lighting requirement for brazilian pennywort?

[kimmisc]

Think 1.7wpg should be enough for this to live in? Mine is melting, so I'm trying to decide if it needs higher light. Maybe I should stop adding excel and ferts.... or move it to my high light tank. :\ I already moved some to keep from losing all of it.

If I stop adding any ferts, it will have hardly any nitrates... 10g with only a betta.

 

[Bk718]

why not up the lighting in the tank?
From my experience with the plant, it should be fine even under 1wpg, mine was under .7wpg a while back and it didnt melt, just grew slow.
if your lighting is low why use ferts?

 

[kimmisc]

Because this is a 10g with only 1 fish... very low nitrates. My anubias nana and java moss are always a very rich green and healthy in my shrimp tank, but I think it's because the bio-load is heavier. Anubias didn't even do very well in my 10g betta tank. Same hood/lighting as the shrimp tank. I don't even add any carbon OR ferts in the shrimp tank.

Not upgrading lighting because I just dropped about 1k upgrading the lighting and co2 in 2 other tanks. My poor betta might have to stick with the plastic if I don't figure out why plants dislike his tank.

 

[BoredAgain]

What kind of lighting do you currently have, CFL, incandescent?

 

[kimmisc]

17w florescent

 

[Bk718]

retrofit it with a screw in cf

 

[kimmisc]

It is not that kind of fixture (florescent tube, not compacts), and I'm not changing the lighting in this 10g right now. I can either figure out what nutrient imbalance there is, or move the plant to a different tank for the time being. If pennywort doesn't have a higher lighting requirement, the light is not the issue, which is what I was wondering about that particular plant.

2 different tanks have the same light, but different animals, and plants grow with shrimp but not with betta. If they're fine with the same light in another 10g, it's not the light. As I said above, even the anubias nana didn't do well in this tank.

 

[Bk718]

http://plantgeek.net/plantguide_viewer.php?id=126

You can always try adding a snail to increase the bio load if you think the betta isnt producing enough..

 

[kimmisc]

Maybe. I have 1 apple snail living alone in a 5g and she seems much happier there than with fish... letting her tentacles hang all out as far as they'll reach.

I might try adding JUST nitrates. That's the only thing fish/shrimp add to water that gets used by plants, right? I'd think the CO2 livestock releases would be a neglegible amount.

 

[gmh]

I had similar results trying to grow this plant in a 20 gallon long with 1.8 watts per gallon. My nitrates in the tank were 10 or less and I dosed lightly with Excell with no CO2 added.

My guess is this plant needs more light than is suggested in Plant Geeks or needs more nitrate or some trace element that is absent in that tank. You mentioned you have better luck growing plants in your other tanks for whatever reason so I would consider rehoming the Pennywort in one one of those and getting a lower maintainence plant for that difficult 10 gallon.