Java hut/ball turned brown and it’s spreading!!!

[Blittle]

Hey y’all,
My 5 year old son wanted a goldfish for being brave after his first day of school. After learning about what I could and some mistakes I got his 10 gallon established. Eventually even moving up to a 36 gallon bowfront. I’ve had it for about a month. Cycled. Thanks to used media from the 10 gallon and quick start. But despite dosing with flourish, it appears the Java miss hut and Java ball I got about a week ago from petco has gone brown and it’s spreading to the other plants quick. I’ve dozed excel. I’ve spot dosed excel. I even took it out and sprayed carbon dioxide. It seems to still be proliferating. I have the hygger plant light from Amazon. Set to day/night cycle. Any other ideas or help. Tips or tricks would be appreciated. I have catappa leaves in bc my ph got too high. (8.2). No ammonia or nitrite or nitrate. Filter is a tidal 55 with sponge, floss, pyrogen, and bio max media.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Are you saying the plants are turning brown or there is brown growing on them?

A couple of things could be going on here.

Aquarium plants are commercially cultivated emersed, ie partially out of the water. They have ready access to CO2 from the atmosphere, can grow much quicker, and makes it a more commercially viable operation. You take that plant, cut off its CO2 source and the plant starts to use its carbon stores to survive while growing new leaves with a leaf structure more suited to its new environment that can get its CO2 from the water. Leaf melt is a normal stage new plants go through, you may lose all the original growth over a few months, but you should be judging your plant on the health of new growth.

Plants also nitrogen, and in an aquarium they get nitrogen from nitrate. You are reporting zero nitrate. First off double check your nitrate test, make sure you are doing it correctly and get a 2nd opinion. A cycled tank should be turning ammonia into nitrate, so your test should should show nitrate. Maybe your bioload is very low and you are doing a lot of water changes which could also explain it.

If you genuinely are getting zero/ low nitrate you need to use a fertiliser that contains a good amount of nitrate. Flourish essentially contains zero. If you live in a country where you can get NA Thrive thats a good fertiliser to get. Rooted plants may also benefit from root tabs in the substrate. Longer term, keeping goldfish, your tank will produce lots of nitrate as the fish starts to grow. Goldfish get very big and are very messy, they produce a lot of ammonia which will cycle into a lot of nitrate. You really want nitrate above 10ppm for healthy plant growth, maybe 20ppm.

 

[Blittle]

I thought it might be the emersed problem too which is why I left it once it got brown. And then the brown traveled to the moneywort and on the substrate and on some of the Java fern. I got a decent cleanup crew but I’ve been feeding twice daily bc I’m a simp and I think they didn’t touch the algae/dead Java bc of it. I have been using flourish and flourish excel. Some wonder shells and tourmaline balls for the snails. Fish flakes for the top fish/middle fish. Sinking pellets for the bottom feeders. Got frustrated and last night I took all the plants out and gave them a carbon dioxide treatment. And put them back in. Woke up to a dead neon (3rd death in 3 days. Petsmart bought on Sunday) and a dead green neon and an ammonia and nitrite spike. Got the dead fish out and dosed with fritz complete and fritz 7 bacteria and had to jet to work.

Current stock:
1 betta
4 otocinlus
4 Corydoras
2 guppies (used to have 3)
2 neon tetras (used to have 5)
4 green neon tetras (used to have 5)
3 mystery snails
1 nerite snail

Current parameters:
7.8 ph
1.0 ppm ammonia
.5 ppm nitrite
5.0 ppm nitrate

Tidal 55
Two sponges with airstones
Catappa leaves x2
Tourmaline rocks
Wonder shells

Dosed flourish phosphorus and potassium over the weekend as well. Cut the light today from the hygger day night cycle (which I believe is 12 hrs) to 6 hour timer of straight daylight. Hoping not to lose any more fish. That’s why the fritz complete and 7zyme. Added a sprinkle of aquarium salt for the fish dealing with the nitrite. Added a pump of stress guard for the stress. Water changed 20% last night before adding anything to do the dip after the hydrogen peroxide treatment.

 

[Autumnsky]

If the night cycle is the blue light that could be adding to your problems. I personally have had nothing but brownish algae troubles using the blue night light.

 

[Blittle]

I cut the lights from day/night cycle to 6 hours a day. And stopped the feeding for now bc of the ammonia. No more losses so far. Hoping the ottos and corys get to working the brown dead java moss off. Going to stunt the plant growth with the 6 hours but not more than the brown stuff whether its dead java moss or algae. I got java moss bc it was hard to kill lol. Apparently not