Brown roots?

[kagentx]

i'm going into my second week of my planted tank and my pennyworts are showing brown roots! what's going on?

 

[madasafish]

Um. Dunno. Doesn't sound particularly good... Mine have nice healthy white roots...

What are your tank specs? Light, CO2 etc.

 

[kagentx]

thanks for replyin, i got 186 watts in my 50 gallon, and the CO2 was 12 ppm the last i measured, and other plants are pearling and so those the pennywort that has brown roots. It pearls out big bubbles. i recently added a 2L DIY CO2 which creates a bubble every 30 seconds i add 3ml of tropica master growth daily

 

[madasafish]

Strange... since the pennywort plants are new, they may have gotten a little traumatized in transit. Any brown, floppy roots are already not doing anything, and should trimmed off so that the rot doesn't spread to the stem. Avoid cutting off all roots that appear healthy.

To be honest, you could cut off all the roots with Pennywort and it would grow back fine, as they're accustomed to being trimmed/getting chewed.

Hope this helps.

 

[kagentx]

well... this pennywort came from a horrible condition tank and the leafs are quite small, and the bottom part are all dying... should i just put that 4 inch of it and leave the 2 inch to live?

 

[madasafish]

Anything dying will continue to die, and the rot will spread in the plant. Smtimes this is avoided by the dying part falling off, but I'd advise taking off all dying leaves (a clean cut with scissors, not just a pull) and any dying stem. Plant what is left. Don't worry. I've found my Pennywort to grow very quickly (I just cut a a 3 foot stem into 4 parts to reduce its length and increase the density of the planting in my 10 gallon).

I've learned this from many abortive efforts at replanting dying plants. What is cut off will grow back eventually: it's better to start with a smaller quantity of higher quality stem than a larger quantity of poor quality stem.