# Java Fern is Melting, Help



## webcricket (Oct 16, 2006)

Tank info: 10 gallon, 20 watts CF lighting (11 hrs day, bulbs only a few months old), dose Seachem products liquid P, N, K, Flourish, and Excel daily (easier for me - dose at recommended dosing, except I add a bit extra K). Inert substrate. Nitrates at 10-15 ppm. No inverts (puffer tank). Plants: Java Fern, Lace Java Fern, Narrow Leaf Java Fern, Red Wendtii Crypt, Pearl Grass, Petite Nana, Marimo Algae Ball, Aponogeton Crispus and an unknown aponogeton. Lace and narrow leaf ferns are fine, only the normal java fern is showing problems. Excel dosing began on 10/6 (this is the only change recently). Since starting Excel I have had a die-back of some BBA that was in the tank (turned red then disappeared).










Here's the story...I first noticed a dying/browning plantlet down in the roots near the rhizome 2 days ago - I figured it wasn't getting enough light, and was small enough that I wouldn't concern myself with removal until next water change. Yesterday I noticed a brown leaf in with some of the newer leaves on the plant. This afternoon - numerous leaves are brown/rotting - and it seems that wherever a browning leaf touched another leaf, that leaf also went brown at that spot. Some went brown from stem up - others went brown in the middle. I've got old and new leaves effected. It honestly looks similar to crypt melt. No other plants appear to be in distress - the only other issue was an aponogeton crispus leaf touching a browning java fern leaf that also rotted.

Pictures (the thin leaf in the 2nd picture is the aponogeton leaf):

















I pulled the java fern and the driftwood it's attached to from the tank and trimmed out all of the effected leaves. There were also some dead roots which pulled off easily that I didn't notice while it was in the tank. For now I've done a 40% water change and dosed ferts as usual.

I see it has been discussed on these boards before here:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...nts-discussions/11926-java-fern-blight-2.html
And the possibility is too much K? Does anyone have any suggestions on altering my ferts? Should I decrease K (and here I thought you couldn't overdose it)? GH was 8 degrees before last week's water change. I didn't see that thread until after I did today's water change, or I would have tested GH again.

Any ideas what is causing this? I want to address the problem before it possibly spreads to my lace and narrow leaf ferns.


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## webcricket (Oct 16, 2006)

I thought of another change at the beginning of the month... I removed a good bunch (10 branching stems at least) of anacharis from the tank. I'm wondering if that (being a nutrient hog) was absorbing some nutrient (maybe the K) that was being overdosed all along, and now that it isn't in there to suck up that nutrient, the fern is melting.


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## webcricket (Oct 16, 2006)

Wow, over 100 thread views and no one has any thoughts? 

Half the fern is gone now...with more leaves going daily. Part of it is just a rhizome with a single leaf - do I even bother to keep the rhizome if that leaf dies? Can it come back with no leaves? I'm really desperate here. This is my first planted tank, I have no idea what could be happening. Everything has grown well all along. I'm afraid it may be spreading to my narrow leaf java fern.

Maybe the big water changes and cutting back on ferts are totally off base. I have no experience in these matters, I've only been doing planted for about 3 months.

Does this look like any deficiency? An overdose of something? It spreads so quickly on the leaves.


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## vollman1 (Jul 25, 2006)

I do not know how to help you, but I hope someone takes the time to. I don't know if Java Ferns put people off because they sometimes go black normally, but it seems nobody here gives advice when it comes to Java Ferns.:violin: I posted awhile back about the tips going translucent on my Java Ferns and got few if any responses. The only responses I received thought that it was just something the ferns do normally.

I hope that you get some help with this!


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## redstrat (Apr 3, 2006)

I had a fern start to go black a while ago but my ferts weren't very balanced, since then I have balanced my ferts my java fern as been growing like a weed(for a java fern). I really wouldn't be suprised if your fert needs have changed since you removed the anacharis, I reevaluate your dosage schedule just to be sure. Also were the black portions ever covered in algae, maybe these portions are reacting to the lack of light while the algae was there, just a thought. 

by the way you can definately overdose K, i've done it. how much are you dosing, some people dont dose any and just rely on the K provided by KNO3 and mono-potassium phosphate... Definately can't count on it being the only cause, sometimes this happens to ferns, it seems like your doing everything right as far as I can tell but I'm not all that familure with dosing seachem ferts I use dry ferts. 

as far as translucent tips, I'm not sure how normal it is because I never really noticed it much before, not that I was paying attention, but my ferns new portions start out somewhat translucent and become solid opaic as the leaves grow. Are the translucent portions only on new leaves??


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## webcricket (Oct 16, 2006)

Thank you for the responses!

The leaves actually aren't black. They just go mushy brown. When I first planted my lace fern, it had a black leaf that grew plantlets, but this melting problem is not like that at all. These leaves were never covered in algae aside from maybe some strands of long thread algae (the kind that grows out several centimeters), certainly not a blanket on the leaves.

For now I'm cutting back on ferts and stopping the Excel altogether in this tank. I posted on the Seachem sponsor board to see if anyone else has maybe had problems with java ferns and Excel.

The Excel markets itself as making iron more readily available to plants by reducing it to a ferrous state. Java ferns are iron loving plants. Perhaps the Excel does something to the iron making it bad for the fern. I'm just grasping at straws really.

And on the matter of translucent tips - where new growth is concerned, I believe it to be completely normal for this plant. All of my newer leaves get that clearish part, and it eventually gets solid green like the rest of the leaf when it is done growing.


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## vollman1 (Jul 25, 2006)

Thanks for the post davis.1841! Someone out there does have a heart when it comes to Java Ferns!=D>

Webcricket, the way you describe the blemishes spreading sounds like some kind of disease or bacterial infection. I don't know if Java Ferns are susceptable to anything specific, but maybe someone out there knows.

George

P.S. I changed out almost all of the incandescent bulbs in our apartment and replaced them with flourescents a while back. I totally support you in this!


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## geeks_15 (Dec 9, 2006)

*The same thing happened to me*

I had Java fern attached to several pieces of driftwood. It had been growing great for about 18 months, and then all died over a week. It became brown and mushy just like you describe. I took the dead plants out, but all the rest did the same thing. I don't think any changes had occurred in my tank other than routine trimming and cutting the rhizomes, but I had done this all along with no problems. Several plants from the same group are doing well in a separate tank. I had moved them before the plague though. All my other plants continue to do well.

As far as ferts, I add flourish 1/2 cap and bury 5 plant tabs only at water changes every 2 weeks. I don't test for micronutrients. I feel like I don't give much fertilizer and my tank was lightly stocked, so the java fern problem may have some other cause than too much nutrients.

I can't find any answers either.

Other tank stats at the time of the java fern die off:
29gal
1 ram, 4 neons, 1 dwarf puffer
anubias sp, amazon swords, crypt sp, java moss, dwarf lily, floating riccia, 2 mangroves, duck weed
2 x 14watt T5 + 18watt T12 lighting
ecocomplete substrate
kH 4 gH 5 pH 7
Hagan yeast reactor CO2
ammonia & nitrite 0, nitrate <20


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

I had the same thing happen when i added some very healthy homegrown Java fernlets to a new tank onto a new piece of bogwood. They melted over the course of a few days. I left the plants where they were and after a few weeks looking very, very unhealthy the plants suddenly took off. I think a very low pH reading at the time coupled with a change of water conditions may have stressed the plants and caused it. Every affected plant has regrown. This only happened with my ordinary JFs. The Windelov variety seemed unaffected.

The transparent tips occur on every new leaf my plants grow. The faster they grow (e.g. the higher the light CO2 and nutrients) the larger the tips appear to be, i assume because they are the new growth points and on a rapidly growing plant that area is larger.


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## Moo (Apr 27, 2006)

i would be on the excel.
My old fern did the same as soon as I started dosing excel.
And were fine as soon as I stopped and they started regrowing.
But every tank is different. This is just my experience.
good luck!


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## Satirica (Feb 13, 2005)

I don't know if anything I have to offer will help but here goes.

In my experience, Java Ferns are sensitive to sodium. I had several in a Tanganyika tank and they kept getting black spots when the tank was dosed with cichlid salt. Dosing the tank with KCl didn't bother the ferns at all. I have wondered if the balance of sodium and potassium is more important to Java ferns that to species such as vals but have no data to suggest that it is or isn't.

Root tabs shoved into the substrate doesn't help a java fern because it doesn't have roots in the substrate to take up the ferts. I have found that water column fertilization helps a heckuva lot when you are growing java ferns. A java fern with ferts available in the water column can grow very fast.

I have never had a problem with Java ferns in tanks dosed with Excel.

Those are my observations and experiences. Other folks may have other thoughts and experiences that seem to contradict mine. I have never found a really good source of information on growing java ferns. For me they have always been trickier than lots of plants that are supposedly harder grow, like blyxa, rotala macranda and eriocaulon cinereum. Go figure.


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