Wisteria obliverated

[fastfly48]

Yep, that's right.

One week I had a massive hedge of wisteria, growing crazy good like usual...then the next week BWAMO! gone. It melted and fell apart. I'm totally confused. It's been great forever, and then sudenly it just died. It was growing everywhere really really well, I'd just trim and re-plant, it was great.

I should have tested the water for more things i guess...
Co2 was sitting around 30, Ph was a little low 6.4 with ammonia non-existant. I'm gussing nitrates where around 20 like they always are..
Spose it was some freak deficiency?
I haven't been changing the water quite as much as I used to so maybe it's that? All the fish are fine though.

Problem is, I have a pressurized Co2 setup, and I now only have java fern, jave moss and anubia nani (or how ever you spell it). It seems a huge waste. I'm thinking of maybe selling the system.

Anywas, I know i haven't given you much info sorry, but any help or comments would be great.
Thanks.
Ry.

 

[bman]

I have had that happen to my wisteria also. Well, not as fast, but they did end up "melting away". Do you dose ferts? I have found that since the wisteria grow so rapidly, it consumes a good amount of the nutrients in the tank. That would be my fist plant to show me if anything was bottoming out. Most of the time I was seeing a potassium deficiency, but after that was cured the plants reached a point in their life that they almost stopped growing leaves as fast as they used to. It was shortly after that happened that they started melting away.

My plants had a lot of hanging roots, due to the nutrient-less gravel. The hanging roots replaced the gravel bound ones and those just rotted and slowly that traveled up the stem. That was what I determined to be the cause of them dying.

 

[7Enigma]

Well to play it safe I'd do a pretty large water change (>50%) and redose your ferts. Wisteria is the fastest grower in your tank and so it will show deficiency signs before the others. Just looking at your info the first thing that would come to mind would be an iron deficiency (trace), potassium, phosphate, or macro from your water (Ca/Mg).

I've heard some anecdotal stories about plants having a life cycle and they reach a point where they will die, but don't know how much I buy that. Wisteria is so cheap and grows so rediculously fast under good conditions I just go buy another small piece of it. It grew so out of control I took it out of my tank, it was becoming a pest to trim every couple days.

So look at the leaves of your other plants. Java moss will be tough to tell but the leaves of the anubias and java fern if they have green veins but yellow leaf tissue, then you very well might have a trace deficiency.

What about small pinhole spots on the anubias or java fern. You didn't mention if you were dosing potassium (K). That is a macro that most people have to dose regularly as the plants tend to consume more than is made available through feedings and water changes.

Also try to get a hold of a phosphate test kit, as you might not have enough (although fish food can supply an ample supply in most cases). So other than a macro deficiency from Mg or Ca (since you mentioned doing less water changes).

Help us out with answering these questions and we can give a better guess.

 

[fastfly48]

ARRRRRRRRRRrrr..........

Ok, I wrote this MASSIVE reply. But then the site closed right as i posted it, and I lost all of it!

sheesh, ok, soory can't be bothered writting it all again.
basically, I don't dose ferts., just pressurized Co2
All other plants are looking swell, great.
Anyone want to buy a Co2 setup from Perth?

Ry.

 

[Purrbox]

My bets are on a nutrient deficiency. Since they just melted away it's probably Nitrates, Phosphates, or both. You could always take a couple minutes to check if they've bottomed out.