I can not grow Java fern...

Java ferns are low light plants... I heard of reports that high level lighting kills. I don't think it's true, just throwing it out there.

The water parameters would've helped.

Mine has only developed the holes in the leaves after having babies

Get rid of the leaves once they actually die. The black spots are pretty normal in high lighting. My fern in a 3 WPG tank has mostly brown leaves, but they are sprouting babies hardcore.

Wow is this true about java ferns in high light? Ouch no wonder...

any chance your lacking in nitrates?

dont know what happened to yours my tank is fullof em got a nice plant attached to driftwood a year ago now they almost cover the back of my tank and would have if i had not cut em down

I had mine in a tank of 2wpg and it turned black, I then stuck it in a tank that gets almost no light and its very green and healthy looking now, I brought it to the store for my shrimp to ride home on and the guy was shocked to see healthy java fern. theirs looks terrible

My first bit of java fern had about 6 leaves on it. It created a bunch of little ones on the leaves and started looking bad. It never actually grew at all. After a long time of this (it was alive, just not growing) I took the whole thing out, harvested all the daughter plants quite a few of them were growing rhizomes themselves by this point. I attached them to some driftwood. It was in a 15T with the standard hood and incandescents at the time. I then emptied that tank and had it in a filterless lightless 5gal for months. It was next to another tank with lights, but that was it. Now it's in my angel tank and I'll post a picture.

Not sure if that helps at all, but I think it illustrates that java fern almost wants to not get any extra attention as far as lights and fertilizers. Oddly enuff the original fern I bought did not have the lacy ends on the leaves.