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Permalink Reply by Hmoobthor on December 11, 2011 at 6:50pm

my guess would be no oxygen getting in the substrate to help root the plant

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Permalink Reply by Ben on January 25, 2012 at 8:34am

My dad's tank has this problem. I haven't worked it out yet. It pushes out java fern growth like you wouldn't believe and anubias are ok but throw in stem plants.. they yellow off and rot like your explanation. Bottom up.

I've tried increasing the lighting (in a 6x2x2 tank) as low light plants are fine. No change. I've increased water filtration when I upgraded a filter. No change.

Substrate is not small .. and there is no CO2 added. No additional nutrients and no additional oxygen. Am trying to work out next steps that doesn't require my dad to do too much on a regular basis.

Will let you know if I succeed..

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Bingamon on January 26, 2012 at 3:25pm

Yes please do. I'm still battling with it I've lost all of my rotella and some other ludwigas. I've tried moving the in the tank they are in, floating them tell roots have grown making the rock cap thinner where they are planted making sure they were deep into the dirt. But so far nothing has stopped it. I have taken what I have left that's really good and strong cut it in half and stuck it in other tanks just to c what happens and in one tank in particular one piece I cut into two pieces and the bottom of the first is now growing three new stems off of it. And it's just a 5 gallon with a Betta and a cfl bulb. So idk if it's a fish thing a light thing or just too many nutrients in the lager tank?

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Bingamon on January 26, 2012 at 3:33pm

Oh ya one thing I did notice and I don't low if it's true or not but it seems like as the plant grows it will eventually rot at the bottom. Makes sense on a plant that grows as fast as the do. But the plants in this tank are rotting faster then the growth. I have lots of java fern that started life from another tank with a ryzome that could hold no more then two leaves and about three months later they are five or six leaves big growing their own new plants. The anubis that I have has thick green roots growing into the dirt and once it hit that it got turbocharged on its growth.. Another type of fern I have that's a stem plant grows like a weed. I cut it to about 2-4" long and within two weeks it's touching the top of the tank again. Some of it rots at the bottom everytime I clip it but it takes a few weeks for that to happen and by that time it's 6-8" long.

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Permalink Reply by 2apes2gp667wr on January 26, 2012 at 5:47pm

You need to top the plants.  All stems should be topped at some point.  According to ADA, after 5 trimmings the plant should be topped and the rooted portion be removed from the tank and discarded.  That's something to try.  Worked well for me with some glandulosa that was having a hard time.  Now it is growing well.

Is the tank dirted?  If it isn't are you using a gravel vac?  I have no evidence this could be the case, but if it's just gravel and you are vacuuming all the debris from the gravel you are losing a lot of natural ferts for the rooted portion of the plant.  Could be why the below substrate part is doing poorly.  The upper portion is getting nutrients from the water column so it is growing.

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Bingamon on January 26, 2012 at 9:59pm

yea the tank is dirted. and I did noticed that when I let the plant grow out as much as possible and cut the new growth that grew in my tank vs the stores tank it seemed to do better when replanted. but I still lost almost everything I bought. my tiger lotus is finally making a comeback and I have enough saved of the rotella and ludwigia in other tanks I think by summer I may have back enough to replant. just sucks cause I wanted to have more plants then I knew what to do with by then.,

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