Hornwort lost all foliage overnight!

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Botanica

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Apr 3, 2012
Messages
317
Location
Sacramento, Ca
Hi there everyone! So...in my 20gallon fry tank...I had a nice full piece of hornwort floating for their comfort and to help with nitrates. When I fed my fish last night...the plant looked great! Totally normal. It's morning...less than 12 hours later...it has no foliage left at all! I can see a few of the needle like leaf clusters as if there is some new growth...but I can't tell if that is really healthy and growing or just was too small to fall out. My tank is a mess now with hornwort everywhere! I just did a water change the day before yesterday and all was good. Heater is working at temp in the tank is normal...I'm stumped. I'm not upset about loosing the plant...just need to understand why. ;-). Thanks for your help!
 
aqua_chem said:
Could it have gotten cold? That just sounds weird to me.

I know...right? Very weird. The temp was the first thing I checked this morning when I saw my tank. It was 81 degrees...which is what I have it set to. I had the tank up at 84 but had adjusted the temp 3 days ago after a water change. I live in California...so our outside temp last night was only 51...my heater doesn't have to work too hard. I don't have a hardness or oxygen test...just the API master kit...I'll be testing after I get the baby lunch. The fish in the tank all are looking and acting normal.
 
I had this happen when I put mine in a cup for a day when I was moving stuff around. There was no light or water movement. A day later, it was all apart like yours.
 
callisto9 said:
I had this happen when I put mine in a cup for a day when I was moving stuff around. There was no light or water movement. A day later, it was all apart like yours.

Did it come back? I'm looking at mine...and now that I'm thinking about temps...I'm wondering if the three degree drop in water temp could have shocked it just enough to drop its foliage and push new? It almost looks like new clusters are pushing out on the stems that are now floating around my tank. My water change didn't take long so the filter wasn't off for long. I would have thought that if it were going to do this it would have been when I took it from my brothers unheated 78 degree tank and plopped it into my 84 degree tank without taking any precautions...but that showed no change. I don't know...confusing.
 
A few degree temperature change would not affect the plants. Getting down to 70 and back up probably would, but that's a pretty extreme swing.
 
aqua_chem said:
A few degree temperature change would not affect the plants. Getting down to 70 and back up probably would, but that's a pretty extreme swing.

Ok then...back to no clue..Lol. could it be the shock of changing tanks? It's been almost a month tho...seems a long time to just now be showing shock. My tank would not get down to 70...even if my heart quit. I'm 99.9% sure 76 is the winter lowest it would really get in a heated house. It doesn't really get cold here...competitively.

Water parameters were normal...
Ammonia =0
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=20
pH=7.6
 
paytertot said:
Could it be from flow? I know mine was under the filter output when that happened

Um...maybe...it's been index the flow from the filter from the beginning...or at least on that side of the tank...but if it something that happens over time...that could explain it. It was actually flowing smoother than it had been because the water level was higher.....hmmmm
 
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