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I've been trying live floating plants for the last few months. In all of my tanks and with different lights, I've tried hornwort, anacharis, and water sprite.

At first, under all conditions I tried, the water sprite was the only plant to live and grow.

But for some reason, after about 2 months the water sprite also started to die off.

Since all of the plants looked dead, I decided to raise my lights up about 1.5 feet. I also figured that would reduce the chance of algae growth, but I'm not sure it has.

It's been about one week since raising the lights.

The rotting anacharis is now growing new plants. And very rapidly.

Why would moving the lights away from the tank, cause the anacharis to grow.


Last edited by T/A at 11-Dec-2005 21:57

Hi,
Well you don't give us a whole lot to go on. Could it be
that the lights are so bright, or perhaps incandescent,
that they are burning the floating plants?

Have you tested your tank for the various parameters
including Nitrate? Could it be that your nitrate are "0"
and there is no nutrients for the plants?

Did they grow for a while and then start to die off?
If so nutrients are the problem and you need to start
adding liquid fertilizer, such as one of the Flourish
products, to the tank. Since they are floating plants,
use liquid.

Hornwart, sometimes anacharis, and water sprite sometimes
will not grow anchored in the gravel. It has to do with
the amount and quality of the light.

Frank


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

I have a 4' double fluorescent light fixture hanging above two 10 gallon tanks. At first I used both 40 watt bulbs(6500K) for 11 hours a day. At a height of about 3" above the surface.
All of the plants were initially growing in my tanks. But the algae growth was too much.
So I removed one of the bulbs.
The algae faded but so did the plants. So, I figured not enough light was the cause of the plants dieing off. But then why would the plants start growing after moving the lights futher away?

The nutrients were also a concern since I never added growth supplements. The only plant supplement I ever added was Excel. And since that didn't do anything, good or bad, I stopped adding that.
I was also checking for nitrates. Both tanks always registered from 5 to 10. Even when switching to every other week 20% water changes. I also tried only doing 10% water changes, but the tanks were so littered with dead plant matter that I needed to do the larger changes.