Java Fern Deficiency or Transplant Damage?

[hjsvt]

Anyone have Java fern experience that could help me with why my ferns are dying off? I superglued two baby ferns to the either side the parent plant recently. The one of the left is fine and still green. The other on the right is all brown and dying off. Thinking it's not a deficiency because one is fine and the other is not. Maybe transplant damage? Maybe I damaged roots too much in the process? I have another plant on a piece of driftwood that had a similar die off after I rearranged the driftwood slightly. Seems in both cases to affect the newest growth the most. Wondering if this was also "transplant" damage? I didn't move it far but it may have had roots down into the substrate that I damaged moving things. Anyone with a similar experience or am I dealing with something entirely different? If I'm right, I'm thinking these plants are more sensitive than I thought they would be. Thanks for the thoughts you might have.

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[Brian_Nano12g]

Did they all start off green with no signs of brown leaves? Or did you recently introduce a fern that had some dead leaves already?

 

[hjsvt]

Did they all start off green with no signs of brown leaves? Or did you recently introduce a fern that had some dead leaves already?

No recent additions. These ferns have all been in the tank since mid January when I started my fishless cycle. The larger middle plant doesn't look great but it never has. It was a tube plant from Petsmart and has never really looked great. I should probably trim it some but all the leave are damaged so do I trim them all off? The only thing that looked good on it were the babies growing on the leaves and they started to get bigger and heavier and then one came off so I decided to take the other one off and "plant" them next to the original plant. They both started off looking great; very green, no damage. The one to left in the picture still looks like that. Maybe separating it from the mother plant did some damage to it? I don't know. Just hoping someone had some ideas so I could avoid the die off in the future.

 

[JohnRoscoe]

I'm no plant expert but have noticed my Java Fern thrives when ignored and prefers no ferts or liquid carbon. I've also noticed tat decay spreads quickly and it's best to trim and remove from the tank ASAP.


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[hjsvt]

I'm no plant expert but have noticed my Java Fern thrives when ignored and prefers no ferts or liquid carbon. I've also noticed tat decay spreads quickly and it's best to trim and remove from the tank ASAP.


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Thank you. Yes I'm trimming and removing decay from the tank quickly. This decay happened very rapidly and since it was the second time different fern I decided to document it with photos. I have added Excel from the start but only recently started EI dosing all fertilizers except nitrogen which is only as needed. And I've seen much better growth in my ferns since I've been adding fertilizers especially iron.

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[Brian_Nano12g]

It's interesting that you mentioned you picked up the fern from a tube at petsmart and that it never really looked good from the start. I have had a similar situation happen to me in the past. I had a tank thriving with many perfectly green java fern specimens. Saw a tube of partially decaying java fern at petsmart on a ridiculously good clearance price. I figured that why not, can't pass up a good deal. Plus, knowing that java fern is supposedly super hardy, it'll bounce back, right? Wrong! The decay spread relatively rapidly, killing about 80 - 90% of my ferns. I searched and searched online for an explanation because I thought I did everything right in terms of ferts. Based on my experience, what little non-scientific evidence I could dig up, I can only conclude, based on conjecture, that there was some sort of java fern disease that originated from that partially rotted fern I bought. It was a bizarre occurrence, but your situation sounds just like what I experienced and read about from a small few other hobbyists in the years I've been involved in planted tanks.

SO yeah, cut off and remove all necrotic leaves and dead plant matter. Hope the green stuff survives.

 

[hjsvt]

It's interesting that you mentioned you picked up the fern from a tube at petsmart and that it never really looked good from the start. I have had a similar situation happen to me in the past. I had a tank thriving with many perfectly green java fern specimens. Saw a tube of partially decaying java fern at petsmart on a ridiculously good clearance price. I figured that why not, can't pass up a good deal. Plus, knowing that java fern is supposedly super hardy, it'll bounce back, right? Wrong! The decay spread relatively rapidly, killing about 80 - 90% of my ferns. I searched and searched online for an explanation because I thought I did everything right in terms of ferts. Based on my experience, what little non-scientific evidence I could dig up, I can only conclude, based on conjecture, that there was some sort of java fern disease that originated from that partially rotted fern I bought. It was a bizarre occurrence, but your situation sounds just like what I experienced and read about from a small few other hobbyists in the years I've been involved in planted tanks.

SO yeah, cut off and remove all necrotic leaves and dead plant matter. Hope the green stuff survives.

Thank you for responding and sharing your experience. I don't think what you experienced is what I have going on. I haven't seen the fast (like overnight fast) decay since I took the photo I shared in the original post. The other fern I have that had a similar problem when I moved the driftwood it was attached to is fine now and I've seen no more decay on it. I'm thinking it had sent attachment roots down in to the substrate that were disturbed and broken when I moved the driftwood. I have also not seen any more of that fast decay on either of my two plants since I took the photo. I did remove all of the decay on both plants at both times as soon as I noticed it.

So the original plant had alot of black spots on the leaves right out of the tube but my gut reaction is that it was damage rather than a deficiency or diease. Even though the leaves did not look good with the black spots, most of them had baby plants growing on them. Also the leaves with black patches when handled felt sturdy, thick and not at all decayed or dying. So I was reluctant to cut them off until the babies grew bigger. This week at WC I decided do some trimming of the original plant with the black patches on the leaves. I now have 3 leaves floating in my tank all with small but very healthy baby plants attached. The original plant is now trimmed back considerably. I'm going to wait and see what happens. I'm also thinking I might avoid using superglue to attach in the future but where I want them to grow there really isn't a way to tie them down. Although I may consider drilling some holes in the decoration with the hope that the plants might grow well enough at some point to cover them up. I'm still leaning towards some type of transplant damage in both cases. If it were a disease I think it would have spread to the other babies I attached at the same time but those plants are still looking great! So who knows?! I'll just keep plugging along and just see what happens.

Thank you again for sharing your experience. Maybe I'll take some more photos tonight and post so I can share the progress.

 

[hjsvt]

Brian_Nano12g I take back what I said. I think what you experienced is exactly what might be going on with my fern. It must be some kind of weird java fern only disease . The otherwise healthy fern to the left in the original picture has now all decayed like the one on the right. The one on the back has started to show a little bit of decay but still has many new green leaves. Also the older original leaves although they looked different also appear to be decaying and the black spots no longer just look like damage at WC today. So I did a massive trim back. I'm leaving the root system. I did leave the roots of the original decayed plant on the right and it is just now sprouting tiny new green leaves. In your experience did you remove all of the original roots of your diseased plant and get rid of it all or did you keep some of it and how did it turn out? It is interesting that the other two ferns I have appear to be fine. Also the one other that experienced the die off is doing great and I have seen no other decay on it. I'm thinking I going to try leaving what is left for a week and see what it looks like. It is looks like next week (or even before then) it's all decaying and no new growth I'll just take it all out. Thanks again for the help. Sorry to doubt your expertise, just still trying to figure things out based on what I observe and what others have experienced.