I'Ve Killed Wisteria And Ludwigia

[ellena]

So I planted up a tank with amazon sword, elodea, cabomba and wisteria.

The wisteria just rotted away, so I replaced it with ludwigia.

That has also rotted away. The others seem to be doing fine. Any ideas?
Tanks is 20l, cat litter under sand, no CO[sub]2[/sub], 9w light on about 7 hours a day, currently dosing 1ml TPN+ every other day. I started with that while the wisteria was still alive, in an attempt to save it. Just the 1 betta in there.

 

[llamalord305]

What kind of light? Can't be incandescent, and some of those twirly (compact fluorescents?) fluorescents don't work as well as others. From what I've heard, Soft White it bad, daylight is good.

 

[ellena]

It's a single 9" fluorescent strip. Quite a pinky tinge to it, don't know the K value, but was an aquarium brand sold as being optimum for plant growth.

 

[Curiosity101]

What are you tank stats?

What hardness is your water?

Did you put ferts onto the clay? Or just clay then sand?

Ps. It looks really really fab by the way

 

[BigFairy]

my advice is that the wysteria nad ludwiga were grown in different water conditions than are in your tank. This is why the stemmed plants just rotted away. When i got Ludwiga stems for my tank it initially rotted completely as well, and all that was left was a small stem with a single leaf on it. I let this float in my tank at the top for nearly a month befor it started showing some signs of growth. Eventually after 2 months it grow several leaves and a few roots. At this point i planted it under a small rock in a well lit region, and it is now growing absolutley mad, i have to keep trimming it as it branching out over the other plants. its the same with Camboba and wysteria.

Hope that helps.

 

[Joe97]

Sometimes certain plants don't agree with me.

Your tank is very beautiful though.

 

[ellena]

Thanks guys
Curiosity, I presume ammonia and nitrites are 0, tank is cycled, not checked for a while. 50% water change 2-3 times a week at the mo, so nitrates must be low too.
I have strange water, KH low, about 5, GH off the scale!
I didn't put ferts on the clay, just added it dry with sand on top.
I have pulled the plant out and removed all rotten bits. It's still loosing leaves, but there is a bit of new growth so maybe it will pull through. I've started osing easy carbo today too, so we'll see.
I can't believe how much the cabomba has grown since that pic-it's at the water surface now!

 

[Curiosity101]

I'd have thought the plants may be struggling for nitrates and phosphates...
The established plants should be fine, but the new ones may be finding it hard to get themselves adapated.
Also with high GH I don't think you'll benefit much from easy carbo...not sure on that. But it would make sense.

Do you have any TPN+?
I think your betta tank would really benefit from it.
There is someone selling a similar solution to TPN+ on the pleco fanatics forum for much cheaper if you did want some...