I'm having an issues with this plants leaves turning clear/melting and it sometimes kills the whole stem. The tank is a 12 long, planted plus led, EI dosing, Co2. Everything else grows well in this tank. HC, hygro kompakt, AR mini, lindernia India, limnophilia vietnam, and a couple other stem plants I don't have an ID on.
The repens has been doing this for almost 2 months. It's a mixture of stems from another hobbyists tank and also some tissue cultured, but both have been doing it from the start of adding them, the tc stuff was even added weeks after the others. I recently hacked it all back and left just a couple leaves per stem, but it's still doing this. Any new leaves that grow either get this right away or soon after. I know this plant should be easy, but I'm not sure if I'm just missing something or if I just need to wait more. Below are some pics.
are you dosing excel? How large are your water changes? Ive experienced similar melt, changed a few things but never concluded the exact cause. I stopped dosing excel, i don't think this was a cause but it was more of a precautionary step, to rule it out. I noticed that melt was usually happening a day or 2 after a large water change, my guess was either a big fluctuation in nutrients from a large water change, or a large temperature change in the water as my r/o water i was refiling the tank with was not heated. Doing smaller water changes and no excel fixed this issue for me. I really do think its large fluctuation in temperature, but i couldn't rule out a nutrient shift either.
I have some under med light with excel @ 2x daily dose. It's doing fine. I dont think this plant has a problem w/excel. In my experience it likes a nutrient rich substrate, regardless what you're dosing the water column. Mine is in 100% sand w/Osmocote+. If your substrate is inert, you could try pushing some individual balls of O+ down around each stem. Not saying that's definitely your problem, just sharing my own exp with it.
I'm starting to see this in one of my other stem plants. Is this possibly nitrogen deficiency? I added the osmocote plus balls all around my tank. Only about a teaspoon total, just pushed them in the substrate with my tweezers. So we will see what happens!
I don't think the issue is the excel either. I have a 10 gallon with a full carpet of repens. I use excel twice or three times per week with plenty of fertz, nutrient rich substrate, light, and co2. So long as you have those 5 factors, you wil be fine.
Hmm so right now I'm using the GLA ferts at their recommended levels. 1/8 tsp KNO3, 1/32 KH2PO4, 1/32 K2SO4 and then CSM+B 1/32 tsp along with 1/32 tsp of Magnesium Sulfate. I do the schedule they provide, back and forth macro, micro. Maybe I need to up the dosage. It's fairly well planted, there is no open substrate really.
Dang how weird, they should be doing great then... I wonder if maybe there is such a thing as "lemon plants" ?? I am pretty new to the hobby so I'm not sure.. Are all of your other plants doing ok?
Yeah everything is growing pretty fast, but I just noticed this in another plant yesterday. So that's why I was thinking maybe not enough ferts. Perhaps other plants were pulling most of the nutrients and the repens couldn't get enough. I have probably 20 stems of it left. It growing new leaves, hope they will last this time with the added osmocote balls. Time will tell.
I have a similar setup with difference being our substrates, I'm using an off-brand aquasoil. Osmocote pushed in the substrate might be the answer. I've noticed the S.repens tends throw out thick long roots deep into the substrate, which at least to me is an indication that it prefers root feeding.
Hmm thank you for the reply. The hygro is rapidly turning clear and dropping the leaves. Through my googling and forum searching the only thing I can come up with is that it seems this might be a nutrient issues. That the plants don't have enough and are melting back in response to this, maybe in an effort to preserve itself until more favorable conditions. Not sure though, just a theory. Maybe I need to up the ferts
I had Staurogyne repens melt on me twice after I started up my high tech tank with ecocomplete. That was before I realized my nitrates were extremely low (near zero) and everyone here told me I needed to do some serious fertilizing! I now do EI dosing and never had melt again. I do get BBA on the margins of the leaves, so I dose Excel (after turning off the powerhead and filters) straight onto the leaves to kill BBA (it does kill the BBA very well). Also dose hydrogen peroxide the same way. Never had any leaf kill from either. I also now do Osmocote + root tabs under the repens and they seem to like it. My carpet has gotten pretty large in the last year since fixing the fertilizer problem.
I had hygro in the same high tech tank and the leaves always appeared translucent. Never figured out why. I have since transferred it to a low tech tank with a Finnex Planted + light and 1/2 EI dosing - it looks great. Sunset hygro had the same problem, so all my hygros now permanently live in my low tech tank.
Thank you for the reply. I just installed an inline co2 atomizer and I'm hoping his makes the co2 more evenly distributed and may help with some of my issues.
fertilizer burn. Look it up. You are adding too much fertilizer.
Sunlight, water, and small amounts of trace elements and minerals grow plants. Planted tank folks tend to worship fertilizer though when it is barely required.
Hmm that's an interesting take and definitely goes against what most say. Though the same amount was added from the start so I would think that if it was burn it would have been noticed right from the start when all the plants were very small. Most of the burns I have found searching show browning and deformation. My leaves keep their shape fine and just go clear. I've found whole leaf bodies floating that are totally clear. I'm curious as to why you think this when we see people with healthy tanks that are very heavily fertilized.
The changes I've made today were to turn up the co2 a bit. The new diffuser is certainly better than the little glass one I had. My baby tears are getting covered in hair/string algae so that is rather annoying and I hope I don't lose it.
I measured the nitrates tonight and they were between 10 and 20 ppm. Hard to say of course because it's colorized. Should I up my dosing? I guess I could just try and see.
I'm just gonna keep this thread going as a log basically in case I ever resolve my issues. Then it may be useful to someone.
So the repens is still having leaves go clear and die. They will grow new leaves and then those will soon after show the issue. I even got a few new tissue culture stems and they are showing the same thing within a few days. The hygro has lost almost all leaves in the same fashion. The stems are growing new leaves but they are having clear spots and not healthy. The limnophilia seems to have no issue. Neither does the AR mini, baby tears or lindernia.
I'm getting more algaes of different types. I've seen some black beard, more string algae and even some Cyanobacteria. The light now sits about 8 inches off the surface of the aquarium and then it's 9" deep, but only about 7 inches to substrate. Photo period is 6 hours with an 1.5 hour break in between.
Co2 is running fairly high I think. Water is roughly 7dkh and the drop checker gets to a pale green color.
I'm going to up the ferts by 50% and see what happens.
Well as of now there has been no change. Decreased lighting, increased co2, increased ferts. All of the same symptoms exist and now I'm getting hair/string algae coming on stronger. So water change tomorrow and testing again. I realize it probably isn't the Eco complete but I'm tempted to order something else like aquasoil and restart this tank.
Have you tried looking at your flow across the tank? Good dispersion of CO2 and nutrients really depends on your flow. I experimented with a few different inlet/outlet configurations (spray bars, surface agitation, no surface agitation, opposite sides of the tank, etc.) and found the best to be what most people recommend, inlet and outlet on the same side with the outlet pushing water down the front of the tank just under the surface. I also try to keep the back side of tank cleared out to encourage laminar flow. This article was particularly insightful.
Any Hygro is a potassium hog. It sucked up all there is and then started to get short it's self IMO.
I have 10g tanks(x2) and maybe 25% as much plants in one and 10% in the other
and I dose 1/16 tsp on each of KNO3/K2SO4, but lacking CO2 I only use one dose per week. I also....well here's the list...
KNO3...1/16 tsp...level...
K2SO4...1/16 tsp...level...
KH2PO4...1/64 tsp...rounded, not stacked...
MGSO4...1/32 tsp...level...
CaSO4...1/8 tsp...level...
next day
CSM+B...1/16 tsp...level...
Fe 10%...1/64 tsp...rounded, not stacked...
Couldn't say exactly what the WC is. 10g tanks only have about 8-8.5g in them.
I do 5 1g water jugs. Likely 60% at least, once a week.
Edit:
I might go to one 50% WC per week without changing any of your ferts except that I might add the FE and do 1/16 tsp on the K2SO4. Then after a week and just before the WC I'd check the nitrates. This will need to be done every week for the first three weeks after you change to one WC per week to allow it to level off.
I'd also do the calculator to see how your dosing list matches the recommended levels given when you use the EI for each nutrient on the check box at the bottom
where you select what you are testing for. People on here often recommend more FE than that suggested amount listed on those results. I had a very obvious case of a deficiency that I corrected when I added that 1/64 tsp to my dosing over what the CSM+B has already.
After you write down what that EI results says, then enter what you are dosing in "The results of my dosing" which allows for tsp measurements.
I say write it down because you will need to enter each nutrient and write the list it gives you down so you can compare it when you go to the results of my dosing.
With the 1/8 tsp + the 1/32 tsp you should be close to the recommended on "K" but you will want just over that because of the Hygro.
And I suggested to raise the K2SO4 so you won't raise the nitrates(the NO3 in the KNO3).
Three great responses! I just checked my nitrate again after a week of 50% plus dosing and they were at around 20ppm (right before the WC), maybe lower, hard to say. I'm seeing what i think could be a slight improvement in the Repens and the Hygro is putting out new leaves, but some are not right and have the clear spots, but some are ok.
The flow in this tank seems to be ok, I have a fluval 206 pushing from one end and a 100gph powerhead from the other making a rolling circle throughout the aquarium.
I only have one dwarf puffer who does not eat much, mostly snails from the tank and one Otto. I was thinking, based on the above, I should dose 3/16 a tsp ( 1.5 of the 1/8 scoop) of KNO3 and 1/8 tsp of K2SO4 and keep the KH2PO4 at 1/32 tsp. I would have the CSM+b at 3/64 tsp (1.5 of the 1/32 scoop).
Raymond and Xirxes, based off the calculator I definitely needed more K. So we will see what this week brings at the new levels!
I've been battling this same issue for the last 6 months in a high light aquarium. I used to have a huge carpet and one day it started melting and I couldnt stop it. I have tried almost everything. What I have found is it is CO2 related. I have about 80-90 PAR in my tank for around 6.5 hours, I run a 7dKH till its a strong lime-green and fish are fine. This was the first time I got the star repens to grow correctly in about 6 months. To confirm I went out of town for 3 days, turn the lights down to about 50 PAR and CO2 down. When I got back my DC was a greenish-blue and one of the stems started melting. I then cranked the CO2 and lights back up and saw no effect in the other stems.
Focus on the CO2 distribution and flow, slowly crank up CO2 to match your light level.
I used to grow this plant with a lot less CO2 at lower light levels but when its grown in high light it really does need the CO2.
Good luck!
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