Warning for planted tank people.

[racingjason]

I had some anubius left from when my 270g was African cichlids, the roots were about 1/2" diameter or a bit larger. I made a 15 gallon plant tank with CO2 injection and keep the ph around 7 instead of the 8 it was in the african tank so I put some of the anubius in there as well as amazon swords, java moss and some "mystery" plants. There are 4 corys in there, 3 gold ancistrus, 6 ancistrus fry (1/2-3/4") and 50 pea sized apple snails which are headed to a new home friday.
Anyway I check my water parameters almost daily and I came down monday morning and noticed one of the gold ancistrus had a red color in his gills. I checked the water right away and it had super high nitrites! Almost in the deadly range according to the color chart!! I freaked out and hit it with a 50% water change and a light gravel vac. I came back 6 hours later and it was back to nearly the same! WTF??? I did some more gravel vacuuming and moved some plants to make it easier to vac, then it happened... I felt the root on the anubius and it was total mush. I took the plant out and it STUNK big time. It was obvious then where the NO2 spike came from, I checked all the anubius and 3 of them were rotting (but only the large roots) so out they went. A 50% water change and it was almost 0 in 6 more hours. That spike happened in a 2 days stretch, possibly the corys or snails dug around in the roots and released the rotting mess. :huh:

Just a friendly reminder that you can't always see what is causing a NO2 spike. If I wasn't so diligent in my testing and didn't watch my fish for a while each day the whole tank could have died. :thud:

 

[OrionGirl]

Yikes! I try to avoid burying the roots of anubias--they tend to prefer higher oxygen levels than burial provides. That might have been part of the problem--the big roots just weren't getting enough O2. Glad it didn't take out the tank!

 

[RTR]

I, on the other hand, always bury the roots of Anubias, but never the rhizome. If the rhizome is buried it will rot. If the roots are buried, the plant grows much better for me.

 

[Rebgen]

I, on the other hand, always bury the roots of Anubias, but never the rhizome. If the rhizome is buried it will rot. If the roots are buried, the plant grows much better for me.

Ditto...I do the same thing. So far so good.

 

[Blinky]

Wow, glad you caught the problem in time, nice save!
I only have one Anubias, haven't had it long, I've attached it to a piece of polyresin 'driftwood', I'm hoping it will latch on. It's growing already, and I don't want to disturb it, but maybe I'll try growing the next one I get with the roots in the substrate for comparison.

 

[ashdavid]

I plant my anubias on driftwood and in the substrate, havn't had a problem yet.

 

[racingjason]

Yikes! I try to avoid burying the roots of anubias--they tend to prefer higher oxygen levels than burial provides. That might have been part of the problem--the big roots just weren't getting enough O2. Glad it didn't take out the tank!

They were "planted" the same way they had been in the big tank, the difference might be that they were on crushed coral vs the sand they are on now. The worst one was attached to a small piece of driftwood, poking through a hole in the wood. Perhaps the driftwood settled on top of the root and pushed it into the sand choking it off. I never should have removed the plants from a large piece of driftwood I had, it was a 1-1/2 foot diameter anubias that completely covered the wood. Would have looked great in my tank now, I just couldn't find room to keep it while I upgraded my tank so I trimmed it into several chunks.

The strange part is my snails were the only residents that seemed bothered by the spike. They closed up their shells and stopped eating, some were hanging out at the water line. The corys were fine, eating up all the pellets intended for the snails. Everything I have read says snails are less affected by water parameters.