Sea Sprite keeps dyeing!

[TeaPea]

Hello all..it was suggested I post here from the main forum. I cannot keep sea sprite alive in my tanks. I have a 29G with an Eclipse "Natural Daylight" flourescent bulb, and a 5G with an incandescent 20watt bulb. My PH runs high--between 8-8.5. The sea sprite lasts a week or 2 at most. My LFS guy thought perhaps the high PH was killing it off, but now I'm hearing it might be something else? Any suggestions? TIA!

[MyShrimpDied]

Are you thinking of 'Watersprite?' The only reason i ask is cuz i was look for Sea Sprite on the net and i couldnt find a darn thing. What does the plant look like?

~ MyShrimpDied

[TeaPea]

:o OOPS--yes I think you're right, it might be known as watersprite. It looks like floating grass sort of. It's not potted, just grass-like stuff that floats up top.

[Somethingsfishy]

Does it look anything like this:
http://plantgeek.net/plantguide_viewer.php?id=53

[TeaPea]

Yep, that's it! I just want it for cover for my guppy fry, but I can't keep it.

As a side note, I was at Walmart today and noticed they now carry small screw-in type flourescent bulbs which fit perfectly in my incandescent 5 gal fixture. That's what I have in there now. The fish look soooo much nicer than the cruddy incandescent lighting IMO!

[MyShrimpDied]

Yeah, the fluorescent lighting looks much better with watersprite. I just recently changed my lighting from two 25 watt 2700k lights to two 28watt 5000k bulbs and the sea sprite looks good now.

~ MyShrimpDied

[TeaPea]

Actually, my FISH look better. I wouldn't know about the watersrpite, or "seasprite" looking better since I can't keep any of it alive in my tank, remember? ;)

[TPIRman]

The reason that the water sprite isn't making it in your tank is because your light is too low. Stem plants like water sprite generally require high light. I don't know what the wattage is on that 29G's bulb, but it's probably in the 20-30w range -- that is, less than one watt per gallon. Water sprite won't survive in that environment. I'd concentrate on easy-to-grow plants like anubias, java fern, java moss, and certain cryptocoryne species.

The fluorescent screw-in bulb in the MiniBow (I think I saw it was a MiniBow in your other thread) may grow water sprite, but it might not. That's your best bet, I think. It's going to be more of an experiment in that tank because the watts-per-gallon rule of thumb generally applies to normal fluorescent bulbs -- I don't know how it would scale to the screw-ins. The WPG rule breaks down in very small tanks anyway.

To put it simply -- no water sprite in that 29G, and in the 5G, maybe, but I wouldn't guarantee it