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Marsilea minuta will not grow for me

3K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  amberoze 
#1 ·
I have had Marsilea minuta for about 6-7 months now. I first had it in my 90 gallon with dirt and 4 t8 bulbs and no CO2. I cut the marsilea into individual nodes of 2-3 leaves and planted them. They stayed down for a while but soon some started dying and coming loose. I did have 4-5 patches that did successfully root and start spreading a leaf every week or two. This only lasted for 1-2 months, and soon all but 1 patch came loose and started dying. The remaining nodes do not seem to be growing even when I replant them and the one that never came loose stopped growing as well. For the past 3 months none of it has grown. The plants that come loose usually loose their leaves then small leaves start sprouting but I can never get them to grow.

I am starting over with a 20l tank with just black beauty blasting sand substrate and 2 13W salvinia CFL bulbs. Over the last month there has not been any growth. What can I do to make it grow? I really want a carpet but know it grows slow. Will adding root tabs help or will I need more light and CO2? I can't afford CO2 and DIY doesn't work well for me.

Any suggestions on how to encourage growth or a better option for a low growing carpet plant would be great. Thanks
 
#2 ·
What are you doing for other plants in the tank? Does your water have some KH and GH? Marsilea doesn't have much in the way of roots, not sure root tabs would help. Make sure all the macro and micro nutrients available and it should grow fine. It sounds like it is hungry to me, any nitrate or phosphate present in the tank?
 
#3 ·
In the 90 gallon I recently realized that the nitrates were 0 but initially the dirt released a lot of nutrients into the water. I don't have any GH, KH, or any test not included in the API master kit. My water is high PH (8.1) and when I got my water tested at the LFS 5 months ago they said the KH was 70-80. I do occasionally add CSM+B to the 90 gallon but only once a week. Now that the Nitrates are reading 0 I am going to add more fish since it is understocked and start adding some Nitrates, but I think I am going to replace it with something else. In 6-7 months I was hoping to get a decent carpet.
The MM in the 90 gallon that has not come unrooted looks pretty healthy but just has not grown.

The 20 gallon is a shrimp tank so I try not to add too many ferts to the water. I add a little KNO3, kh2po4, and potassium sulfate (~2 drops of my solution) 1-2 times per week and 1-2 drops of my CSM+B solution per week. I am really careful about adding fertilizers because the 2 times I added a regular dose I had dead shrimp the next day, which is why I want to do root tabs. If I add root tabs they will be the DIY clay tabs I have seen on this forum.
 
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