Frogbit dying off slowly

[Joe80]

Hello. I have a 125 litre planted tank, with 5 stem plants ( one of is an amazon sword, but forget the names of the others), one java fern and some Christmas moss. I also have some Frogbit, which is is fenced in using fishing line and suction cups.

The frogbit started out growing very well, long roots and new growth. But now it is melting away. All of my other stem plants are doing great, massive growth. The java fern is looking a bit brown as well.

I feed with Flourish once a week, and add easy life easy carbon fertiliser every other day. I also have a couple of root tabs in the sand near the stem plants.

Could my stem plants be taking all the nutrients in the water?


Thanks

 

[Essjay]

I have to say that my frogbit is growing well, but a few years ago all the salvinia floating in my tank turned brown and died. Someone suggested they don't like their leaves being wet, but Byron also said that it could be just part of the growing like mad, then resting lifecycle. I don't know if the same applies to frogbit though.



On a different point, most of the 'liquid carbon' products contain glutaraldehyde. If easy carbo does, I wouldn't use it. Glutaraldehyde is a powerful disinfectant used in embalming fluid and for sterilising surgical equipment, and even a tiny overdose is known to kill some plants. Check the label!

 

[Joe80]

Thanks @essjay.

Yeah I had read that about frogbit, but also read that it doesn’t matter so much as long as they’re not underwater completely. So I’m not sure either way.

I used the frogbit as part of my silent planted cycle. It was growing extremely well for a month or so. Seems strange how my other plants ( apart from the java fern ), are growing very well.

I read the bottle of easy carbo but there are not ingredients listed. But after researching online, people do say that it does contain Glutaraldehyde. I didnt know about that, I will stop using it immediately, cheers for the heads up. Do I really need to add carbon to the tank? If so do you recommend any other liquid carbon? I don’t really want to go down the injection route...my tank is mainly for the fish so don’t want lots of co2 in the water

 

[Essjay]

I think all liquid carbon products contain glutaraldehyde, or something similar. I know that some plants are sensitive to glutaraldehyde, so there is the possibility that the easy carbo is the problem for the frogbit. The plants I know that can be affected are Egeria densa, Riccia, Vallis and Fissidens; frogbit hasn't been mentioned - yet.

It is mainly in heavily planted, high-tech tanks with few fish that CO2 needs to be used. Usually when there are fish in the tank, and once all the micro-organisms in the substrate have grown, there is enough CO2 produced in the tank for the plants to use. Fish breathe out CO2 and micro-organisms in the substrate break down fish waste to CO2.

 

[Joe80]

Ok thank you for the info essjay. I’ll leave the C02 along I think.

 

[StevenF]

My experience with plants is that typically the problem is a nutrient deficiency. For dying floating plants it always a nutrient deficiency. Floating plants get all the CO2 tyhey need from the air and they are closest to the light and therefore get more light. And all floating plants that I have had don't care if the top of there of gets wet. Duckweed and Slavinia can do well totally submerged. So that leaves the14 nutrient (elements) that which they get from the water colomn. The problem isfiguring out which one. IF any one is short nutrient is missing plants will die.

Some quick things to check are your nitrates, GH, Phosphates. You can easily get a test kit for each. You don't want to sea zero on any of these readings. For nitrate 5ppm is ok. Phosphates 1ppm is OK . GH mainly measures calcium and magnesium. If your water is very soft you might be short calcium or magnesium. Root tabs are good for plants in the substrate but they may not release any nutrients into the water column. So the floating plants may not get anything. Dosing a liquidfetilizer would fead all the plants, including the floating plants). So I would recommend a good complete aquarium fertilizer (I don't know what is available in the UK). But note most liquid fertilizers don't have calcium. So if you have very soft water use a GH booster to boost the gh to at least 2degrees.

 

[Joe80]

Ok thanks a lot @StevenF.

I have hard water, my GH is 10. My nitrate is currently between 10 and 20 ( there’s isn’t much different in the api test colour between 10 and 20 ).... today is water change day, so it will be going down to 10 at the most after that. I can not test my phosphate with the tests I have.

But... thinking about it, the problem may be lack or phosphate or change in nitrate level. I have nitrate and phosphate remover media in my filter ( Fluval clean and clear cartridges ) ). I installed that media after noticing how high the nitrate in my tap water is. But now I use a pozzani nitrate remover for my water changes, I probably no longer need the clean clear filter media. So maybe the phosphate in my tank is to low?

I use Seachems Flourish once a week. The bottle says i can use it twice a week, so maybe I should up the dose slowly and see if that helps also?

 

[StevenF]

Nitrate and phosphate removes are not good for plants. 10ppm nitrate should be fine. A phosphate level of 1ppm should be fine. I don't know how well your nitrate remover works but at one time I was using phosphate remover and it does work very well. So try removing those products first. and maybe look into getting a phosphate test kit.

But if that doesn't work you probably will need something better than Flourish In my RO water tank. I ended up making my own fertilizer to get good plant growth. Flourish just doesn't work. Note enough copper or zinc for my tank. The standard Flourish dose will give you about 0.001ppm of each. I have found that plants needabobt 20 times more to do well. Currently I am doing 0.03Zn and 0.01Cu.But you have hard water so your zinc levels might to might note be sufficient.Most of the copper in tanks doesn't come from fertilizer it comes from copper pipes. If your home has copper pipes you should have enough copper.

 

[Joe80]

Ok thanks @StevenF. I removed the nitrate and phosphate remover from my filter on Saturday. Noted about the Flourish. I’ll give it a few weeks then see how things are going. The pipe work inside my home is plastic ( cheap new build rubbish ). So I guess my water could be lacking copper.

 

[StevenF]

The pipe work inside my home is plastic ( cheap new build rubbish ). So I guess my water could be lacking copper.

One thing you might want to do it so get a ICP-OES test done on your tap water.

I have used this one in the US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0725Q6VSJ/?tag=ff0d01-20
This is another based in Germany:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0106D3QAQ/?tag=ff0d01-20

This tests for about 33 element (nutrients and none nutrient) in your water down to a level of 1 part per billion. . This test is frequently used those with salt water aquariums So their software may flag an item as high for a salt water tank but that same result might be good for fresh water tank. So don't worry about the recommendations the software may've you. Just look at the numbers. You can use this test to get a good idea asa to what is in your water. Note the test will not detect nitrogen and may not detect Manganese. For my tank I target currently Fe at 100PPB, Mn 50PPB, B at 25PPB, Zn at 30PPB, Cu 10PPB, Mo 5PPB, and Ni at 4PPB. Note 1part per million, quals 1000 part per billion.

 

[Joe80]

One thing you might want to do it so get a ICP-OES test done on your tap water.

I have used this one in the US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0725Q6VSJ/?tag=ff0d01-20
This is another based in Germany:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0106D3QAQ/?tag=ff0d01-20

This tests for about 33 element (nutrients and none nutrient) in your water down to a level of 1 part per billion. . This test is frequently used those with salt water aquariums So their software may flag an item as high for a salt water tank but that same result might be good for fresh water tank. So don't worry about the recommendations the software may've you. Just look at the numbers. You can use this test to get a good idea asa to what is in your water. Note the test will not detect nitrogen and may not detect Manganese. For my tank I target currently Fe at 100PPB, Mn 50PPB, B at 25PPB, Zn at 30PPB, Cu 10PPB, Mo 5PPB, and Ni at 4PPB. Note 1part per million, quals 1000 part per billion.

Ok thanks for that Steve. I’ll give it a week or two, and if there is no improvement I’ll get my water tested.

I’m hoping that the issue is just the lack of phosphate or significantly lower levels of nitrate. Since using the pozzani nitrate remover, my water changes add no nitrates to my tank. Previously I was adding some nitrate every water change.