What the....? My Rotala Macrandra!!! NOOO!!!

[Aphyosemion]

Alas, there has been a death in the family. My Rotala Macrandra has passed away. It was still so young!!!! <sniff>
Seriously, does anyone have that stuff growing in their tanks? I have heard it is difficult to get to grow and my experience over the last 2 weeks with it quickly wasting away seems to reinforce that.
If you do have it growing, what are your tank parameters and are you willing to send me some new stuff? Come on, I need comforting!!
-Aphyosemion

[trenac]

I have some growing in my 20G high tank.

3.25 WPG, PH 6.5, KH 3, C02 injection

[Ibn]

I had some awhile back in my tanks, but it was growing too quickly so I gave a bunch of them away (50 stems+). Tank parameters at the time were: 7.2 wpg, pH 7.5, KH 3, Hagen CO2 system.

[shalu]

Eric, have you seen calcium deficiency symptoms on this plant(distorted, small leaves)? Seems half of my stems have that problem, and if I disturb the good stems(uprooting, pruning), then I might get the deficiency quickly. I suppose we have the same San Jose water(I am in Almaden).

Aphyosemion, if only the leaves melted away, that's normal. It would experience this melt down first before sprouting new leaves. So if the stems are still firm, keep them in there and hope for the best.

[Overfloater]

I had it growing great in soft water. It refuses to grow in my new hardwater though. I would venture to guess it is a softwater only plant, along with magenta and wallichi.

[Ibn]

Yup, I have seen that. If I don't fertilize regularly (used to be every day w/the micros and every other day w/the macros), the leaves would be ratty and new leaves would get progressively smaller. I first noticed it when I was trying to get my Nesaea sp. red to color up, by running the tank really lean.

[Wö£fëñxXx]

It is very much like the Tonina sp species.. it has to have a KH & GH below 5
or it will melt, wither, get covered in algae, or all the above...

[ninoboy]

If you have hard water, forget about it. I tried a couple of times with no success. My GH is close to 300ppm.

[AlexPerez]

same results here when I lived in Arkansas with a KH of 4 it grew great
Now I live in SC with a KH of 10 and it does prooly.

[Aphyosemion]

Well, excellent then! My water is RO water reconstituted to a medium soft hardness. I have yet to figure out the KH, but I am guessing it is inline with the GH, considering I use RO right, which I would think would do a pretty good job of balancing the KH and GH. Hmm....I probably should order a KH test kit though, just to make sure.
As far as the R. Macrandra, it just kindof turned black and the lower stems melted away, just leaving the tips of the plant. I have about 3.6 WPG in that tank. Maybe I should up that a little more, but to this point I haven't seen a reason to do so. Maybe it is just having problems because my tank is still getting established.
-Aphyosemion