Problem with Anubias Nana - expert advice needed. Please help!

[Turin Turambar]

Hello,

I've been experiencing problems with Anubias Nana plants for about month or so. They flourished in the recent past with big healthy leaves. One plant is flowering too.
I don't know what happened, but the plants started to lose their oldest leaves (that means 7-9 months old). At first the leaf looses its deep green colour and then turns yellow.
Sometimes, the sick yellow colour starts from the stem and sometimes from the leaf itself.
I thought about the iron deficit so I added more fertiliser than usually. Up to this day not a single new leaf formed (earlier, the plant(s) produced new leaf every 1.5-2 weeks!) and two more (old) leaves are becoming sick yellow too.
The flower is opening very slowly - it's so slow that I thought it would die (as the cacti flowers die if they do not mature to open for few days/weeks). It's not so - it still have a chance to open.

I did some reaserch on the net and I found an interesting article about Nanas that discharge their leaves and then part of the rhizome rots.
However I did notice that one part of the rhizome turned brown!
It's the part where the leaves fell. But just near the centre of the brown rhizome there are two green little leaves that aren't seem to be affected.
I don't know what shall I do!

What's odd though is the fact that not all plants lose their leaves because of the (possible) rotting rhizome! One plant has all healthy rhizome, yet it did lose the oldest leaves like others.

So the questions:

1. What should I do when part of the (green and healthy) rhizome gets without leaves - should I cut it or leave it? Is there a chance for the new leaves to come there?

2. What should I do with the brown rhizome?

3. How to cut the rhizome if that is what I must do?

4. What caused the leaves to fall in the first place?

That's all for now.
Thanks for reading the post and helping me saving my favourite plants! :) :(

P.S. The picture shows how the sick leaves usually look.

[Turin Turambar]

Ok, since nobody could post any useful help I did what I have to do in order to save my plants. Thanks for nothing.

[ChilDawg]

Um, expecting a reply in just under three hours might be a tad unrealistic. Seeing as how we all have jobs and lives and school and such, and we don't get paid to reply to posts, you really are asking questions of us at our convenience.

We try to help, but sometimes it is not possible to do so in such a rapid manner. We would also like your input in some of our problems if you expect such rapid help--everyone who adds their (valid) input makes for quicker response time and more help for all.

Just curious, but what did you do to save your plants? If you answer your own question, why not post in order to help others? If you don't, then criticizing us is hypocritical at best and asinine at worst.

Next time, give us a chance, and give us some time--we understand that there are sometimes emergency situations which need to be resolved in an immediate manner, but sometimes that is just not possible. Think before thanking us for nothing.

[Turin Turambar]

Sorry, I didn't wait just 3 hours (of course I wouldn't expect the reply in just 3h time): the original question was written in 1:31 AM, and my 2nd reply in 4:23 PM. That's about 15 hours (that's why I don't like AM/PM settings - 1:31 and 16:23 would be better ;) )

I know what are you saying and I am sorry, but I was just too **** annoyed with the fact that 57 people saw my post and not a single one could post an answer to just one of my questions. It was really an emergency.

And what I did... I cut the damaged rhizome(s). All plants had rotting rhizomes. I cut all necrotic tissue and that's all. The green rhizome that had the leaves falling was also rotting, but in the middle (the surface was still green). That fooled me.
I'm afraid I will lose one plant because the "disease" spread all the way thorugh, just 2 leaves and almost_no_rhizome left after slicing. :(

I still hope for the best.
That being said - is there anything I could do to speed up the healing process of the cut (I replanted the plants in the tank)?

[ChilDawg]

Good God, I'm sorry! I didn't see the A.M./P.M. settings, but it was general frustration, not aimed directly at you. Thanks for re-posting what you did to (hopefully) save the plants.

It looks like, at least, according to my poor text on aquarium plants, you have done all that can be asked of you in this case, besides, perhaps a water change and a possible changing of the flourescent tubes.

I don't know if the plants ever were salvageable, even before 57+ looked at your posts. Sometimes, too, I look at posts to which I don't have the answers in order to try to learn them. I think some of the gawkers were hoping to learn a lesson from you and your plants.

I apologize again, thank you for posting your solution, and request that you accept my apologies as well as continue to keep us updated so that we may know if your solution to the problem worked for at least some of your plants.

~Matthew

[djlen]

Turin, thank you for the apology. I was one of the 57 who viewed your original post and was about to reply when I saw your second post and frankly, I said, the hell with it.
Many of us are still learning the hobby, especially the plants part and are hesitant to give advice unless we've had experience and are confident enough to know that the advice we're giving is accurate. I don't know what caused your plant to start to rot, but I would have suggested that you cut out the affected areas with a sharpe knife and replant, do a 50% water change and hope for the best. Possibly your water table needs a cleaning and water changes are an effective way of doing that.
Now I'll leave it to someone more knowledgeable than myself to advise you as to any other reasons why an anubia might rot.
Hopefully you will keep posting and we'll be able to be of more help in the future.
Len

[BluEyes]

57 views doesn't mean anyone who knew the answer saw it ;)
Not saying that I know the answer either, but I don't visit the board but for every few days...

Anyways, I can't say as I've ever had this happen to any of my nana, but I do have a few of them, so I'll share my experiences.

They started as one plant in my blackwater tank - sand substrate, low light, no co2, low fert, etc... Anyways, it grows well, and I divided the rhizome, and put the daughters in my 15g tank with more light, CSC substrate, co2 and fert...
These plants in the brighter tank have a bit of a problem with algae, and don't seem to grow as big. The leaves are always smaller/shorter, and I'll ocassionally have to pull off old/nasty-looking leaves. I'll also nip off the tail end of the rhizome once that part has no leaves on it. This might help the plant out, dunno. This second tank also has higher nitrate levels, as it is home to my Bichir.
As it is now, I have three daughter plants from the one in the low light tank, and I think the parent plant is as big as all three daughters combined, it just seems to grow really well where it is, despite occasional gnawing from a Clown Plec (none of the other plants have anything munching them)
Yeah, no real help, but maybe you can compare your experiences and see what the difference is? These guys are real slow growers, so might be more suceptable to some sort of disease/rot. It also seems that if the conditions are not to their liking they will grow even more slowly, which would even further invite attack.

Tell us more about conditions in the tank. What lighting, substrate, nitrate, etc.
Any root fertilization? CO2?
How often are the water changes?
Is the rhizome buried at all (just checking ;) )

[superstein61]

Wow, being one of the infamous 57 who viewed but didn't respond, I find this interesting.

As someone noted, many of us our not experts (and in your post you did ask for expert advice) but will share our experience when we can. Me, I looked at your post because I have several Anubias plants - but have only been keeping them a few months. So I have no idea what is causing your problem, but I read your post just in case I did - and to learn more if I didn't.

I hope your plants do well - but sometimes people just don't know the answer

[Turin Turambar]

Thanks everybody - it's great to see people that actually read posts. I thought this was yet another internet forum where people generally don't read long posts or anything longer than few sentences and are just waiting for flame wars or something easy where they can prove themselves. I posted the question regarding Anubias in 3 forums and 2 emails and only few of them were willing to help me for real. However, the situation became worse - my plants kept losing the leaves and I just sat and waited. The Krib helped me a lot and when I posted here some thoughts yesterday, I lost patience after 15 hours of waiting and 0 replies and all the mess with the internet with very little help. Hopefully it proved wrong. :)

I just finished 'cleaning session' of my tank and I changed about 45% of water. The aquarium is 9 months old. Up to this day I didn't have any true/major problems - fish are great and plants flourish - except Nana now! I'm pretty much experienced, I was doing this aqua hobby since 1990, though not all the time.

The tank has 60 litre, 2x15w grolux fluorescent tubes. I regularly use Tetra's liquid PlantaMin fertilizer. I have CO2 produced by yeast. The water parameters are very stable - GH 6, KH 4, PH 7.5.
I always dilute my tap water with the distilled (1:1 ratio) because it's very hard (also I do the water change every two weeks).
The substrate is a mixture of quartz sand and river pebbles, lime free. I don't know the exact nitrate level, but judging from the algae/plants, it's either low or normal.
So, the real mystery is - why did Nanas rot? All other plants are great. Of course, the rhizome is uncovered and I always leave the roots partly uncovered too.

[superstein61]

Turin, this is a great sight with many helpful folks.

That said, sometimes for specialized questions, I go to a specialized site / forum dedicated to a specific area (ie planetcatfish, apistogramma.com, etc.

If you haven't asked your question at aquabotanica.com, I suggest you try there - its a site just about plants

http://aquabotanicwetthumb.infopop.cc/#1

[goshawk99]

This could be a little late in advise but I believe your plants are more of a bog plant than an aquarium plant. I had a simpler problem with what I thought was an aquarium plant. It did well for a while and then the old leaves died. The new ones came in but did not grow very large.
I have taken them out of the aquarium and have made a bog like aquarium. They are doing a lot better now.

[RTR]

Okay, I'll chime in late. Anubias in general are streamside or waterfall-side plants, which in the wild are seasonally innundated.

A. barerii variety nana I've been growing about 15 years without problems as a submerse plant. It does grow faster emerse if you keep the humidity up, but my 15-20 square feet of it (it is the "carpet" in all my planted tanks) were developed from one rhizome, submerse at the beginning and still submerse.

Sorry, but I have not had the problem you mention with the plant, so can't offer suggestions. I was one of the 57 non-responders as well. The only rot I've ever experienced was from trying the rhizome burried.

[gnome]

I don't know if this is going to help any, but I checked theKrib.com and came up with this:
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Plants/Anubias-nana.html#13
It sounds similar to what you're experiencing and thought it would be worth passing on.

I read on another plant site (http://paul.aaquaria.com/Enter.html) that when you cut the anubias rhizome, you should use a clean, sharp blade and dip the cut end(s) in a bit of carbon or charcoal or something... Can't remember. I think I've even seen products that basically sterilize the severed part. Sounds like your plant succumbed to a bacterial infection of some kind.

Hope it recovers. Sorry to hear that it's been doing poorly... I lost two tanks full of dwarf Lobelia cardinalis last year to some horrible disease. It all disintegrated SO quickly, but up to that point, they were doing great. I think I cross-contaminated from one tank to the other. And none of the other plants were affected. Go figure... It was so disheartening. Nobody could help me because nobody had any similar experiences. I didn't think anybody would be able to advise me, but I figured it was worth asking, at least. It was my favorite plant, too. But I got over it and decided to try new plants. I think I now have a new "favorite" every week! ;)

Happy planting!

[Turin Turambar]

Thanks everyone and thanks for the useful articles.

The plants look ok for now.
I know about the charcoal thing - i do that when I cut the regular plants (cacti, for example), but I didn't find it useful here at all.

Charcoal heals the plant by making the wound dry sooner (and probably something chemically too), but I cannot dry the plant that lives in the water. :)