irishspy
06-11-2008, 7:07 PM
Well, that was a shocker. :eek3:
As of last Thursday, I had several beautiful crypt. wendtii plants as part of the foreground of the Betta Palace. After an initial "melt" when they were first put in a couple of months ago, they've been doing great. Then, starting Friday, leaves began collapsing and disintegrating. By Sunday, some plants had lost all their leaves, and none were unaffected. Oddly (to me at least) the line of devastation moves from worst to least on a left-to-right basis. Here are the water parameters as of the 6th:
PH: 7.0
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5
KH: 1
GH: 12
Phosphate: 0.5 ppm
Light: Coralife 28w 6700k CFL (on legs). The light is on 10 hours per day: 7am-Noon, and 5-10PM. (since reduced to eight hours to help fight an algae problem)
I've read that crypts often react badly to changes in the water conditions, and I did add a tiny amount of baking soda to try to bring up the KH. Could that have caused the collapse? (For reference, I change 20% of the water weekly)
For the plants that have lost most/all of their leaves, should I wait to see if there's new growth, or can I assume the roots are dead, too?
This is frustrating: they had grown into very pretty plants. :wall:
As of last Thursday, I had several beautiful crypt. wendtii plants as part of the foreground of the Betta Palace. After an initial "melt" when they were first put in a couple of months ago, they've been doing great. Then, starting Friday, leaves began collapsing and disintegrating. By Sunday, some plants had lost all their leaves, and none were unaffected. Oddly (to me at least) the line of devastation moves from worst to least on a left-to-right basis. Here are the water parameters as of the 6th:
PH: 7.0
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5
KH: 1
GH: 12
Phosphate: 0.5 ppm
Light: Coralife 28w 6700k CFL (on legs). The light is on 10 hours per day: 7am-Noon, and 5-10PM. (since reduced to eight hours to help fight an algae problem)
I've read that crypts often react badly to changes in the water conditions, and I did add a tiny amount of baking soda to try to bring up the KH. Could that have caused the collapse? (For reference, I change 20% of the water weekly)
For the plants that have lost most/all of their leaves, should I wait to see if there's new growth, or can I assume the roots are dead, too?
This is frustrating: they had grown into very pretty plants. :wall: