpg. You can leave it as it is and replant the top of the plant from time to time.


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## cozmoz (Nov 7, 2006)

Thank you dukydaf, I think thats what I'll do as I'm not sure if I can fit any more lights over this size of aquarium comfortably and all other plants seem to be doing well.

Please find pictures of my aquarium below:


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