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Does it mean the hornwort in my 2 gallon, unfiltered betta container is happy if it is bubbling like a soap factory ?

I stuck a small piece in there about 6 weeks ago (maybe 3-4 inches) thinking it could take up waste as the water ages during the week. The water is replace 100% every 7-8 days. There are two fake plants with alot of surface area, and a cave. I merely rinse these gently so I'm assuming they have good bacteria coated on them.

The leaves (or whatever you call them on hornwort), seemed very fine in comparison to that in my 20 long. There has been good growth as it has branched out. When I did last weeks water change, I put in about 3 drops each of Flourish, Flourish Excel, Iron, Potassium, and Flourish Trace. The betta didn't mind this. In all the weeks that plant has been in there, it has never bubbled like this. I'll try to upload pics tomorrow before I take it apart to do the water change.

Oh - and it has a halogen desklamp over it at least 8 hours a day.

Is this good? Is there ever such a thing as too much? Ruby doesn't seem to mind.

Last edited by Cory_Di at 20-Jan-2005 22:30

Emmm I'd be cautious about hornwort in betta tanks. Moniter your nitrAtes a bit. Last time I had hornwort in a betta tank it brought on a very severe case of cyno. And yes it was bubbling but it was actually the cyno not the hornwort that was bubbling.

Otherwise I'd think you've got happy hornwort :%).

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On closer inspection, it is the algae that is bubbling. I ended up with algae even growing on the sides of the tank and when I just changed the water, there was algae foam

I suppose 3 drops of each of those nutrients was a bit overboard. . I've got the hornwort sitting in a cup of conditioned water. I'm not sure whether to toss it or treat it. I think I may run it through a mild bleach solution to try to salvage it. it was pretty before it got out of hand.

Apparently that halogen desk lamp is a little stronger than I realized too. Most days it was on 8 hours, but a few it was on 12.

Live and learn.

Last edited by Cory_Di at 21-Jan-2005 12:36

Yup sounds exactly like what my hornwort and tank ended up looking like....

After a rather short battle I ended up tossing mine, it didn't survive blackout and bleach .

My guess was that it was the lack of NO3 rather than too much ferts.

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I've had similar experiences with hornwort. it's just too much of a nutrient sucker for me to keep up with. it would grow like a weed, then i'd get cyno. it happened in 2 tanks of mine ]:|

ya know what else i don't understand? i've read a number of plant articles, and "beginners" plant articles, and quite a few of them list hornwort as a plant that's good to add to an aquarium since it sucks up a lot of nutrients and - here's the kicker - will "outcompete" algae. But from my own experience, it's been a cause (if only a secondary cause) of cyno outbreaks. yeah, it sucks up nutrients, but isn't that bad? is that any kind of advice to give to newbies?

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Back in the saddle!

Interesting point nowherman6! Unfortunatly I can't compare cyno to other real algae since I've never had them...well okay maybe diatom algae, but IME cyno is just insanely difficult to get rid of.

Oddly enough my hornwort never really grew .

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not to be a newb but can you explain what "cyno" is?

cyno = cynobacteria, otherwise known as blue-green algae.

not a true algae, it's really a single celled bacteria. it behaves almost like a "bizzaro-algae": where regular algae will bloom where there's an excess of nutrients, cyno will grow and take over when plants suck up all nutrients and there's nothing left for them to use. If you've got high light, no CO2 and don't dose NO3 and keep up with regular trace fert. dosing and water changes, conditions are right for this crap to start taking over. i call it crap because, unlike most algae, no living creature will touch the stuff and it smells really bad. It's literally garbage coating everything in the tank.

all of the above is just what i've learned in my humble experience, of course. there are obviously many a fishprofiles member who know far more than I... so correct me if I'm wrong.

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Back in the saddle!

so how does someone rid themselves of it? will it selfdistruct if you OD it with nutrients and other such things it doesnt want? lol

im just curious cuz i wanted to put some nutrient sponges in my 75g tank. i didnt think there could be backlash from to many sponges lol

thanks for the info

Blackout, not just lights out....complete blackout...followed by maintained nitrAte levels of 20 ppm generally keeps cyno away.
Best thing to do is not let the nitrAtes fall too low.


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