Hornwort was doing great, now barely hanging on to life

[jfcp]

I have a heavily planted 20 gallon long with Eco Complete substrate and a 48W full-spectrum LED light running a 16/8 day/night cycle with night light. I am also using Seachem fertilizer and Fritz Aquatics trace elements, and weekly 40% water changes. I have a piece of Mopani wood in the tank, which adds a barely perceptible tea-color (hence tannins) to the water. This tank has been running for several months, and I did not have any trouble growing floating hornwort for a long time, in fact I always had more new growth than I knew what to do with.

The past couple of weeks the situation has really changed. It is now barely possible to keep hornwort from doing any better than numerous short starts of new, branching growth, which then halts and the stems older parts turn brown, threatening a die off., before another mini-recovery starts. But the trend in down and down.

Red Water Lily prospering well, over a dozen pads, & making more; Valisneria sending out runners & getting VERY tall, Water onion looks OK & is splitting-off pups; "Marimo moss" balls (as found at Petsmart, etc, likely not the real thing) seem to do fine; Java fern doing OK, not great; Java moss just holding on; Aponogeton not doing too well, dying back like the hornwort.

The situation seemed to improve temporarily with a water change, or for no real reason, but this last water change (Saturday) had no effect, or made things worse(?).

I have taken to increasing the fertilizer & trace dose by adding every other day, knowing this might just as likely make things worse or cause some other problem.

I have also reduced the light intensity to 60%, as I read somewhere "moderate' light is generally better, and at 48W, my LED light is maybe overkill on a 20 gallon tank.

Any and all ideas appreciated!

More tank specifics below:

My ph is generally 7.4 - 7.6, which seems a little high to me, but the reading I've done on the subject recently seems to favor this, in contrast to what I remember from years ago.

The tank is very well filtered and aerated,; AquaClear 20-50 gal HOB, 2 sponge filters, in rear corners& on 2 air-pumps.

My nitrogen cycle readings are negligible, and the make-up water is definitely hard, so the KH & Gh remain within the bounds acceptable to the fish.

Temp is 74F, maintained by a heater

Also in the tank:

3 Corys

3 Yoyo Loaches,

1 pleco

1 Chinese Algae Eater

1 Black Ghost Knife, about 4-1/2 inches.

12 ghost shrimp

2 large nerite snails,

1 Rabbit snail

Hundreds of burrowing Malaysian Trumpet snails, mainly staying in the substrate.

 

[eatyourpeas]

This may sound odd, but a nitrogen deficiency perhaps? Hornwort are known to be great nitrogen consumers...

 

[jfcp]

This may sound odd, but a nitrogen deficiency perhaps? Hornwort are known to be great nitrogen consumers...

Hmm....thanks...intriguing... (btw, . nothing seems odder than what's been happening.)....

Have you remedied a nitrogen deficiency?

What would you recommend?

 

[eatyourpeas]

I stopped over-cleaning and over-filtering. Try letting the nitrates get to ~10ppm but under 20ppm and see if that helps. They get their nutrients from the water column, not the substrate.

 

[Retired Viking]

After several months my flaoting hornwort also turned brown and lost leaves, it had been a great place for the tetra fry to hide out in. I ended up putting the few surviving new parts in a tank I have by a bay window so it would get more light. I had it floating for over 6 months before it started to break down, now it is gone and replaced with salvinia and a few frogbit. The second photo shows 2 tetra fry hiding in the frogbite waiting for me to feed them.

 

[Colin_T]

Sudden changes in temperature and water chemistry (pH, GH and KH) will kill hornwort

 

[jfcp]

I stopped over-cleaning and over-filtering. Try letting the nitrates get to ~10ppm but under 20ppm and see if that helps. They get their nutrients from the water column, not the substrate.

After several months my flaoting hornwort also turned brown and lost leaves, it had been a great place for the tetra fry to hide out in. I ended up putting the few surviving new parts in a tank I have by a bay window so it would get more light. I had it floating for over 6 months before it started to break down, now it is gone and replaced with salvinia and a few frogbit. The second photo shows 2 tetra fry hiding in the frogbite waiting for me to feed them.

 

[jfcp]

I stopped over-cleaning and over-filtering. Try letting the nitrates get to ~10ppm but under 20ppm and see if that helps. They get their nutrients from the water column, not the substrate.

I stopped over-cleaning and over-filtering. Try letting the nitrates get to ~10ppm but under 20ppm and see if that helps. They get their nutrients from the water column, not the substrate.

Great. I was mulling over trying that very thing, lacking only the parameters you gave.

 

[jfcp]

Retired Viking:

Yes. I have a 3-gallon tank which grows hornwort w/o difficulty.

 

[StevenF]

I saw this many times in my aquarium. For me it was a developing nutrient deficiency. If not corrected the hornwort will eventually die off. And eventually other plants will also suffer and die off. I was using Seachem Flourish Comprehensive.

The situation seemed to improve temporarily with a water change, or for no real reason, but this last water change (Saturday) had no effect, or made things worse(?).

Sometimes a water change will help if the water has the missing nutrient your plants need. which can help . But the mineral content of tap water can change seasonally. So sometimes it works other times it doesn't.

How much water do you replace in your aquarium weekly? If it is less than 50% It might be helpful to increase the amount

Alsoyou never want to see zero ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. If you do you have a nitrogen deficiency. I would reommend a minimum of 5ppm nitrate. That would satisfy the plants need nitrogen. You can use Seachem nitrogen to do that quickly.

My nitrogen cycle readings are negligible, and the make-up water is definitely hard, so the KH & Gh remain within the bounds acceptable to the fish.

What are the numbers. What you believe is acceptable might actually be a problem.

While we would like to think that fertilizers have everything plants need to grow. The fact is that most are not complete and many are not well ballanced. SeaChem has very little nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, zinc, and copper. I could not find any information on Fritz Aquatics trace elements so I cannot say anything about it other than it likely also has some sort of problem. If increasing the dose you can try seachem trace to see if that helps. For my tank I eventually stopped using manufactured fertilizers and mad my own trace, GH booste, and dosed nitrate to 10ppm and phosphate to 1ppm.

 

[jfcp]

I saw this many times in my aquarium. For me it was a developing nutrient deficiency. If not corrected the hornwort will eventually die off. And eventually other plants will also suffer and die off. I was using Seachem Flourish Comprehensive.



Sometimes a water change will help if the water has the missing nutrient your plants need. which can help . But the mineral content of tap water can change seasonally. So sometimes it works other times it doesn't.

How much water do you replace in your aquarium weekly? If it is less than 50% It might be helpful to increase the amount

Alsoyou never want to see zero ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. If you do you have a nitrogen deficiency. I would reommend a minimum of 5ppm nitrate. That would satisfy the plants need nitrogen. You can use Seachem nitrogen to do that quickly.



What are the numbers. What you believe is acceptable might actually be a problem.

While we would like to think that fertilizers have everything plants need to grow. The fact is that most are not complete and many are not well ballanced. SeaChem has very little nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, zinc, and copper. I could not find any information on Fritz Aquatics trace elements so I cannot say anything about it other than it likely also has some sort of problem. If increasing the dose you can try seachem trace to see if that helps. For my tank I eventually stopped using manufactured fertilizers and mad my own trace, GH booste, and dosed nitrate to 10ppm and phosphate to 1ppm.

Wow, great information!

(Will get back with detailed nitrogen cycle & Gh/Kh test results, 12 Nov)

It's a relief to hear someone has had this same problem.

I had been doing about 40 - 50% water change weekly.

"Not much NITROGEN"? Frankly, I just lost my trust in Seachem; ridiculous I'm paying upwards of $10 for a 16 oz bottle for a product does not do the most basic job.

How did you make you own trace element solution?

How do you dose nitrogen and phosphorus?

I considered using a solution made from a granular houseplant fertilizer, like "Miracle Gro", but I was not confident about knowing what I was doing, and it seemed to me there was too much copper for invertebrates tolerate.

 

[StevenF]

How do you dose nitrogen and phosphorus?

For starters you probably want to bookmark this fertilizer calculator. Basically for nitrogen I use potassium nitrate (KNO3) and I target a nitrate level of 10mg/L (milligrams per liter or PPM). So in the calculatorI enter the tank size, and for my fertilizers are: I select DIY and then in the select your compound list select KNO3. then you can select solution or dry. Then in the box "I am caculating for :" I select Dose to reach a target. Then I enter "my target" of 10ppm. Then click on calculate and it will tell you how much to add. At this point you need a scale that will measure down ate 0.001 grams (I got one from amazon.com for about $20). For your tank size you would need to add 1.23grams of KNO3. After your weekly water change you can just add 1.23 grams directly to the water. Or if you want you can make a solution in a bottle and then use a syringe to add the correct amount from the bottle into the tank. You can use a lower dose or higher one if you want.

I do the same forphosphate but I Use KH2PO4 and I target in my tank 1ppm .This takes care of the nitrate , phosphate, and pottasiujm need of the plants until the next water changes. You can get KNO3 and KH2 PO4 from LoudWolf.com. They specialize in small bottle of chemicals at reasonable cost. You can also get chemicals from amazon.com although not always in small quantities.

The cost of buying a scale and the ingredients is higher than the just buying a bottle of seachem But one 4oz bottle of KNO3 will provide 91 nitrate doses and even more phosphate doses. Since plants need more nitrate than anything else a little bit of fertilizer ingredients can last a long time.

I look forward to seeing your test results

 

[jfcp]

For starters you probably want to bookmark this fertilizer calculator. Basically for nitrogen I use potassium nitrate (KNO3) and I target a nitrate level of 10mg/L (milligrams per liter or PPM). So in the calculatorI enter the tank size, and for my fertilizers are: I select DIY and then in the select your compound list select KNO3. then you can select solution or dry. Then in the box "I am caculating for :" I select Dose to reach a target. Then I enter "my target" of 10ppm. Then click on calculate and it will tell you how much to add. At this point you need a scale that will measure down ate 0.001 grams (I got one from amazon.com for about $20). For your tank size you would need to add 1.23grams of KNO3. After your weekly water change you can just add 1.23 grams directly to the water. Or if you want you can make a solution in a bottle and then use a syringe to add the correct amount from the bottle into the tank. You can use a lower dose or higher one if you want.

I do the same forphosphate but I Use KH2PO4 and I target in my tank 1ppm .This takes care of the nitrate , phosphate, and pottasiujm need of the plants until the next water changes. You can get KNO3 and KH2 PO4 from LoudWolf.com. They specialize in small bottle of chemicals at reasonable cost. You can also get chemicals from amazon.com although not always in small quantities.

The cost of buying a scale and the ingredients is higher than the just buying a bottle of seachem But one 4oz bottle of KNO3 will provide 91 nitrate doses and even more phosphate doses. Since plants need more nitrate than anything else a little bit of fertilizer ingredients can last a long time.

I look forward to seeing your test results

Today's test results are as might be expected. Negligible entire nitrogen cycle, NH3; NO-2; NO-3; all very near or at 0 ppm. Kh/Gh, both cases, in the range 35.8 to 53.7 ppm.

Site Bookmarked & many thanks.

Have a phosphate test kit in the mail.

I will have KNO3 and KH2 PO4 in the mail today. I had Seachem Nitrogen and Phosphorus in my Amazon cart, but blanched at the prospect of giving them more business, and at the cost., at least until I had a chance to look at your latest post.

This route you suggest will be much cheaper in the long run, and promises better results, esp as I do have in hand a good Ohaus "carat scale" ($130 !) with legitimate 0.2 mg (0.0002 g) resolution, owing to an interest in gemology. I can minimize scale limitations if necessary by weighing out a sufficiently large amount of the materials, then mixing a "large" batch of solution in advance, which is more convenient anyway.

One suggestion I would offer ( and you likely don't need the advice) is to be a little leery of $20 scales that "measure" with 1 mg resolution. This can be the case, but you really need to be on guard - have good calibration weights available, and be checking for consistent behavior if the parameters are critical.


Have you made any sort of "root tabs" diy?

Just yesterday, I noticed the 2 water lilies I have are exhibiting paling of the basal leaves. Those leaves are old, and the plants are large, with many floating pads, but I don't see different degrees of leaf fading at the base, according the age of the leaves, which makes me lean to exhausted substrate as the cause.


Many thanks for the excellent advice!

 

[StevenF]

One suggestion I would offer ( and you likely don't need the advice) is to be a little leery of $20 scales that "measure" with 1 mg resolution. This can be the case, but you really need to be on guard - have good calibration weights available, and be checking for consistent behavior if the parameters are critical.

I understand your point but at the time I decided to make my own fertilizer I wan't 100% sure if it would solve my problems. And if it did work I could invest in a better scale later. Th scale I got did come with a calibration weight . But as of right nowI don't see any evidence of my scale causing a problem. And my experience so fare has been that accuracy is not as critical as I originally thought. I also didn't want to push people away to DIY fertilizers by mentioning high priced scales. But having usable scale on the shelf is the cheepest way to go .

Today's test results are as might be expected. Negligible entire nitrogen cycle, NH3; NO-2; NO-3; all very near or at 0 ppm. Kh/Gh, both cases, in the range 35.8 to 53.7 ppm.

Site Bookmarked & many thanks.

Have a phosphate test kit in the mail.

With a likely nitrogen deficiency you likely have excess phosphate. So Don't be surprised if you phosphate test kit reads off scale high. The best phosphate test kit I have found is the Hannainsturments phosphate checker HI 717. It is an electronic device that has a reading range of 1 to 30ppm with a resolution of 0.1ppm. They also have a low range version HI713 with a range of 0 to 2.5ppm. I have the HI713 and it is worth the $50 I spent for it.

Have you made any sort of "root tabs" diy?

For a root tab you want something that dissolves at a slow steady rate. Unfortunately KNO3 and KH2PO4are highly soluble. I don't know enough chemistry to find a way to slow it down. But the good news is that just fertilizing the water column appears to work very well . Apparently in my tank the nutrients are penetrating the black diamond blasting sand enough to for my plants to do well. I would suspect that the nutrients would penetrate gravel even better.

You had orignionally stated your water was hard but a GH reading of 35 to 53ppm is soft. do you live near New York? So as a result you need to be aware of the "minor macros", a term i don't agree with Calcium, magnesium sulfur and chloride are macros like NPK. And they are just as important to plant health as NPK. So you might have to add some GH for your plants.

Common ingredients for this are calcium sulfate (Gypsum), magnesium sulfate (EpsoM salt), calcium chloride, and magnesium chloride. are common ingredients ofGH boosters. Since I have very soft RO water I have to use it. You can get all the ingredients I have mentioned on Loud Wolf and I used the nutrient calculator to to creat a mix of 3 parts calcium to one part magnesium. My research indicates that is close to the ratio Plants need. But plants can easily deal with any ratio as long as they can get enough Ca and Mg. Most people just use calcium and magnesium sulfate . Tap water typically has some chloride in it due to the sterilization process. So most people don't worry about chloride. However RO doesn't have chloride so I use calcium chloride and magnesium sulfate. If you need it you probably won't need much or you might find that magnesium is all you need.

If you look at plant leaves that are normally flat calcium deficiency can cause the tip of the leaf to hook up or down. A light Magnesium deficiency may cause the edge of the leaf the ripple up and down. In a sever magnesium deficiency the plant will strip magnesium from older leaves to support the growth of new leaves. The older leaves then die and fall off. Hornwort will probably not show a clear indication of a Ca or Mg deficiency but other plants in your tank probably will.

Add GH booster it to the tank dry after a water change. don't mix it with water and your nitrate and phosphate nutrients. Calcium reacts with phosphate and will settle to the bottom of the bottle.If you address N, K, Ca, Mg, P, S you might be enough solve your problems.

 

[jfcp]

I understand your point but at the time I decided to make my own fertilizer I wan't 100% sure if it would solve my problems. And if it did work I could invest in a better scale later. Th scale I got did come with a calibration weight . But as of right nowI don't see any evidence of my scale causing a problem. And my experience so fare has been that accuracy is not as critical as I originally thought. I also didn't want to push people away to DIY fertilizers by mentioning high priced scales. But having usable scale on the shelf is the cheepest way to go .



With a likely nitrogen deficiency you likely have excess phosphate. So Don't be surprised if you phosphate test kit reads off scale high. The best phosphate test kit I have found is the Hannainsturments phosphate checker HI 717. It is an electronic device that has a reading range of 1 to 30ppm with a resolution of 0.1ppm. They also have a low range version HI713 with a range of 0 to 2.5ppm. I have the HI713 and it is worth the $50 I spent for it.



For a root tab you want something that dissolves at a slow steady rate. Unfortunately KNO3 and KH2PO4are highly soluble. I don't know enough chemistry to find a way to slow it down. But the good news is that just fertilizing the water column appears to work very well . Apparently in my tank the nutrients are penetrating the black diamond blasting sand enough to for my plants to do well. I would suspect that the nutrients would penetrate gravel even better.

You had originally stated your water was hard but a GH reading of 35 to 53ppm is soft. do you live near New York? So as a result you need to be aware of the "minor macros", a term i don't agree with Calcium, magnesium sulfur and chloride are macros like NPK. And they are just as important to plant health as NPK. So you might have to add some GH for your plants.

Common ingredients for this are calcium sulfate (Gypsum), magnesium sulfate (EpsoM salt), calcium chloride, and magnesium chloride. are common ingredients ofGH boosters. Since I have very soft RO water I have to use it. You can get all the ingredients I have mentioned on Loud Wolf and I used the nutrient calculator to to creat a mix of 3 parts calcium to one part magnesium. My research indicates that is close to the ratio Plants need. But plants can easily deal with any ratio as long as they can get enough Ca and Mg. Most people just use calcium and magnesium sulfate . Tap water typically has some chloride in it due to the sterilization process. So most people don't worry about chloride. However RO doesn't have chloride so I use calcium chloride and magnesium sulfate. If you need it you probably won't need much or you might find that magnesium is all you need.

If you look at plant leaves that are normally flat calcium deficiency can cause the tip of the leaf to hook up or down. A light Magnesium deficiency may cause the edge of the leaf the ripple up and down. In a sever magnesium deficiency the plant will strip magnesium from older leaves to support the growth of new leaves. The older leaves then die and fall off. Hornwort will probably not show a clear indication of a Ca or Mg deficiency but other plants in your tank probably will.

Add GH booster it to the tank dry after a water change. don't mix it with water and your nitrate and phosphate nutrients. Calcium reacts with phosphate and will settle to the bottom of the bottle.If you address N, K, Ca, Mg, P, S you might be enough solve your problems.

Yes, I figured you were likely well on top of scale pitfalls, but thought it best to offer the unneeded input just in case. And I supposed it not unlikely that uncertainties in the ideal dose to administer would be a lot larger than the inaccuracies of even an inexpensive scale, so the issue then is somewhat moot.

I live in southwest Ohio, where the water is rather hard, cheap hardness meters give readings around 250 ppm, so the softness seen in the tank is the result of plant uptake of Mg, Ca, despite my 40 - 50% weekly water changes. As you had said originally thought, The likely remedy is to up the percentage of water changed, and then think about future Gh supplementing.

I do have numerous white root tips poking through the substrate, and large exposed lily roots (I like the "natural" look - don't know if it actually is though). With a course substrate percolating slightly to boot, owing to burrowing snail activity, I will definitely try water column only fert, and see if that suffices. Sounds as if it will!

I had stumbled over that Hannah meter yesterday while doing some research, so didn't order the API test kit until I had some firm answers re kits/meters. Now that I have a user recommendation, I'll go that same low-range meter route. I'm inclined to think the simple fact is more testing will then get done. That and the time and trouble saved make a good meter the way to go, even at $50, which I'd eventually spend on kits anyway.

Finally, I have pdf'ed all your advice re the what/how's, and I don't recall ever seeing a caution about order of addition and precipitating supplements so once again, Many thanks !