Stem rot?

[mrzap]

I am not quite sure why this happened, but my two viliscineria plants (I think thats the one) were doing quite well, lots of new foliage etc, but their stem rotted from under them. They sent out new roots and continue to grow, but I am not sure why they didn't stay planted. I had them buried in about 1 1/2 inches of eco complete substrate. The tank is getting 1.5 wpg.

This happened to some of my other stem plants as well. My three swords haven't had this issue so I don't know what the cause it. It seems to be happening to all my stem type plants.

 

[dskidmore]

I frequently had this problem in my old tank. The only remidy seemed to be pruning them from the bottom and replanting as part of daily mantenance.

 

[travis simonson]

Vallisneria and Sagittaria seem to have this problem frequently - not some of my favorite plants. If this is also happening with your other stem plants you may have an issue with not enough light getting through to the bottom of the tank. Thinning out the growth may help. I'm only making guesses here with what I've got to go on

 

[crazycat]

you may also be getting a build up of noxious gasses in your substrate. this happened to me and wiped out all of my crinums (onion plants with bulbs root structures). you should make sure that your substrate is getting some kind of aeration--even if it just means stirring it very lightly. i use a chopstick and poke it down to the bottom of the tank and wiggle it around--i don't actually move a lot of the grave b/c it will disturb my plants too much.

if you get big bubbles and they smell bad--you've got gas (not actually funny). just keep aerating to release it.

that's why a lot of people keep malaysian trumpet snails or freshwater clams b/c they burrow into the substrate and aerate it.

alas my loaches demolish any type of snail or clam, so i'm stuck with a chopstick! :?

 

[TankGirl]

I agree - often we are hesitant to vacuum around plants because we assume that the root system will aerate the substrate and if we vacuum up the debris we will rob the roots of nutrients.

I think we need to lightly vacuum around all stem plants to get the extra gunk, and the plants will get what they need. No need to jam the tube down deeply but do collect accumulated debris from the surface. I have seen a reduction in stems rotting at the substrate level after abandoning that philosophy.

 

[krap101]

well the downside of malaysian trumpets is... started with 50 during the summerish time last year... now i have lets see. put around ... 300 or so im my 29 probally about 150 in both my 10's and 80 in my 20... dunno what to do with them

 

[Purrbox]

A population explosion of MTS is usually caused by overfeeding. Reduce your feeding and you should see the MTS numbers decrease.

 

[malkore]

BTW, the plant in your photo is watersprite, not vallisneria.

 

[mrzap]

How does one gravel vac a substrate that is a dirt like eco complete. Wouldn't that get sucked up with any other muck? I thought gravel vacuuming would only work on larger particle substrate.

 

[TankGirl]

You vac like you do for a sand substrate tank - you wave the rigid end of your vac around the area without actually digging down. The substrate will not get suctioned up.