Tropica Anubia melt/rot

[Iain Sutherland]

Hi, so my 5 anubia coffeefolia have been in the tank 2 weeks, 2 plants put out new leaves and 1 put out a flower but have come home from work today after not being here for 24hrs and found 4 leaves floating and the flower stem melted away.
As they were attached to small rocks i took them out and as i did so several more leaves fell off and the rhizome is half rotted, soft to touch.

Now i understand that there was a bit of an issue with anubias from the far east but these were Tropica???

I will give TGM a ring monday to see if they have heard of any others doing this but id like to ask if there could be another explanation???
Nothing has changed from my start up specs.

 

[ceg4048]

If I were TGM I would tell you to go look at your CO2/flow/distribution.

Nothing has changed from my start up specs.

Why do people say this? Everything changes. There is more plant mass demanding more CO2 and nutrients. When plants grow they then need more of everything. This has nothing to do with Tropica or Asia.

Cheers,

 

[darren636]

sniff the plant roots / stems. do they smell? any black goo?

 

[Iain Sutherland]

If I were TGM I would tell you to go look at your CO2/flow/distribution.

Nothing has changed from my start up specs.

Why do people say this? Everything changes. There is more plant mass demanding more CO2 and nutrients. When plants grow they then need more of everything. This has nothing to do with Tropica or Asia.

Cheers,

Hey clive, the reason i say nothing has changed is because i have removed an equal or greater quantity of old leaf than new leaf in the last week, i also halved the height of the stems as they hit the surface so if anything available co2 has gone up as plant mass has gone down surely??

Are anubias prone to co2 deficiency then, as they are fairly shaded and light still at 60cm? wouldnt anubias be the last to be effected as a 'low energy' plant??

Rhizome doesnt smell or black, just pappy when touched..

 

[ceg4048]

...so if anything available co2 has gone up as plant mass has gone down surely?.

Mate, this is absolutely the worst possible assumption anyone with a CO2 enriched tank could possibly make. Did you remove half the roots as well? Did you shrink the thickness of stems and roots as well? Did you change the mass density? Barr estimates that 95% of all problems in a CO2 enriched tank is due to poor CO2, so this is the very first thing you should always suspect, even if it seems unlikely. In fact, CO2 is so important in a high energy tank that even if the root cause of a problem isn't CO2, more times than not, improving the CO2 helps mitigate the problem. ANY structural flaw in a plant is caused by poor CO2, because structure is built using Carbon. The other thing to remember is that, from the anubias's point of view, the problem might have started 2 weeks ago, not just yesterday.

Anubias rarely, if ever, are completely submerged in nature. They have very thick leaves and they do not make a lot of the adaptations that the more talented aquatics make. This causes difficulty in growing them underwater. They are prone to all sorts of problems as a result of poor gas diffusion and inefficiency, so yes, they should be classed as low energy.

Cheers,

 

[darren636]

i believed anubias to be strictly marsh plants anyway. can they thrive submerged?

 

[Iain Sutherland]

This makes a lot of sense clive and would have been my first assumption had it not been for reading a thread about anubia rot and the posibility of legislation to stop them coming into this country, that and a friends anubias all rotting though right after purchase. So i guess i may have been guilty of jumping to conclusions

So would i right in saying that a system is never 'stable' and will need constant trimming of co2 as plant mass increases and decreases? or does a tank reach a plant density level that the co2 can be left alone at its safe maximum?
Thanks

Hey Darren, ive seen plenty of tanks with lush anubia growth so would guess if conditions are right..... in fact a friends no tech neglected tank had fantastic anubia growth.. i was a little jealous as he hadnt even tried

 

[ceg4048]

This makes a lot of sense clive and would have been my first assumption had it not been for reading a thread about anubia rot and the posibility of legislation to stop them coming into this country, that and a friends anubias all rotting though right after purchase. So i guess i may have been guilty of jumping to conclusions

Well, yeah, I mean, this is why Planet Earth gets so screwed up. Someone wants to make a law to strop anubias import because people don't know how to take care of the plant? Outrageous. I suppose the next thing is to stop importation of Crypts, because they melt right? It's already being referred to as "Cryptocoryne disease". After that, they'll stop importation of Ferns because of "Black Spot" disease and "Translucent Tip" disease, right? How about "Hole in Leaf" disease? Maybe even "Falling Lower Leaves" disease. Here's the medicine for all those diseases; Turn the little needle valve anti-clockwise...

So would i right in saying that a system is never 'stable' and will need constant trimming of co2 as plant mass increases and decreases? or does a tank reach a plant density level that the co2 can be left alone at its safe maximum?

Well, all high energy CO2 enriched tanks require attention. The more energy we add the more attention we have to pay, hence the allure of low energy non-enriched tanks. Depending on lighting, adding CO2 can cause somewhere up to a 2500% increase in growth rates. Even just adding liquid carbon can cause a 300% increase. Imagine driving a car sedately on a "B" road and then increasing your speed by 2500%. Will it require more attention? Now when you add more CO2 everything will grow faster and this now requires more cleaning and more trimming, so it's kind of like feeding the monster.

People assume that adding CO2 solves all your problems, but this is not true. It's just the beginning of your problems, and so CO2 tanks always have to be carefully managed. The source of this misconception is that when viewing a beautiful scape, you always see data such as what kind of light, what kind of ferts, what kind of glass (opti-this or opti-that), what was the inspiration and so forth, but nobody ever asks "How much work was it?" "How many times did you screw it up?" You never see that kind of data. No one wants to hear that, yet anyone who has a high energy tank has to work hard at it.

I suppose these issues can be mitigated by careful selection of the plant types as well as reducing the PAR.

Cheers,

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Thanks again clive, as informative as ever!!

Im going to take 'optiwhite' out of my journal title now and change it for '90x45x75 3rd time lucky, 2 screw ups, lots of money, effort and hair loss'

Interesting about microsorums translucent tips, i have always found the tips go translucent when the leaf is young then go dark as they mature...? I guessed this was normal
Assumption really is the mother of all f**k ups!!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
This isn't really going to help, but although they are terrestrial in origin Anubias are absolutely fine submersed permanently in tanks with no added CO2.

The only time I've had problems with "Anubias rot" is detailed in this thread "My unfortunate vacation experience and "who dun it"" <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=12705&p=133616>, unfortunately I wasn't at home, so I'm none the wiser as to what caused it.

cheers Darrel

 

[viktorlantos]

If the anubias plant was in a different condition before you bought it, it could happen. Emers versions maybe not that much, but submerged Anubias is sensitive for relocations. Not as much as crypts, but sometimes you see this on their leaf. COuld be temperature, CO2, water hardness etc. For light maybe not that much.

I never seen this with Coffefolia, but seen this with Anubias nana a couple times.

 

[ceg4048]

...although they are terrestrial in origin Anubias are absolutely fine submersed permanently in tanks with no added CO2.

Hi Darell,
Yes, generally this is true of many plants - even HC and Starougyne have reportedly been grown non-CO2, but suddenly throwing lots of photons at them changes things.

Cheers,

 

[faizal]

Im going to take 'optiwhite' out of my journal title now and change it for '90x45x75 3rd time lucky, 2 screw ups, lots of money, effort and hair loss'

Aww don't be so hard on yourself mate. We've all been down that road. My journals should have similar titles.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Hi Darell,
Yes, generally this is true of many plants - even HC and Starougyne have reportedly been grown non-CO2, but suddenly throwing lots of photons at them changes things.

I'm sure this is true. I've found that for me, for both Anubias and Bolbitis, they do best when they are hidden in the "jungle" and totally ignored. Usually after a while they grow out into the light and then often develop into large plants, when they don't seem to suffer with leaf algae and chlorosis in the same way they would if you just bought a plant and plonked directly into full light.

Healthy Anubias leaves are dark green, and dark green leaves are often an indicator of shade tolerance in terrestrial plants (e.g. Mercurialis perennis, Hedera helix). I assume the colour is because they just have more chlorophyll (and probably chlorophyll b) in the leaf. This is an intersting Bryophyte reference that every-one should be able to access <http://www.bryoecol.mtu.edu/chapters/9-1LightShade.pdf>, with some PAR, PPFD values etc..

I never seen this with Coffefolia, but seen this with Anubias nana a couple times.

The ones of mine that rotted whilst I was on holiday were all Anubias "nana". I'd had the plants for several years, but I don't know where they came from originally.

Anubias melt certainly looks a more common problem than can exclusively explained by "Asian plants infected with nematodes", (from the is post <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=20076&p=205094>).

cheers Darrel

 

[niru]

Hi

I too had a similar experience with A coffeefolia few months back. BTW, I have 4 different Anubias all habitating nicely in my tank: nana, barteri, augustifolia, and caladiifolia. Had coffeefolia as well, but it rotted quite suddenly and all leaves were floating.. similar to the OP experience.

After hunting through some Anubias forums on web, one problem I realised is that if either you, or the LFS guy, or the guy before him etc, hasnt used razor sharp blades to correctly cut the rizhome, it gets prone to some sort of bacterial infection. The manifestation of this varies in severity and timescale, depending on how healthy the plant was beforehand and how quickly the infected area is removed. Stuff gets buit up internally and one fine day destruction starts. Anubias enthusiasts on some forum also claim that this *could* get infectious, so its better to remove the affected plant and clean others..

BTW, my Anubias were happy before in a dull tank, but with CO2, they too are pearling like crazy. The nana petite variety has actually floated due to O2 buildup on the lower leaf side!!

cheers
niru