Corkscrew vals not doing very well

interesting....do you, or have you recently, used excel?

Vals don't like CO2 or Excel..... When I cut mine off and went to straight flourish they took off. Also it takes awhile for Vals to establish themselves, some of mine took almost 4 months before I had any new growth.

Also the root tabs don't help either Vals get a lot of thier nutrients from the water column. It is possible to over fert vals and cause them to die back. Same for the anachris from what I have heard.

Vals don't like CO2 or Excel

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This is not competely true. I turn out tons of corkscrew vals from my 50 gal tank with co2. They get sold off every few weeks there are so many. They are super bushy, some quite tall and reproducing prolifically.

I also grow them in a 45 gal. w/o co2 but I do dose Rxcel. The vals there do fine but do not reproduce much at all. Excel is not as harsh on corkscrews as it is on other vals, but it is still not great with them.

beeZer350 said:

Should I cut them down and let them start anew?

plantgeek states them as doing better with a nutrient rich substrate so I figured plant tabs would work well in a relatively new tank.

Everything else is good. The swords are doing great and the anacharis needs thinned out about every 2 weeks or so.

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I would just leave them it took my wild collected Val. Americana almost 4 months to put on any growth and then it exploded....

I have just found that Vals in general do better without CO2 from my experience than when they have it. I also run less than 1.5 wpg so they may do better with CO2 in high light tanks, but have had heard others have good luck with CO2 and some haven't.

I have 4 different varities of vals and all are to the top of the tank and like TwoTankAmin stated I have to cut out every week or two to keep runners under control......... I also need to actually remove them form a few of my tanks since they are the most numerous plant I have in all my tanks they are beginning to look the same.:crazy:

I will say Excel whacked the snot out of my jungles, Vallisneria spiralis (italian) and Val. Americanas but did not hurt the corks as bad. They went to hell in a hand basket until I stopped dosing.

I really need to get rid of the 5' jungle vals.....:wall:

i have corkscrew vals with a little over 1wpg, DIY Co2 and root tabs and they sent off runners like crazy, very healthy and very green