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Hey plant gurus
A question on behalf of my sister. She has been trying live plants in her 33g tank, and I think she is getting discouraged because they keep rotting off at the stem.
After about a week they turn brown just above the gravel, and within a weeks time the plant snaps off and floats away. She has all these little "plant corpses" poking out of the gravel. I dont know how to help her. This is happening with her Asian Ambulia, her Wisteria, and Ludwigia Repens.
Her tank is 76 degrees, populated minimally with guppys, platys, and mollies, and she doses fertilizer once a month with Flourish. She has .5wpg light.


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Hi,

Light, or lack thereof.

In poor light situations the first part of the plant to suffer is the bottom of stems - as these are getting the least amount of light. The stem weakens and finally snaps and floats away.

Not much that can be done without more light. Not bunching the stems up too much may help. A gap between each stem may help the light get down to the stem bottom better.

At 0.5wpg stem plants are difficult to grow. She would have better luck with with non stem low light plants (the usual suspects - Anubias, Crypts, Java Fern and Moss ).

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Thanks Bernard
This is what I suspected. I have a long flourescent light fixture I have been debating giving to her. Its currently over the 10g I have my western ground toad in. Kind of too much light for him
Anyway she would need to buy another bulb for it, or would the marineglo 20,000k one suffice temporarily until she could get a new bulb in january?
I am thinking any light would help her.


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Any bulb would do for the moment. A 20000k bulb will certainly help light get down to the bottom - blue light gets thru the water easier (that's why they are used on marine tanks for coral growth) but will probably make the tank look a bit yukky and washed out color wise, but if she can live with that it would do fine for the moment.

---

Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.