FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I've got two Crinum thaianum in my twenty gallon long. For quite some time they were doing well and flourishing. The leaves flowing from the left side of the tank along the surface almost halfway across the tank. They were such beautiful plants.

Over the past couple months or so, the plants have slowly died back. At first, I assumed it was due to the excessive algae I was trying to control. The algae killed off my watersprite before I got it under control. Now they continue to die back, despite being able to grow freely with little to no algae coating their leaves.

Symptoms... the ends of the leaves slowly turn yellow and wither... this progresses down to the base of the plant despite clipping the leaf below the withered portion.

The plants both had a dozen or so long leaves, now they're reduced to a small bunch of short leaves. The "bulbs" at the base of the plant are very small now, as well. They are above the substrate, with the roots digging down into the gravel. I don't know exactly what's going on. They have fertilizer sticks under them, in plain gravel. They've lived happily in this tank for quite some time, I'd have to check to see exactly when I put them in this tank, but they've been here far longer than they've been "sick".

I wonder if re-aquascaping the tank harmed them in anyway... it killed off my poor banana plant. However, that was numerous months ago... if that had any effect on the plant, it took four months or more to get to this point.

I'm thinking it's some sort of nutrient deficiency, but I just don't know what's going on. Can anyone help me save these plants?

Last edited by Kitten at 29-Apr-2005 02:10

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Hi,
At first, I thought perhaps that the plant undergoes a
cyclic type of life and had entered a dormant period.
However, I did not read that in its description on the
Tropica site http://www.tropica.com/default.asp

I suspect that you are right in that something is lacking
that it requires. Perhaps your lights have aged and need
to be replaced, perhaps you overdid the "overhaul" and
some nutrients are lacking.

Check out this site for nutrient needs:
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nutrient.htm

That could be a HUGE plant!

Frank

PS: Further research found a note in the AQUARIUM PLANTS
MANUAL in regard to the Crinum natans, that is does not
tolerate trypaflavin a component of some fish medications
and ALGICIDES! You may have "done it in" while trying to
rid the tank of algae.

Last edited by FRANK at 29-Apr-2005 09:33

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Hmm... except that I refuse to use algaecides in my tank. The only thing I've used against "algae" was erythromyacin against BGA. Other than that, I've just been playing with the lighting... I used to have it on for a 12 hour day with an hour or two siesta around noon. Now I have a ten hour day with no siesta. However, the plant started to decline before the change in lighting times.

However, now that you mention it, the lights probably should be changed.

Looking over the nutrition deficiency chart, there's a couple possibilities if I'm reading this right...

*Potassium - "Withering of leaf edges and tips"
*Calcium - "Damage and die off of growing points" - not sure if I'm reading that correctly
*Copper "Dead leaf tips and withered edges" - the tips are dying, though with such a narrow leaf, it's hard to tell if the edges are withered, they don't seem to be

On the last, I'm wondering when it was, exactly, that I took the pennies out of my filter (they were there to kill the snails and did an admirable job of it, too). I'm not sure, could possibly be the culprit though. How much copper the crinums actually got from the pennies... dunno.

Now that I think on the age of the lights, I'm considering the fertilizer sticks... supposed to be good for a year and haven't gotten that old yet, but I'll replace them anyway.

Meh, it could be any number of things, I suppose. I guess I'll have to play around and see what happens!

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Hi,
The problem with using pennies is that there is no research,
that I'm aware of, that says "x pennies for every
y Gallons."

Indiscriminante use of pennies can lead to
copper poisoning. It is "ancient remedy" from when
pennies were truly made of copper.
Today, it is far, far, better to purchase the correct
medication, turn up the tank heater (accellerates the
parasites' life cycle, if treating for ich.), remove
any carbon from the filtration system, and wait a
short time. Then do a 50% water change, add fresh
carbon, and be done with it with no ill effects to
plants or fish.

Frank


Last edited by FRANK at 30-Apr-2005 14:30

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Meh, I used pennies minted before they started using zinc in them. And no, there's no proper x to y ratio of pennies, but I figured tossing a few in wouldn't hurt. On the contrary, rather, I no longer have pest snails in my tanks. I figured that the copper leached from the pennies would be a small dose over a long period of time... a dozen pennies couldn't possibly lend much more than traces of copper in a twenty gallon tank. It was enough to kill off the snails... or I assume that's what did it, since I did nothing else to kill them off. (Though I know my betta girls did make an effort on their own!)

If I were treating for ich, I'd definitely use the proper medications, however, I thought I'd test the theory on snails and it seems to have worked. I figured that if it didn't, the most I'd have to do would be to find another way to kill the snails, since removing them didn't seem to help much!

Last edited by Kitten at 30-Apr-2005 14:54

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~