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Advice on Floating Plants

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cupofjoel

cupofjoel

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The floating plants in my big tank are doing fine.

The floating plants in my small 5 gallon tank are not, at least they don't look good. The roots are all turning into brown mush and stringy. That doesn't seem normal. I know they are getting enough light and nutrients since they are only one betta and nerite snail in there. Thoughts?
 
Photos?
 
Yes, we need photographs of said plants.

The Salvinia did this in my 10g tank, and created a terrible bacteria bloom.
 

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There are some that look worse than the ones in the photos. They seem to be dissolving or something.
 
Looks like frogbit?

I would remove them. They may cause a bacteria bloom like mine did.
 
PheonixKingZ said:
Looks like frogbit?

I would remove them. They may cause a bacteria bloom like mine did.
Click to expand...

Oh man how did this happen? I thought floating plants were the way to go to keep things healthy in a tank. They are floating ferns species.
 
What is shown in the photos are organics sticking to the roots and leaves. I had this occur in my former 90g in a major way, and after I tore that tank down (when I moved and gave it away) I moved some of the plants and wood and few fish over to my 33g, and within a couple months same thing again. I could not keep the organics down. I finally tore that tank down too, as it was a disgusting mess of brown gunk everywhere. The lower plants were basically smothered to death. This can happen in a given tank, and there is no one cause. The obvious causes are overstocking, overfeeding, insufficient water changes and cleaning of the substrate and filter...but when one has all of this well under control and it still occurs, ??

Short term suggestion is to increase the cleaning activities just mentioned, especially water changes and not overstocking/feeding. I did find that more water changes helped even with my mess. And I should say that it can be present but not harmful if it is in check. I see organics on plant roots now and then, but fortunately it goes no further.
 
Byron said:
What is shown in the photos are organics sticking to the roots and leaves. I had this occur in my former 90g in a major way, and after I tore that tank down (when I moved and gave it away) I moved some of the plants and wood and few fish over to my 33g, and within a couple months same thing again. I could not keep the organics down. I finally tore that tank down too, as it was a disgusting mess of brown gunk everywhere. The lower plants were basically smothered to death. This can happen in a given tank, and there is no one cause. The obvious causes are overstocking, overfeeding, insufficient water changes and cleaning of the substrate and filter...but when one has all of this well under control and it still occurs, ??

Short term suggestion is to increase the cleaning activities just mentioned, especially water changes and not overstocking/feeding. I did find that more water changes helped even with my mess. And I should say that it can be present but not harmful if it is in check. I see organics on plant roots now and then, but fortunately it goes no further.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm staying on top of water changes, feedings, and not overstocking; just a female betta and a nerite snail. I'll keep an eye on the plants and remove the ones that are really bad. Thanks.

I plan on eventually replacing these plants by floating water sprite and see if they do better.
 
cupofjoel said:
Yeah, I'm staying on top of water changes, feedings, and not overstocking; just a female betta and a nerite snail. I'll keep an eye on the plants and remove the ones that are really bad. Thanks.

I plan on eventually replacing these plants by floating water sprite and see if they do better.
Click to expand...

Something else just occurred to me as I looked again at the photos. What is the light in the problem tank? There is a lot of algae on the floating plants and this can be due to bright light (duration may sometimes help, depending) or spectrum. And insufficient liquid nutrients perhaps.
 
Byron said:
Something else just occurred to me as I looked again at the photos. What is the light in the problem tank? There is a lot of algae on the floating plants and this can be due to bright light (duration may sometimes help, depending) or spectrum. And insufficient liquid nutrients perhaps.
Click to expand...

I don't know the specs for my light, but it is a strong light and it's on for around 8 hours. I did a nitrate test and it's at 0ppm. I can't control the intensity of the light so I'll have to reduce the amount of time is on during the day. I'll reduce it to 6 hours.
 
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