Planted DSB: water lettuce turning white and dying, other plants unhappy

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ToxicFrog

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Sep 3, 2014
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My wife and I have a 225L aquarium, set up with a deep sand bed, six corycats, five lyretail mollies -- six until last weekend, but one died under mysterious circumstances -- and six ottocats. We've got it planted with swords, crypts, water lettuce, water onions, jungle val, and water wysteria. Photo period is currently set to 6 hours/day, with one 65k daylight and one 5k roseate bulb, both T5HO, plus some indirect sun from the windows.

A few months ago we were having an algae problem, but a big tank clean and blackout period took care of most of it. We hoped that aggressive planting would curb it, and since adding the plants it seems to be coming back more slowly, but it is coming back.

Furthermore, the plants seem pretty unhappy. The swords and crypts are doing ok, but just ok, the water onions, jungle val, and water wysteria seem pretty depressed, and the water lettuce are the most worrying -- they still have lots of green leaves, but they're turning white and dry at the edges, and some of the leaves are turning yellow and falling off. There's also algae growing on their roots, and the roots are so thin and feathery that they're extremely hard to clean. We're not sure if the tank conditions are wrong for these plants, or if there's some kind of nutrient deficiency, or what. The fish seem pretty happy -- the corycats have even spawned -- but the plants are just not having a good time of it and we're not sure what to do.

Water chemistry info and photos coming tomorrow, but I figured I'd post this now just in case someone goes "oh, water lettuce turning white around the edges, that's obviously _____!". Sorry if I've left out anything obvious, my wife is the expert here but she's currently swamped with other things.
 

evil wizard

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Aug 17, 2014
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Brian
maybe its rotting you should have eaten it sooner haha.but for real now it seems real puzzling.
 

OrionGirl

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Aug 14, 2001
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Water lettuce seldom does well in tanks--the water is simply too low in nutrients. Add in such a short light period, it's likely not getting enough light either. Water lettuce really is a pond plant. Additional water parameters will help sort out the others, but I think the limited light period is possibly a culprit for the other plants issues as well.
 

ROYWS3

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Aug 29, 2000
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I agree with Orion girl on the light. Are you adding any ferts or CO2? Some of the rosette plants might be too deep in the substrate but that would not be whats affecting the Wisteria or water lettuce
 
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