Ludwigia Rot

[Booswalia]

Hi,
My ludwigia repens keep dieing on me. They don't seem to want to take good root and the older leaves have little holes. They eventually turn dark and drop off. The new leaves look healthy.

At first I thought it was not enough potassium because of the holes and doubled my potassium for 4 weeks, but it didn't make any difference.

I only have a few little plants left and they're not doing well.

I did have a problem with staghorn for a while along with some bba which is now lingering on the edges of most of my plants but reasonbly under control.

There seems to be quite a few bubbles when I poke the substrate but I just can't imagine it getting compacted already. The tank has only been set up for less than 6 months and I'm using 100% flourite.

SPECS
Tank: 25 Gallon Tall
Substrate: 100% Seachem's Flourite
Lighting: 2 55 watt compact fluorescent bulbs on for 10 hours per day.
CO2: Pressurized tank

Water:
pH: 6.7 to 6.8
kH: 5
Co2: 28 average
gH: 7

I've been dosing
1/4 tsp Potasium KCI once a week (1/2 tsp for 4 weeks)
8 drops of Fleet enima PO4 2 or 3 times a week
2 ppm Nitrate according to Chucks calculator. (My tap water has 7pmm in it already)
1ml of Seachem Flourish 3 time per week
1ml of Seachem Iron 1 time per week.
water change every 7 days.

 

[The Gipper]

when you plant it, do you cut off the ends a bit and then gently plant?

I used to pinch of the ends for planting, and found that I was crushing the ends of the stems by pinching, and it seemed to lead to problems with the plants establishing roots. The crushed areas rotted and the plants ended up floating more times than not.

Now I cut the ends cleanly with scissors, and gently plant down into the substrate so as not to damage the stems.

 

[Booswalia]

I was pinching. Lately I've been cutting.

I decided to transfer some into another tank and see if it does better there. If it does, then I know it's something in my 25G tank.

 

[Starry]

I've had problems with L. repens as well, similar to yours. The plants were stunted, with very small leaves, light green instead of reddish, with holes. The tips of leaves withered away, and lots of older leaves just fell off. I alwayse use scissors BTW.

What a difference a week can make! Three days after I hooked up my new CO2 bottle, it took off. Large, gorgeous red leaves, with little side shoots coming off too!
It doesn't look like your CO2 is the problem, but I'd like to point out that I dose 1/4 tsp KCl two times a week, in a 10gal. Potassium is hard to overdose as it is. Also, this plant gets redder with less nitrate. I keep my nitrate at 5ppm just so I get this plant red None of my other plants seem to care for nitrate anyway. Also, I don't know how concentrated Flourish is, but you might want to look into dosing more. Traces don't usually cause problems. Although if it contains iron, you might want to cut back on Flourish Iron. I dose 6 mL TMG/ week, and it made a big difference when I went from 3 to 6. First, try adding more KCl. Good luck. This is a gorgeous plants when it's doing well.

 

[JLudwig]

I dose 1/4 tsp KCl two times a week, in a 10gal. Potassium is hard to overdose as it is. Also, this plant gets redder with less nitrate.

1/4 tsp of KCl 2x a week in 10 gal is a _lot_ of potassium. There have been reports (I don't know if on this board or not) that excessive potassium levels (over 40ppm or so) caused curling, twisted, distorted growth, Ammania gracilis being a good proxy for this effect. If its working you for great, just throwing this out there tho...

IME, I have not found any of the Ludwigia species (so far just repens and arcuata) to respond colorwise to lower nitrate levels. The redness with these plants seemed to me to be entirely light intensity related. My repens had some green when I had a 1x55W PCF on a 15 gallon, and turned almost completely red (not purple, red!) under a 2x36W PCF on the same tank. I have found that plants in the Rotala genus are most likely to respond to lower nitrate levels, but not the Ludwigias...

 

[Booswalia]

This was my tank before all the "disasters" occurred. It must have been beginners luck because I don't think I'll ever have it looking like that again. :-(

Now everything has black spots and feels rough to the touch. I'm getting a little discouraged. New growth always looks good and I usually have some pearling, but the old growth is always black and crusty.

The only plants that are doing well are my vals and some crypts.

 

[Starry]

Originally posted by Booswalia


This was my tank before all the "disasters" occurred. It must have been beginners luck because I don't think I'll ever have it looking like that again. :-(

Now everything has black spots and feels rough to the touch. I'm getting a little discouraged. New growth always looks good and I usually have some pearling, but the old growth is always black and crusty.

The only plants that are doing well are my vals and some crypts.

Wow, looks so healthy and colourful! Good luck fixing it all

 

[Starry]

Originally posted by JLudwig


1/4 tsp of KCl 2x a week in 10 gal is a _lot_ of potassium. There have been reports (I don't know if on this board or not) that excessive potassium levels (over 40ppm or so) caused curling, twisted, distorted growth, Ammania gracilis being a good proxy for this effect. If its working you for great, just throwing this out there tho...

IME, I have not found any of the Ludwigia species (so far just repens and arcuata) to respond colorwise to lower nitrate levels. The redness with these plants seemed to me to be entirely light intensity related. My repens had some green when I had a 1x55W PCF on a 15 gallon, and turned almost completely red (not purple, red!) under a 2x36W PCF on the same tank. I have found that plants in the Rotala genus are most likely to respond to lower nitrate levels, but not the Ludwigias...

Really.... For KCl dosing, I listened to someone else on this forum, but never bothered to check by calculating it myself. Maybe I'll do that, and decide on the level that way. I've been doing this for a few weeks already, and the response has been really good. Thanks for the warning though.

As for the Ludwigia getting redder with low nitrates - someone on this forum told me that too, but I can't remember who. Maybe if you do a search... In any case, it has definitely worked for me. Before, I used to dose to 10-15 ppm. Now, I dose to about 5, and the colour is much better. I didn't change anything else when I tried the lower NO3 levels. The KCl came long after that.