# ack, my ludwigia is rapidly dying!



## black_lung (Dec 19, 2006)

I don't know what it is with me and this particular species, but I never can get it to thrive..or survive. Here's my story, over the past three weeks I've been remodeling one of my 10 gallons, and last week I got the final bunch of plants to put in- Ludwigia arcuata. Arrived looking beautiful, bright red with nary a broken stem. Over the course of the weekend almost all the plants have rotted away, both stems and leaves turning dark green and spongey. Some plants were rotten only near the bottom, like they're suffering from low light, others the leaves were starting to rot from the base of the leaves going outwards, and on others it assumed a random pattern, with the top portion looking fine, the middle being rotted, and the bottom being healthy. There were 8 stems total, only 3 didn't have any rot. Specs for the tank are: ammonia-0, nitrite-0, nitrate-0, phosphate- .50, ph- 7.4, temperature- 78, lighting- 40w sunpaq dual daylight cf. I have the plants directly under the light, with about 1/2" spacing between the stems. I haven't started fertilizing or dosing co2 yet except through excel, 1ml every other day. Actual co2 system is being rigged up tomorrow as well as will routine fertilizing begin. Not sure what my waters hardness is, but its usually pretty high. The tank had been established for close to a year beforehand, and had an average nitrate level of 5ppm; that's significantly dropped since the addition of more plants. The curious thing is, I've had this identical problem several times before with not only Ludwigia arcuata, but other Ludwigia species as well; only once have I ever gotten any to survive. I'm thinking it could be shipping stress (they've always come from the same supplier), too low light, too high of ph, or a deficiency of some kind (but would that become so apparent after just one week?) I really don't know. ..anyone have any ideas/suggestions as to what is wrong and what I can do to fix it? I cut off the rotted bits and replanted the healthy portions.
The other plants in this tank are taiwan moss, pearl weed, glosso, dwarf sag and rotala indica..everything else is showing strong growth with no ill symtoms.


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## DonaldmBoyer (Aug 18, 2005)

If I had to guess, I would say that maybe you got an emersed form of the ludwidgia, and not a submersed form, in which case all you can do is keep replanting the top portion of the plant. The CO2should help, and I would back off of frequent water changes, or filter your water through some peat to slowly bring the pH down. These things may help......though I have to admit, I am not all too familiar with L.Arcuata.........perhaps a moderator will help you with a problem. They would certainly know!


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

You might want to look into your water hardness. FWIW, I had a variety of problems trying to grow Ludwigias (repens, arcuata, palustris and ovalis). I have hard water (kh9.5, gh12, most from CaCO3). I started dosing Magnesium, and the Ludwigias started to grow ok. I am not currently growing any, but had them for several months doing fine. My 2 cents. Good luck.


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