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i have some Java Ferns in my small tank for quite a while now (about a year). after i got some nasty infection in the tank, i had to disinfect everything, which almost killed my ferns, but they managed to pull through, although they lost almost all their leaves in the process.
new leave sprung out shortly, along with a fern baby boom.
the leaves look green and strong. they're quite thick and look healthy. they grow well and look very nice, but then, when they reach about 3-4" tall, they start dying on me all of a sudden, and the cycle starts over.
the leaves become rotten in their base, they blacken and dettach from the rhysome.
temperature is 26C. i tried to change locations, and they seem to react well to the lighting. i use DIY CO2, which by obsercing the other plants seems to do its job.
the rest of my plants are healthy, and growing like there's no tommorow (i have to "deforrest" every week).
the plants are attached to volcanic rock (natural) for the past year, haven't heard them complain about it yet.

what can make my plants whither like that over and over again?
is my tank reinventing life again? (not the first time strange things happen in there)

Well, the temperature is just fine for java, little on the warm side but not too hot for it. CO2 should be making it nice and happy.
How have you placed it in the tank? Is it tied to wood or rock or have you let it become burried in the substrate? The only time I had java fern die on me is that it ended up almost burried after a number of gravel vacs had pushed the gravel up onto it.
After you medicated did you run carbon thru the filter for a while?
What symptoms are they displaying before they fall off. Brown and yellow spots, "wilting"?

^_^[hr width='40%']"I'm alright, I'm alright
It only hurts when I breathe"

the plants are tied to small volcanic rocks (about the size of a small fist).

i haven't medicated. all my fish died in a couple of days, and from what i could figure out at the time, i couldn't save them (sudden internal bleeding, spasms and for some sudden death without any behavioral indicators).
after that, i emptied the tank, bleached everything (including the plants), and started all over again. the ferns lost about 3/4 of the leaves to the bleaching, but they did not die.
i rinsed it all well, of course, and soaked it in clean water several times.

it seems like the leaves are rotting from the middle downwards and from the outside in. they become black, and after a few days dettach from the rhysome (the break up at the leaf stem).

Last edited by Fry at 18-Apr-2005 13:02

The bleaching may have something to do with it, but I've been noticing a few of my older leaves turning brown and wilting lately. The plants were full grown and "spawning" when I got them two years ago, so I just figured that a few leaves had passed their time. Is there any algae on them? I noticed my dead leaves were covered in BGA (my nightmare tank)but the others barely had any.

i do have some green algea growing in the tank, but they are not covered by it.
(the algea is green strings that seem to attach themselves loosely to plants and rocks).

i did move the plants a little (luckily, they're rock-based), and the leaves stopped dying (for now). on the other hand, now they grow slowly and seem to go sideways instead of up. maybe the growing mechanism was damaged by the whole process?

my java ferns do the same, old leaves die off when they get to a certain age, and new and larger leaves shoot out
i think it's just a life cycle

how long are they when they die?

i'm pretty sure it isn't the usual life cycle, because they die bright green and tender, not the dark green and hard leaves ferns have usually.

for my java fern, only the oldest leaves on the outside die
then new leaves shoot out. they only die when they turn kind
of brownish in colour, not bright green. only the newest
shoots are bright green in colour. have you tried any
fertilisers? it might help. good luck!