Vallisneria problems

3147 Views 8 Replies 5 Participants Last post by apstreck, May 23, 2014

Grah the great

Discussion Starter · May 23, 2014

Kind of a self-descriptive title...all my vals, rather than growing, are having their leaves turn brown and dead. Any idea why this is the case? The tank is a 29 gallon with a cat litter substrate, the light is in the front of the tank while the vals are in the back, the tank usually recieves a 1.25 ml excel dosage, and the fish are 8 white clouds, 13 danios (11 zebras and 2 pearls), 5 variatus platies, and 1M2F paradise fish. The vals are the only plants that did not clearly benefit from being moved from a sand substrate to the current one.

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roadmaster

· #2 · May 23, 2014

Grah the great said:
Kind of a self-descriptive title...all my vals, rather than growing, are having their leaves turn brown and dead. Any idea why this is the case? The tank is a 29 gallon with a cat litter substrate, the light is in the front of the tank while the vals are in the back, the tank usually recieves a 1.25 ml excel dosage, and the fish are 8 white clouds, 13 danios (11 zebras and 2 pearls), 5 variatus platies, and 1M2F paradise fish. The vals are the only plants that did not clearly benefit from being moved from a sand substrate to the current one.

Have heard from other's that val's don't do well with application of excel.
Some other plant's also, but I have never used the excel so only sharing what other's have mentioned.
Also believe the val's enjoy harder more alkaline water
for they are able to get their carbon from the carbonate hardness of water.
From the fish you have though,it sound's as though you may have fairly hard water so maybe it is the excel causing the plant to not perform.
I haul out handful's of leopard val's from my tanks about every two week's
GH 11-12 pH 7.6.

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Grah the great

Discussion Starter · #3 · May 23, 2014

Have any advice on how to improve growth, beyond bringing a halt to the excel dosing? (I wonder if that might also be behind the hair-like green algae that's been coating my pennywort leaves and that needs to be cleaned off my tank front once or twice a week...)

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roadmaster

· #4 · May 23, 2014

Grah the great said:
Have any advice on how to improve growth, beyond bringing a halt to the excel dosing? (I wonder if that might also be behind the hair-like green algae that's been coating my pennywort leaves and that needs to be cleaned off my tank front once or twice a week...)

Is funny .some old post's here that I was just looking at out of fear of offering unneeded scare,indicate that gradually increasing the dose of excel seemed to produce best result's but initially the val's might struggle/melt with full dose.
Other's say that val's only suffer when excel is suddenly stopped so I don't know.

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MeCasa

· #5 · May 23, 2014

When newly planted Vals melt down to the substrate, do they come back?

And should I blow water to clean the rotted areas?

Thanks

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roadmaster

· #6 · May 23, 2014

I just leave the plant's alone and once they adapt to being submerged if new plant's,the root's either send up new shoot's or they don't.
Takes a few week's in my low tech.
If after a month.I see no new growth,I remove what's left of the plant otherwise the shrimp/snail's gotta eat too so they consume the dead leaves.

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MeCasa

· #7 · May 23, 2014

Thank you

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andrewq

· #8 · May 23, 2014

I have a 40 breeder, and have a wall of corkscrew val. In my experience vals dont do good with excel. Root tabs, and a established substrate worked for me. Im presently using eco complete, osmocote, and root tabs. My lighting is low, and no co2. Its probably been about 6 months since I first got this plant. It took about a month 2 adjust to my parameters. Once it adjusted, the growth just exploded. Now I have to trim once a week.

Just be patient, and take care of the algae.

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apstreck

· #9 · May 23, 2014

Have any advice on how to improve growth, beyond bringing a halt to the excel dosing? (I wonder if that might also be behind the hair-like green algae that's been coating my pennywort leaves and that needs to be cleaned off my tank front once or twice a week...)

I have some Italian val that grow great with excel, they starting sending off runners in the first few days after being planted. I dose with excel one full dose once a week, but my LFS did the same where I bought them from. Also, there are a lot of reports that dosing excel is one of the best ways to kill hair and beard algae. Another LFS I go to say it saved a ruined tank.

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