It was growing beautifully with new leaves sprouting from the rhizome every week. Then I let my un-kempt mass of hornwort rest right on top of the java fern without really considering what could happen. It stayed this way for about 2 weeks...then today (after being gone for the weekend) I notice that 40% of the leaves on the java fern had deteriorated. Blackish brown/"holey"/ and very thin in appearance. I then realized my foley; hornwort with all of those masses of needles probably had been sucking every last nutrient out of the water before it could reach the java fern. I had only considered that the java fern would be fine in the shade of the hornwort as far as lighting was concerned...
Basically I trimmed the hornwort down to the 4 best 6" stems and tossed the rest of it out (it had grown large enough to occupy nearly 20% of my 29gallon tank).
How long should I expect it to take for the java fern to "heal"? Anything special I should do or pay attention to right now? (I am carefully monitoring my standard aquarium disolved compound levels to make sure I did not lose too much of my filtering ability by removing so much hornwort all at once).
Basically I trimmed the hornwort down to the 4 best 6" stems and tossed the rest of it out (it had grown large enough to occupy nearly 20% of my 29gallon tank).
How long should I expect it to take for the java fern to "heal"? Anything special I should do or pay attention to right now? (I am carefully monitoring my standard aquarium disolved compound levels to make sure I did not lose too much of my filtering ability by removing so much hornwort all at once).
