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Alternanthera reineckii Falling to bits !!!

Adrian Parsons

Seedling
Joined
2 Sep 2017
Messages
4
Location
London
I’ve had about three stems of Alternanthera reineckii for about 2 months, it grows fine for a few weeks, but then the leaves break up and fall off. It looks like it’s being eaten, but I’m certain it’s not.
I dose 2ml aquascape complete daily and 2ml liquid carbon every other day in a 55l tank. All other plants are flourishing ‘

Help please !!!!!!
 
Hi
The idea of liquid carbon is to add it daily as it degrades in 24h period.By adding every other day the plant cant addapt to the suplement.There is the thing that Alternanthera sp are sensitive to nutrient deficiencies including CO2..May be the plant mass increases then there is something that becomes deficit (most likely CO2) or flow drops and distribution of nutrients with it they melt and then all over.Its not uncommon for planted tanks to become victims of its own success.
Regards Konsa
 
I’ve had about three stems of Alternanthera reineckii for about 2 months, it grows fine for a few weeks, but then the leaves break up and fall off. It looks like it’s being eaten, but I’m certain it’s not.
I dose 2ml aquascape complete daily and 2ml liquid carbon every other day in a 55l tank. All other plants are flourishing ‘

Help please !!!!!!

I wonder: do you happen to have some Amano shrimp in the tank? o_O

Mine used to cultivate it: never killed it to the bone but always seemed to leave just enough for the plant to bounce back.
Just when it started to look like a plant again they ate it and back to square 1....
They literally kept it alive for months, constantely "harvesting" the new fresh growth like little farmers...

I'm quite sure it was them 'cause in the end i suspected them and saw them munching at it a few times.
I moved them to another tank to see: the plant started to grow just fine all of the sudden... :meh:
Some people manage to have the combination but it's like once they have the taste for it they are unstoppable i guess...
 
Hi
The idea of liquid carbon is to add it daily as it degrades in 24h period.

Not to single you out (as I’ve read others comments to this effect)
But
Got Data?
:)


My own research suggests somewhat different behaviour (note the strong pH dependence of stability)

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp208-c6.pdf
- this PDF should be open to all


A study performed using a river water-sediment system found that glutaraldehyde degraded rapidly under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. In this system, glutaraldehyde was found to partition primarily to the water phase, with a pseudo-first-order half-life of 10.6 hours under aerobic conditions and 7.7 hours under anaerobic conditions (Leung 2001).

Glutaraldehyde was stable in sterilized control samples maintained at pH 5 and 7 for 31 days; however, at pH 9, 30% was degraded, primarily to a cyclicized dimer of glutaraldehyde, 3-formyl-6-hydroxy-2-cyclohexene-1-propanal.

Extrapolated half-lives for abiotic degradation of 508, 102, and 46 days at pH 5, 7, and 9, respectively were calculated.

Under aerobic conditions, glutaraldehyde was found to degrade to glutaric acid and subsequently carbon dioxide, whereas under anaerobic conditions, it was degraded into 5-hydroxypentanal followed by 1,5-pentanediol (Leung 2001).

A second study from the EPA Registration Eligibility Decision (RED) document for glutaraldehyde reported hydrolysis half-lives at 25°C of 628, 394, and 63.8 days at pH 5, 7, and 9, respectively (EPA 2007).

At 70°C, hydrolysis of glutaraldehyde proceeds more rapidly with half-lives of 53, 6.5, and 0.23 days at pH levels of 5, 7, and 9, respectively.

Glutaraldehyde was also photolytically degraded to a small degree in natural sunlight at 25°C. The half-life was calculated to be 195 days. A buffered, aqueous solution at pH 5 was used in the experiment (EPA 2007).

Obviously much depends on tank parameters and bacteria load and types of bacteria (see the Dow document for some details on bacterial degradation) but I suspect most tanks are somewhat more akin to aqueous laboratory conditions, rather than river sediment ;)

(Note that the desired outcome of the river sediment degradation studies was for rapid “disappearance” of the (aquatic life toxic) glutaraldehyde ... other studies have shown that actual water samples may contain much more glutaraldehyde than predicted)

Definition
Abiotic Degradation
It mainly includes hydrolysis and photolysis. Hydrolysis in water is often dependent on pH. It half-life value will help to estimate how long a chemical substance will persist in an aqueous environment.


It’s also worth reading Dow’s (much shorter but proprietary) document

UCARCIDETM 24 Antimicrobial
 
I'm having much the same issue with the 'mini variety. Grown for tissue culture, grew fantastic for first 6 weeks, now beginning to look less than great. Nowhere near as red, and leaves beginning to break up..
Moderate pressurized co2, fluval 3 light. EI dosing and 50% water changes. Most other plants absolutely fine.

Alan
 
I don't think this is the easiest plant to grow well

If you look at the R macrandra in this Tropica layout video, it’s stunnning, & most plants get the 90Day close up ... but not A ‘Mini’ ;)

 
I've had SAE/ Rummy nose tetras (caught red mouthed :) ) eat AR mini but to be fair, it wasn't really growing vigourously either.
 
I wonder: do you happen to have some Amano shrimp in the tank? o_O

Mine used to cultivate it: never killed it to the bone but always seemed to leave just enough for the plant to bounce back.
Just when it started to look like a plant again they ate it and back to square 1....
They literally kept it alive for months, constantely "harvesting" the new fresh growth like little farmers...

I'm quite sure it was them 'cause in the end i suspected them and saw them munching at it a few times.
I moved them to another tank to see: the plant started to grow just fine all of the sudden... :meh:
Some people manage to have the combination but it's like once they have the taste for it they are unstoppable i guess...

Tempted to take the amano out to see what happens


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609cf348723d1d246e7435f656aa2bde.jpg




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I have to love the fur-like algae-scarf that seems to be draped to perfection around your diffuser!
;)

Tempted to take the amano out to see what happens


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Do you have another tank to put them in (for a while)?
I hate to be the one responsable for them going homeless but i have to admit that my AR-mini looked pretty simular to yours when they were eating it:
Just enough left of it to bounce back so they can start eating the new growth all over again...
 
Last edited:
Hi all,
I have to love the fur-like algae-scarf that seems to be draped to perfection around your diffuser!
I wondered about that, I wasn't sure whether it was algae or a gasket of some description.
Would a lack of iron have any effect? I've just bought a test kit and measuring pretty much 0 iron?
You can't really accurately measure iron in the tank water, you only need a tiny amount to be available to avoid deficiency symptoms. I use a floating plant (not CO2 limited) as a visual indicator of nutrient status.

My guess would be that you don't have iron deficiencies, because iron isn't mobile in the plant, so deficiencies show up in new leaves first. Have a look at <"Duckweed Index says....">

Availability is usually the issue with iron, because it is really difficult to keep in solution. Because you live in London (hard tap water) you could try a <"different chelator">.

cheers Darrel
 
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