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plants dieing

mattyc

Member
Joined
17 Oct 2008
Messages
518
Location
Thelwall, Warrington
i have just had to remove my bogwood from my tank because it was covered in white fury mold and has killed my anubias, what can i do to stop the other plant dieing?

thanks
Matt
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

i have removed it just want to make sure it dont killl my other plants, dont have a pan big enough to fit it in so is in the bath in verry hot water
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

or a bucket with a few kettles of hot watr, and after a couple of hours chuck some water away and top up with boiling again..
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

Definitely don't use the bath unless you (or the rest of your household!) are happy for it to be stained brown!!!! :wideyed:

Use a large bucket or tub that you can get pretty cheaply from a DIY store and then chuck if it's ruined. If it won't fit in a bucket then you can get large koi measuring bowls that will fit in 3ft plus pieces of wood! They're about £20 off Ebay.
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

some of my plants leaves are turning into green mush i dont want to waste £30 of plants because of a bit of wood, have done a 80% water change and have got the wood in boiling water in the sink.
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

Hi,
The white growth appearing on newly installed bogwood is either mould or fungus and is not typically associated with toxicity to plants. I suppose this could be a special case but are you sure that it isn't you that are killing the plants? Anubias is a pretty tough cookie but if not fed or given adequate CO2 it could easily turn to mush. As I said, it is certainly possible that the fungus has attacked the plants but I would investigate basic plant husbandry techniques before blaming the bogwood or it's parasite...

Cheers,
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

the plants are 3 days old and in the correct water (recomended on lable) the same white fur is on the plants that have been effected by this
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

i decided to check the ph of the water in the tank and is was quite acidic about ph4, i adjusted it up to about 7 but the level keeps dropping. i dont have co2 on the ank and i know this effects the ph. any ideas what i can do to keep the ph around neutral?

thanks Matt
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

mattyc said:
i decided to check the ph of the water in the tank and is was quite acidic about ph4, i adjusted it up to about 7 but the level keeps dropping. i dont have co2 on the ank and i know this effects the ph. any ideas what i can do to keep the ph around neutral?

thanks Matt

First thing would be why do you want to keep it near neutral? Unless you have fish that need a specific pH (and there are very few of them) then the fish will cope with most pH changes. However that is a big drop in pH. I think you'd be best upping your water changes as something is causing that pH drop and that will be effecting your water quality. The pH drop itself is merely a symptom of something changing your water quality and it's the cause of that you need to identify. I'd lasy the blame at this wood and the decay of it. I think it may have to be removed from your tank and then I'd do a couple of very large water changes (up to 50% a day) to sort out the water issues.
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

I would be much less concerned about pH drops and more with CO2. If this is a low light tank that's one thing but if the lighting is too high and you are not adding CO2 then this will cause the plants to vanish. A bit more info on tanks specs, lighting and so forth would help with the troubleshooting. You should never need to use pH buffers so it sounds like there might be something more than just wood going on here, but I suppose leeched tannins from new wood could have an effect if the water is at a very low kH. It's hard to imagine a 1000 fold acidity increase just from the wood.

Cheers,
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

the water supply to my house is asidic, the tank and filters are all new i have tryed large water changes but the plants are still dieing. only two of the plants are suffering with this there are two others that seem to be ok. i have good light but not enugh money to put co2 on the tank.
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

i have a 60l tank with two filters one which came with the tank and a 600l/h external filter, temp is 26 deg, the light is a 25w t4 overhead light. the plant i have lost is aanubias the other plant suffering is a cryptocoryne. the plants which seem ok at the min are ceratopteris and a rotala rotundifolia. i dont know if i have hard water. does this have a big effect on plants?
 
Re: bog wood killing plants

mattyc said:
the water supply to my house is asidic, the tank and filters are all new i have tryed large water changes but the plants are still dieing. only two of the plants are suffering with this there are two others that seem to be ok. i have good light but not enugh money to put co2 on the tank.

Where do you live? Water has to be supplied above pH 7 here otherwise copper and lead dissolve into the acidic water far more readily to dangerous levels! If you had hard water then it's very rare to have hard acidic water and you need to test the water more thoroughly. What is the GH, KH and pH of the tap water? As long as extremes are avoided then most plants, and certainly the ones you have talked about, will do fine. However you seem to have some extreme values here that need investigating!

When you say the plants are dying, are the plants also new? Could they be losing some leaves in response to the conditions in your tank? As CEG says carbon supplementation is very important in growing plants. If you can't afford CO2 addition then at least dose Excel or Easycarbo as these will do instead in most cases.
 
on the anubias the main stalk went what i can only describe as moldy. and the cryptocoryne is loosing its leaves but some of the stalks are braking down. i am using aqua safe to get rid of the chlorine in the water and after this has been added to the water it is reading at about 4 on the ph. i dont have any other testers. all the plants are new along with the wood and ADA aqua soil africana, and the pebals and ADA gravle.
 
Hmm..something's fishy here. The Manchester zones typically average a pH of 7.5, the European minimum limit being 6.5 and maximum of 10.0. This is according to the 2006 quality report. I'd have to question the validity of your pH test kit. Could it be that you are using a low range ph test kit and are reading it's highest value which is 4 or so? Exactly what does it say on the box...exactly? How are you performing the test, i.e how many drops of reagent to how much water sample?

Please advise exactly all things that you are adding to your water. We know you are adding dechlorinator but what else? i think you mentioned ph buffer? Exactly what does it say on the pH buffer bottle? Are you adding anything else?

Did you also say that the plants had been in the tank for only 3 days?

I'm not really familiar with T4 lighting. Are you sure it isn't T5?

Can you supply any photos of the plants in question?

Cheers,
 
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