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...or, why can't Kitten keep stem plants growing long term?

I've had lloydiella, watersprite... several different stem plants, and they'll all grow for, oh, six months, maybe. But by the end, they're looking a bit worse for wear and eventually die off. I know some of this occured because of the BGA incident in my tank, which suffocated some of my plants (namely some of the watersprite). However, I must start off doing something right for them to grow and survive for that long, right?

I've another batch of stem plants in my tank... if these don't work, I give up. I've good luck with most other plants, stem plants just don't seem to like me.

I've got Giant hygrophylia, ludwigia repens, rotala indica and moneywort... the hygro and moneywort look good, not so sure about the ludwigia and the rotala is undecided thusfar. It could be that they're just settling in, yet.

In order to give these stems the best chance possible, what do I have to do? The tank is a 20 gallon long, established, regular gravel, heavily stocked. There's 2.3 wpg of yummy daylight screw-in fluourescent goodness. This means, unfortunately, that the light is centered over the tank, so that the corners of the tank don't get as much light.

I use flourish root tabs for my plants, and also have uh... I think flourish excel and flourish iron, plus a Kent liquid fert. I'd have to check to see exactly what I have.

I want to give these plants a good fighting chance, but don't know how best to go about that. Since I'm forcing myself to get more organized, might as well start with setting and keeping a fert schedule, eh?

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Kitten

Several questions first.
What type of substrate do you have?
How long has it been in the use?
Filtration and water movement?
Could it be too much ferts.
The lighting, is it the correct type and how old are the fluro tubes?
It could also be a water problem or a combination of several of the above.

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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Hey Kitten

I've found that my stem plants LOVE the nutricious base instead of regular gravel. That and CO2 enrichment. I didn't see you mention that, and since you are above 2WPG, I think your plants would appreciate it. DIY yeast is pretty cheap and easy.

Sometimes if the bottoms of your plants are looking thin or worn out, you should cut off the top 4 or so inches, pull out the bottoms, and replant the tops. This will keep your stem plants looking fresh.

Another thing you can do is plant a foreground plant in front or put some rocks or driftwood down in front to hide the bottom of the stems.

About your lighting situation(I have the same problem), you should put your highest light plant under the lamps and put low light plants like anubias or crypts in the corners.

Good luck, and don't give up!!

---

Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

What type of substrate do you have? Like I said, regular gravel. Very smooth, not tiny, but not huge, either. The cories like it.
How long has it been in the use? Since the tank has been running, about a year and a half.
Filtration and water movement? Penguin biowheel 170. I've cut down the surface movement by attaching extra filter foam to the output of the filter so that the betta girls wouldn't be blown about. There's also a bubble wall running, it's about 10 inches long. Overall, the total current of the tank is fairly gentle.
Could it be too much ferts. There's just the root tabs under the plants (not the new stem plants, the other plants). I only use the liquid ferts when my sieve of a brain remembers to, maybe once every other month or so... I've a REALLY bad memory. I'm sure part of the problem is the lack of a regular fert schedule.
The lighting, is it the correct type and how old are the fluro tubes? They're daylight and brand new, a month old at the most. They replaced bulbs that were the wrong color (couldn't find daylight bulbs for the longest time) and slightly smaller. So, I now have the right color and a few more watts to boot.
It could also be a water problem or a combination of several of the above. My water did yoyo a bit when I first started the tanks... to the point where I added sandstone to bring up the pH because the KH would drop and take the pH with it. I think the issue has cleared up because the pH has been running a bit higher than I'd like. I've taken out the sandstone in my last reaquascaping, so I'm going to keep an eye on things to make sure they don't yoyo again.

As added info, the inhabitants are my motley cory crew, betta girls, black neons and one tiny BN plec. The cories like to uproot my new plants (the ones that haven't established root systems yet) in their intent search for a speck of food that may have wandered away.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Hmm... and here I was under the impression that stem plants fed more from the water column than the substrate. Well, I can shove root tabs under the plants, but until I move (sometime in the future ), I don't intend on tearing the tank down to replace the substrate. I was looking at putting an additive in the gravel (dang it, not flourite... what's the other one?), but it would just look odd with red flecks in amidst the golden/tans/light natural colors of the gravel bed.

No CO2 additions... truthfully I'm a bit leery of the whole thing. Guess I should look up the whole idea and see if it's feasible.

I've done the cutting bit, and replanting the tops. I'd get a nice little planting going, and then a few months down the road, they'd just stop growing and then dwindle down. *shrugs*

I've tried to group the plants that need the most light towards the center, as you suggested. In retrospect, the plants with pink/red should be closer to center, but I'm thinking it's best to let them get some sort of root structure before moving them again.

While I like stem plants, it won't kill me to just go on to other plants. I personally love anubias and crypts and java ferns... and I don't have problems with those! If stems don't work out for whatever reasons, it's not like I don't have a whole host of choices to look at!

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

how long do you leave your lights on? could it be the bubble wall is draining 100% of the co2 thats in your tank? yeah i think stem plants feed more from the water column than roots, but once their roots are develops they still need some from your substrate


haha, for almost 6 years now, NEVER HAD LUCK WITH STEM PLANTS, except floating hornwort. well now i have new substrate and co2, and 3+ wpg, i hope they will live, this must be my 20th try, i'll let you know if they live this time.

Something up if the plants are dying off.

Quite basically, without trying to be harsh, they are not getting the care they need to survive long term.

I've seen your pics Kitten and there have been algae issues and also the plants looked like they were lacking light.Maybe it was the pics but the tank looked very dark.

The alse is an indicator that the plants are not growing as well as they can be.

The WPG thing can be a bit deceptive. You say you have 2 bulbs. The spiral ones. I'm guessing each is about 15 to 20 watts. A single 40 watt would be better then 2 20's. The spiral type really only light part of the tank and don't spread the light well.

The long flouro's or power compacts in a high wattage would be better. While mathematically you would have the same wpg there would be a huge differnce in the quality and intensity of light.

With the light and plants you have (or rather had) I wouldn't add ANY fert and this may have been leading to the algae problems.

Careful how you trim the plants. I would trim them by cutting off the top two thirds and replanting them and throw away the bottoms. This will mean you always have the freshest healtiest growth. Sometimes folks try too hard to propogate stems and end up unhealthy ragged tops and bottoms.

---

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.

greenfootbal-

The lights are on for about ten hours, any more and I get massive algae attacks, which is what bensaf was referring to. I finally have a balance between plant growth and algae to the point that the algae isn't taking over the tank.

I'm not sure about the bubble wall, the initial point of having it was that I was having issues with the water (KH and pH yoyo-ing) and that was depleting the dissolved O2 in the water... fishies were gasping at the surface. I've kept it since for no particular reason other than some of my betta girls like to play in it.

bensaf -

I know somethings up, that's why I'm asking for help. However, I don't understand why my other plants flourish while the stems die off.

The tank was a bit darker before, but the pictures tend to make it seem darker than it is, anyway. The light is significantly better now that the bulbs are of the daylight variety. Believe me, if I had the money, I'd go out and splurge on a nice hood with power compacts and everything, but I'm poor and so that's not happening.

"The alse is an indicator that the plants are not growing as well as they can be." I think I missed something here... "alse"?

Each bulb (yes, spiral) is 23 watts. I know the light is centered in the tank, I've said that in several posts. It's also a very shallow tank, so I figured I could assume just over 2 wpg for the center of the tank.

At the time I bought the tank, I didn't know a whole lot about plants, so I didn't exactly make the best choice when it came to lighting. At this point, I don't intend to make any huge (read: expensive) changes to the tank, because I don't know how long I'll have it set up as it is, and I simply don't have the cash.

No fertilizers at all, hmm? Well, I'm going to protest because I some of my plants visibly benefit from the root tabs, but as for the liquid ferts, I really am not going to protest... I've never seen visible improvement (in plants or algae).

I've always trimmed as you mention... I'm less concerned about propogating the plants and more concerned with keeping them healthy. I think part of the issue is that the tank is so shallow. In order to trim off a good portion of the plant, it hardly has time to establish a root system before I have to trim it to keep it from outgrowing the tank.

You've mentioned a lot of what's wrong, bensaf, and I know things are obviously wrong... but what can I do to correct the issues at hand?

***

I'm not going to be heartbroken if these plants don't make it, but I'd like to work with what I have to at least give them a fighting chance.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Kitten,

I obviously didn't make make myself as clear as I could have. Typing alse instead of algae didn't help much either I'm sure

With the lighting I was basing on the photo's I saw which were dark and also very yellowy and the stem plants. If you have recently changed to daylight spectrum well that will help. Making sure the stem plants are positioned directly under the light and unshaded will also go a long way. So you have gone in the right direction there.

With ferts, you seem surprised when I say don't use them. People have some strange concepts on what exactly ferts do. Most seem to think they are something that will magically boost plant growth. That there is some ingredient in there that can't be got any other way. This is simply not the case. There is nothing in the average liquid fert that can't be found in your tap, fish food, or fish poo. No ingredient X. As such they are only useful in a situation where there is a high density of plants, intense light or Co2 supplementation - in this case the nutrients provided by tap water etc would be used up very quickly and need to be replaced. (Excel would be an exception to this as it's carbon source rather then a provider of micro nutrients).
In your case at present, the nutrients already available should be sufficient, adding more is just feeding algae. This is particularly true of Iron.
Roots tabs are different in that even if not doing the plants much good at least they are out of the water column.
I would wonder if your non stem plants are doing better because of the root tabs or that are simply better able to thrive in your tank.
So no ferts.This will help in algae control which has been holding back plant growth. Decent sized regular water changes will provide enough micro nutrients until plant density increases.

As for trimming , yes I'm sure you trim , the question is how ? Trimming a plant can surprisingly cause a lot of problems for people. What tends to happen is that people put the stem plant in, and it grows to the surface. Now this is usually what people want from their stems - a tall
background. So when come to trimming they hate to hack it down and usually end up cutting just a few inches off the top and planting this. What happens then is that the cutting is now too far from the light and struggles and the bottom will get a bit more ragged with every trim. In a few months time there's not much of anything left.
Also people obsess about roots and hate to throw them out. With stem plants this is not much of a concern, the roots are usually used for anchoring and they can get their nutrients fine from the water column. Don't be afraid to chuck them out. Quite a few stem plants have hardly any roots at all.
I've found the best way to trim them is just pull the darn thing up and cut off the bottom (roots and all )to the desired height. In other words if your stem plant has grown to tall and you want to knock off a couple of inches - take it off the bottom not the top ! Some plants become more bushy when the top is trimmed as they produce more side shoots. For these I will trim the tops occassionly but for the rest of the time the bottom.
I've used this method for a while now and have some stems over a year old that look as healthy and fresh as the day I bought them, more so even.
Try this method and don't worry at all about whether or not they have developed roots.

So to sum it up (I'm obsessing on being clear now ), try your new stems with the new lights, no ferts, and the trimming I've described above and see if these last longer.

Having gone thru all that I've just realized something else . Don't judge your success or failure with stem plants on your experience with Watersprite :%)That plant is a complete pain in the rear as it will go into a destructive break up phase anyway. It's not actually a stem plant at all, it grows from a rosette and really wants to float. It will reach a certain point then disintegrate into a lot of smaller plants. Can't stand the stuff.

---

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.

Oh good, then it's not just me... I was basing a good deal of this thread on my experience with watersprite... the lloydiella was a beautiful plant for almost a year before it got choked out by that nasty BGA attack. I swear, I pulled the stuff out every day and it still killed off my poor plants.

The only reasons I got the fertilizers (didn't expect them to be miracle drugs or anything) was that at first I had a very light bioload and not enough natural fertilizers to keep things going. If I remember correctly, the root tabs are basically just clay... which provides iron. Since I saw great results from the tabs (significant improvement even in plants that were dying off), I figured the liquid iron supplement would be a good idea for the stem plants. Perhaps my deductions were incorrect.

Question for anyone who can answer... I have a stem of lobelia cardinalis which seems to be doing well, but during the recent reaquascaping, I moved it to be directly under the light. In doing so, I found that it hadn't produced many (if any) roots during the month or two that it had been planted. Rather, the part that was buried in the gravel (about an inch) was rotted. However, in that month, it produced a side shoot and more leaves and I had thought it was doing well. I don't quite know what to do for it.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Kitten

Here is some info on Lobelia cardinalis. I will be growing it as a forground plant and keeping it very bushy and very short. I have seen some fantastic aquascaping done with it as a forground plant.

Keith

keithgh attached this image:


Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
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