Sad Hornwort?

[Nosphaer]

Hi, everyone. I have a bunch of hornworts, and I thought they were flourishing, because they practically all have these vibrant red-pink frills on top that are very erect, almost like toothbrush bristles. They all still do!

However, they're losing tons of "needles", from bottoms upward.

I have two worries about this:

It could cause an ammonia spike, in large amounts, right?

Is this a giveaway that my water is way too soft? This might be unfortunate news in the future.

They get roughly 8 hours a day from my 10000K and actinic bulbs.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I currently have the self imposed status of "killer of anything green", but perhaps you have planted the stems to close to one another, so not enough light is reaching the lower leaves?

8 hours is pretty substantial (although I could not say if your current bulbs give enough of the correct light wavelengths for photosynthesis), so are you dosing the tank daily with a carbon source and ferts?

 

[Nosphaer]

I currently have the self imposed status of "killer of anything green", but perhaps you have planted the stems to close to one another, so not enough light is reaching the lower leaves?

8 hours is pretty substantial (although I could not say if your current bulbs give enough of the correct light wavelengths for photosynthesis), so are you dosing the tank daily with a carbon source and ferts?

I think they are spaced out enough, but that's a logical, sensible thought. The leaves are little more than pin thickness and length, granting them the nickname of "needles", so I didn't imagine that they needed more than about 3-4 inches of spacing.

Now, I may have messed up pretty badly on this, but I never did dose any kind of fertilizer or carbon to the water... My tank is very simple, and somewhat low-tech, though I still have the lights, filter, and heater.

Though hornwort is a practical aquatic weed, I suppose I should look into fertilizers, if necessary.

EDIT - The needles actually almost look like they're curled up... I've noticed that not many of them actually fell off... Most... Just have a load of algae all over them o:

I think it's algae... Brown almost fuzzy or foamy looking stuff.

 

[maurizio]

I'm pretty much in the same condition: low-end brackish, 2xT5 6500 K tubes, 8 h/day, with a few stems of hornwort. I CAN'T get rid of whatever colonizes its needles and makes them rot quickly. It could be diatoms, which I have in fair amounts on the sand since the very beginning, and never really left in spite of the invaluable contribution of 8 zebra nerites, or another kind of algae, appearing ONLY on the hornwort (?!). I started adding some fertilizer time ago, the hornwort does grow quite nicely, but is systematically outcompeted by this pest.

 

[Nosphaer]

Yes... With ammonia levels rising scarily, I sadly had to uproot and otherwise flourishing family of hornwort and remove them.

 

[maurizio]

you sure your ammonia rise is due to the rotting needles? I do have quite some mulm in the tank, mainly made seemingly by diatoms, but my ammonia never moved a bit from the 0 level. I'm still trying to give the plant a chance, fertilizing lightly, but if it won't work I'll get rid of it and rescape into a plant free tank, cutting down the light.

 

[Nosphaer]

Well, the strange, and hopefully accurate finding is that the ammonia plummeted from almost a terrifying 0.75ppm to 0 upon taking out the hornwort and waiting around 24 hours. I would like to say that these are seemingly a set of coincidences, but it truthfully doesn't seem to be so.

I will check the ammonia again soon, hoping that these results are conclusive. It is possible that your rotting issue isn't as bad... Possibly that your biological filter is stronger.

It makes me quite sad to have removed the plants... They were forming such strong roots in the sand. I hope my actions were neither in vain nor unnecessary.

As mentioned, I will keep a sharp eye on levels, if I can help it. I will do it for the plants that I ruthlessly tore out.