brown leaves and root question

[tropicfishman]

as i posted the other day i got some free plants off my youth pastor at church, one was hornwort, today i did a pwc and went ahead and planted a couple plants, i noticed that the were just stems at the bottoms, like he may have cut them off a larger plant, he told me to just stick that in the gravel by itself, so i did, i did two plants this way, but where i let them float overnight they kinda look brown on the hornwort's leaves and very lightly in the stock. do you guys think this plant will make it? its the first time i've even tried a real plant setup lol, i do not have co2 or anything for these plants btw, also do you think any of these chemicals would hurt my plants?

chemicals: Kents ammonia detox, stress coat, stress zyme, chlor out, PH up, PH down

 

[Lonewolfblue]

About the only chem you should use is a dechlor, like prime or whatever dechlor you are using. No other chems should be used, no ph up, no ph down, no ammonia detox. The ph products will cause ph drifts and spikes which can hurt or kill fish. And ammonia detox can cause a partial re-cycle, as it's going to starve the bacteria already in place. And you only need to use 1 kind of dechlor, not 2 or 3. Not sure on hurting plants, but I think altering the ph will do more harm than enything. My ph was in the upper 7's, and how I got it to 7.2 naturally was 2 good sized pieces of driftwood. And my ph remains stable, and my java moss is growing slowly (due to extremely low light, but at least it's growing).

 

[tropicfishman]

my tank is staying nice stable PH level of 7.2, even after 3 pwc's, i've never had to raise or low it yet, is 2 25 watt bulbs ( blue ) to much lighting for the plants?

 

[BillD]

If you are using blue incandescent bulbs, you won't have much luck with plants. Try replacing them with compact flourescent in Daylight form. Philips makes some that are 6500K. They will give you more light and better spectrum for plant growth. As far as hornwort goes, it is strictly a floating plant. It will not root. If you stick it into the substrate, the bottom will die off, and you will have to replant it. It is a very fast growing plant that works very well as a nitrate sponge.