WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY EMERSED SETUP :mad:

[Dominic]

So i set up an emersed setup a few weeks ago, to try and grow some plants prior to planting, but for some reason all of my plants keep dying. They are in pots, in a spare 10gallon fish tank, with water up to 1cm below the edge of the pots, and some of them were dying so i decided to replant them. I had eleocharis s.p, hemianthus Cuba, hydrocotyle triparita japan, and staurogyne repens. And now my hydrocotyle has melted, with two or three healthy leaves, all my hemianthus has developed a white stringy covering overnight and seems all melty and sloppy, and my eleocharis s.p has turnt all yellow. The only thing that seems to be doing okay is my staurogyne.

This has really annoyed me because i spent good money on those plants and this seemed to be such a failsafe decision to make. Where have i gone wrong?

 

[Nathaniel Whiteside]

Did you cover the tank, and heat the water below so they were in 100% humidity?

 

[Dominic]

covered the tank and i didnt think the heating would be important as long as i kept spraying it?

 

[Andy Thurston]

What light and substrate are you using?

 

[Dominic]

18w t5 tube and a homebase soil not sure which

 

[Andy Thurston]

Well your lights and soil sound ok its sealed and misted only really leaves heat mat and possible humidity problems.

 

[Dominic]

do you know what could be forming on the plants? As i dont understand what it could be, is it some sort of mould? And how much do heat mats cost?

 

[Andy Thurston]

Not sure what the mold/melt is. I did my hc twice in a heated propagator and once in a tank it grew about the same all three times. Couldn't comment on the hydro or the price of heat mats.
Try more light i used 2x t5 in the tank.

 

[Dominic]

hmmm, i would but i have no spare lights haha,

How could i save them? I have a spare 5g with plenty of liquid co2 and ferts. Should i put them in there and dose the liquid co2 and ferts until my tank is ready for them to go into?

 

[tim]

Maybe too wet Dominic, I only misted my wabi kusa once a week but kept them permanently covered, even though the plants looked dryish the glass was always steamed up.

 

[Dominic]

okay thank you tim, the stuff is taking over pretty quickly though, it's worse than it was when i got home from college at 6. I'm just trying to think of a way that i could salvage the rest

 

[flygja]

Stringy covering like cotton is some sorta mould alright. I got it in my DSM too and had to throw out a lot of HC. My DSM failed because of high temps, as high as 32-33'C as I live in the tropics and the greenhouse effect of covering the tank didnt help.

 

[OllieNZ]

If you can hang a pc fan in the tank for air movment alot of vivarium guys use this method and it seems to work quite well.

 

[foxfish]

Dominic, you know a picture paints a thousand words!
A picture of your set up method and of the plants would help a lot.

 

[GreenNeedle]

shouldn't need to heat it unless its out in the cold. ambient is more than enough. I've never used heat for DSM or emersed nurserys in the years I've been doing it.

 

[Nathaniel Whiteside]

shouldn't need to heat it unless its out in the cold. ambient is more than enough. I've never used heat for DSM or emersed nurserys in the years I've been doing it.

I wasn't meaning heating for warmth, but rather heating water inside the covered tank to keep humidity levels at max.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Try more light i used 2x t5 in the tank.

hmmm, i would but i have no spare lights

Dominic do you mean they don't have a light over them at all? "Big clown" is right, at this time of year ambient light will be too low for plant growth unless the plants are right in a S. facing window.

cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Have a look here for the differences in daylight during the year. <http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1194947347997>.

cheers Darrel

 

[foxfish]

I put this little set up on a south facing window with a heat mat & some sort of sword plant has thrown up a flower spike.
I am not sure what the plant is as someone gave it to me about 6 weeks ago as a bit of root & a couple of dead leaves.

 

[Dominic]

i've just taken pictures, theyre on my phone, how do i upload them?