[tudou]

Hi folks, first post on this awesome website so greetings

Just got my first "real" plants for my aquarium - some java fern and anubias nana, mainly due to them being easy plants (so I'm told).

However, I've noticed dark green/black splotches on the leaves of the nana (which is tied to bogwood). Picture of it is here: Picture 1 and picture 2

In the second picture which may be hard to see, it looks like the dark splotch has disintegrated, leaving only a thin bit of leaf left.

So, I'm a little stumped and really don't want these little suckers to die off - any advice?

Water stats are:

pH - 7.2
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates 10-20 ppm
Temperature - 24/25 C

It's a 30L Biorb and the light is on for about 14-16 hours a day as the room doesn't get much direct sunlight (and definitely not at this time of year).

I've had these about 5 days now, been dosing with Seachem Flourish and Flourish Excel. There's only a handful of tetras in the tank.

 

[tudou]

Yah, the dark spots are dead leaf. Did you buy it like that, because that plant does not look healthy, sorry to say.
The only way to save the plant is to cut off all the affected leafs

No, it looked fine when I bought it. A day after it was in the tank I noticed those spots. So I guess it has to be something to do with my set up. Maybe too much light as one poster suggested?

 

[tudou]

It could be Black Spot Algae I suppose. Seems quite common with Abubias. How would one go about curing this?

 

[tudou]

Well, I tried rubbing the dark spots and the affected leaves basically turned to slime in my fingers.

Not idea what is causing this as the Java Fern seems to be perfectly healthy (apart from a few brown patches which I'm told is normal when first putting a plant in the tank).