They're all gonna die....

[The Zigman]

Looks like my week old corkscrew vals are going to die. They looked good when I brought them home, but now they are all truning brown and stringy. The water temp is 84-86 degrees. they're planted in sea chem flourite.
yesterday i dosed the tank for the first time wirh flourish and am waiting to see something grow besides algae...

Also after only about a week, I have this long green hairlike algae growing everywhere.

Sould I hook up some co2?

Please send suggestions.

 

[theotheragentm]

What kind of lighting do you have? What are you dosing as far as fertilizers go? Plants' needs follow this order.

Light -> Carbon -> Macro Nutrients -> Micro Nutrients -> Trace Elements

If you don't have sufficient lighting, the plants won't grow. Once you have lighting, if you break the chain at any point before trace elements, you get algae and poor plant growth. Algae is simpler plant matter that is able to do without the whole chain of nutrients. So assuming you have enough light, you are looking into a nutrient deficiency.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

might be a lighting problem. might be the water is too hot. ill look up the water temp on them.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

Family Hydrocharitaceae

Continent Asia

Region Asia

Country of origin Asia

Height 50-100+ cm

Width 15+ cm

Light requirements low-very high

Temperature 18-30 °C

Hardness tolerance soft-very hard

pH tolerance 6-9,5

Growth fast

Demands very easy

http://www.tropica.dk/productcard_1.asp?id=054

 

[Bk718]

check the root, if its not rotting and still looks healthy then you still might have a chance to save it..

 

[Cory Keeper]

agreed, as well, are you dosing Excel? that could be the cause of the problem right there.

 

[kj5kb]

I've had Jungle vals (OK...not corkscrew, but close) that were basically down to a root. i planted them in some sand in my fry tank and left them alone; they came back, albeit very slowly...might have been better with 'real' lighting and ferts...

 

[grannylvsfish]

agreed, as well, are you dosing Excel? that could be the cause of the problem right there.

excel is not good for this type of plant? and I ageee, your tank is pretty warm.

 

[BoredAgain]

excel is not good for this type of plant?

Here is a quote from another site:

***Special note*** This plant seems to be sensitive to Flourish Excel, to the point it "melts" completely off if given enough.

This is an easy plant, stop dosing and provide adequate light and you should see no problems. Depending on the state of your plants, they may grow back slowly.

 

[st0l1]

Excel melted my corkscrews. I stopped using excel. Got a pressurized system. Now there are shoots coming back where they were. So I guess the roots were still OK.