Difficulty with bucephalandra "minis"

[anewbie]

Well, that's not good. I've had mine just over 6 months now but it isn't producing any more leaves. Argh.
Have you guys run across any that are relatively "bulletproof?" Especially minis?

Thank you everyone for your help and insight so far, I really appreciate it!!!

I'm growing all of mine in blackwater and several are doing extremely well (blackwater means very acidic and virtually no nutrients); the kedang is esp perking up since it arrived with almost no leaves alive. It is a variety with relatively small leaves.

 

[anewbie]

So here is the edge of the kedang next to some s. repens so you can see the size - another very easy to grow buce i have is mini apple. mini apple isn't the nices buce in terms of having fancy colours but it does grow every easily and it is small:

I guess the kedang has more colour than i though - no remember both plants have been in the aquarium for over a year and both get almost no nutrients which is why the s. repens is a bit 'holey' though it seems to do fairly well if you can live with the holes.

 

[Zer0Fame]

Hey,

As for media it's the standard stuff...coarse sponge, floss, Fluval bio-fx and a small amount of matrix.

What kind of fish are in the tank? I'm wondering if it might be smart to remove the bio-fx step by step...

Nitrates at .1-.8ppm

That's low. Do you know your tank parameters? Low nitrates can create some problems.

If there's something else I should look at I'd appreciate the advice!

Magnesium would be of interest.

just a handful of these tiny little things run over $100

What?!? Here I can get a full in-vitro cup of 'Mini needle leaf' or 'Lamandau Mini Red' for 5 bucks each.
A 'Kedagang Mini', well grown plant, not in-vitro, is 2.50€

 

[gimme30]

What?!? Here I can get a full in-vitro cup of 'Mini needle leaf' or 'Lamandau Mini Red' for 5 bucks each.

I've been keeping receipts so that someday, assuming I can ever really be "done" with plant stocking, I can tally it up and then decide whether or not I want to jump off a cliff.
Lamandau mini was $14.99 (on sale) or roughly 12 euro so yeah, they cost almost 3 times as much here. And you can pay much more than that for other varieties! I also never buy just one since they're so small. Out of all the plants I've murdered so far buces are the only ones actively trying to do the same to me!

https://www.thorntonco.gov/media/file/water-quality-report

That links to a pdf if you want to see the entire report. Nothing looks out of the ordinary to me but maybe you'll spot something detrimental to buce. Magnesium is listed at 11-21ppm and nitrates in the tank are 40ppm. As for fish there's just neons and CPDs, along with amano and neo shrimp. I keep a few catappa leaves in there for the latter but it's not enough to discolor the water-unless the purigen is removing the tannins.
You mentioned pulling the bio-fx; I can certainly do that, I have various types of bio media lying around I can swap it with. The only reason I'm using it is because the box was damaged so I was able to get it cheap! The easiest to get to would be a bag of K2, or if I dig a little I'm sure I can find regular old ceramic rings. What's the reasoning behind making the change?

I think I mentioned before that all new plants go into this tank first since it's well established, with the idea being that once acclimated I can move them to other tanks that aren't quite as mature. Probably a bad idea, but since they're not surviving, I haven't been able to test it.

Edited to add: I made a mistake listing filter content. I must have had matrix on the brain for some reason but I meant Purigen.

 

[anewbie]

In the us i've been ok with this guy on etsy:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/BuceFarm

HOWEVER it is winter in colorado and i would highly recommend you wait till it warm up a bit.

 

[gimme30]

Thank you @anewbie!! Never occurred to me to try Etsy. And yep, plant buying is on hold until it warms up. I can walk into the LFS and get all the jungle val or java moss I want, but for whatever reason nobody carries bucephalandra.

 

[Zer0Fame]

Hey,

I can swap it with

Not swap, remove. Simple as that.
With the reason to transfer some biology from the filter into the tank.

Unless we're talking about 300 neons in a 30 gallon.

Nothing looks out of the ordinary to me but maybe you'll spot something detrimental to buce.

Sodium. However, that's a rather slow killer, not a quick one.
How long does it take the Bucephalandra to die?

 

[anewbie]

Where did you buy the buce that died ? There is one store in particular that i can think of every rhizome plant (buce/anubia) I have purchased from them rot within one to two weeks.

Also sodium high enough to treat fish is enough to lay waste to all plants in a couple of weeks.

 

[gimme30]

Sodium. However, that's a rather slow killer, not a quick one.
How long does it take the Bucephalandra to die?

That's hard to answer since I don't really keep track, but I don't think I've had any of the minis survive past 30-45 days. Usually they start dying right away, depending on the condition they're in when received. From my latest attempt, the mini red looked healthy when it went into the tank, but after 3 or 4 days I could tell it wasn't settling in. After a week it had lost all it's leaves. The mini purple wasn't in great shape when it arrived and died off pretty much immediately, as did the petite galaxy. The rhizomes on all 3 were green after losing their leaves but none came back and eventually (within a few days) rotted away.

Where did you buy the buce that died ?

So far they've come from Dustin's Tanks, Aquarium Co-op, The Shrimp Farm, Buce Plant, Modern Aquarium, AquaticMotiv, Aquarium Plants Factory and Aquatic Arts. I haven't tried any of the Amazon or Ebay sellers. This last batch, mentioned above, came from Aquarium Plants Factory. They've been the best so far and some of the others I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy.

You both mentioned sodium....the water report shows 56-115ppm. Is that too much for buce?

 

[anewbie]

That's hard to answer since I don't really keep track, but I don't think I've had any of the minis survive past 30-45 days. Usually they start dying right away, depending on the condition they're in when received. From my latest attempt, the mini red looked healthy when it went into the tank, but after 3 or 4 days I could tell it wasn't settling in. After a week it had lost all it's leaves. The mini purple wasn't in great shape when it arrived and died off pretty much immediately, as did the petite galaxy. The rhizomes on all 3 were green after losing their leaves but none came back and eventually (within a few days) rotted away.


So far they've come from Dustin's Tanks, Aquarium Co-op, The Shrimp Farm, Buce Plant, Modern Aquarium, AquaticMotiv, Aquarium Plants Factory and Aquatic Arts. I haven't tried any of the Amazon or Ebay sellers. This last batch, mentioned above, came from Aquarium Plants Factory. They've been the best so far and some of the others I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy.

You both mentioned sodium....the water report shows 56-115ppm. Is that too much for buce?

aquariumplantsfactory is the one where i never had any success. aquaticmotiv, buceplant i've used without issues.

Why is your sodium so high ?

 

[gimme30]

According to the water report it's due to the "erosion of natural deposits." I have no way of knowing where it actually falls within the range given, but assuming it's at its highest, is 115ppm too high for bucephalandra? I don't know how I'd reduce it short of installing a filter at the tap.

 

[Zer0Fame]

Hey,

I personally see >50ppm "not optimal" for all plants and >100ppm as "very suboptimal".
At around 150-200ppm we're talking about an almost certain death for plants, after some time.

Reason:

Sodium does exactly 2 things ... it blocks other nutrients and is actively toxic for plants.
Plants consume it through the same canals that they consume potassium, calcium, and magnesium with.
And plants are pretty stupid about it ... they store it in the leaves, poisoning themselves.

That's why, with high sodium levels, you might spot deficiency symptoms even though nutrient levels should be high enough.

Would you happen to have a recent picture of a tank, so the current state is visible?
Do you see and deficiencies on other plants?

 

[gimme30]

Sorry about the late response, this is my busy time of the year and work has been sucking up all my free time!
I don't have a good pic but will try to get one if things slow down for a minute. It might be hard/impossible to get a pic of the brownie blue and skeleton king because they're planted behind a chunk of spiderwood in the back of the tank. I put them back there before the ludwigia and wisteria took off thinking my shrimpies might appreciate the greenery since that's where they hang out most of the time. As an experiment I moved the green wavy to a new nano tank where it's surviving but not actually growing. I forgot to mention earlier there's black pearl in there as well. It didn't look like it was going to make it but a few days ago it produced one single flower. It's so small I wasn't expecting that!

Aside from the surviving buces there's only anubias nana, ludwigia, wisteria and some java moss in the tank and they all appear to be doing fine-no pin holes or yellowing leaves, and all have new growth. There's a tiny bit of leganandra meeboldi red left but it's not doing well because my ottos eat it. There was a gorgeous huge red tiger lotus that looked like it was going to take over the world but all of a sudden it stopped growing, detached from the bulb, and withered away. This was a few months ago though so probably doesn't have any bearing on what's going on with the mini buces.

 

[anewbie]

Btw I *think* this is apple leaf which is pretty easy to grow:
(the image is fuzzy because i shot straight down and the current on the surface distort things in the image); i've had this for a year plus.

 

[gimme30]

That looks like it's a little bigger than the minis I'm having trouble with. Did it grow to that size over the year you've had it?
Maybe I should stick with the larger varieties. I had planned to incorporate a LOT of minis when I redo a bow front that seriously needs it-think buce 'carpet'-but with my luck it'd just be money wasted.