Hornwort

[ben1234]

Hola everyone,

Last week I recieved my first shipment of plants. Four bunches of hornwort. I plopped them in my 90 gallon tank with a little more than 1 wpg, no fert except fish waste, and no co2. I heard how hardy that this plant was. Some of the leaves seem to be browning out and collecting algea, while some are starting to really brighten up and grow. Do you think this is because of shipping stress and they will bounce back? Or is there insufficient light or something? I have large fish which equals good ferts.

ph 7.0
temp 80
not sure what exactly nitrate and nitrite are but I know within a good range (Discus acceptable)


thanks
Benjamin

 

[chrisovington]

I think it will, it really is a hardy plant. Mine is in a 90 with CO2 and recently started EI. Even before the EI, once it did start growing, it was an inch a day, with about the same light at that time. Now on the weekly water change, half of it gets turfed

 

[ShoC]

I had some in my tank but decided it would be a nice addition to my pond..
It didnt grow in my pond maybe because of the temprature or the fact it was covered in blanket weed,
I suffer badly in my pond....
Anyhow I treated my tank with Methblue and all my hornwort died,
but remembered I had some in the pond (it was 1/2 an inch)
managed to find it somehow and put it in my tank, now its 8inches and growing insane.

 

[mfarrar]

I added some to my tank a while ago, some of the ends of mine are brown but I thought that was just natural because when I looked at pics on the net alot of them showed browning. It was still spreading quite rapidly.

 

[lisa_perry75]

I had hornwort in pretty much the same way, and it grew like wildfire. It doesnt have roots (if I remember correctly) and mine would always float... Then fill all the swimming space, so I'd thin it out, and it would grow back like crazy!

 

[nry]

Yep - to my knowledge hornwort does not root, it also seems pretty easy to damage and is very fine leaved. Needs held down in the substrate if you want to use it as a stem plant, otherwise it is a floater.

 

[ben1234]

thanks for the information everyone. Hopefully my plants start to green up.

 

[sadielmorris]

I had some hornwort and it grew like crazy for the first couple of months then started to die off. There was nothing that seemed to stop it from dying, and it was a mess for the filter and the substrate. I did a little research because I've also heard about how hardy and fast growing it was, and that was my experience at first. Then read in an older freshwater aquarium book that non-tropical hornworts tend to go into a dormancy period over the winter. Since I collected mine from a lake in the summer, this rang true. I cut it back severely and found that the few remaining spikes have grown new shoots.

My boyfriend who is a naturalist by trade has told me that because hornwort propagates by cuttings this might be part of the plant's reproductive strategy. It certainly makes sense to me, as plants in a temperate environment have nothing to gain from keeping their leaves over winter. I'm not sure this is the problem in your case, just something to keep in mind.

 

[ben1234]

Interesting info sadielmorris, thanks for your help. I'll keep everyone in touch if it keeps browing. As of right now it looks like its getting better (fingers crossed)