help with java fern

[vialli]

Hi
Ive just started a cold water tank with white cloud mountain minnows and wanted to add some live plants so after looking at a few websites i decided to go with java fern as pretty much every website said it a good beginner plant and perfect for a cold water tank.I bought one plant and divided it into smaller plants and tied it to small bits of lava rock but after a few days i noticed that brown and black patches started to appear on the leaves and every day it seems to get worse and some leaves now have holes in them.
After doing a bit more research it may be possible that i may have a nutrient deficiency so i got some easylife profito from the lfs and picked up another java fern plant at the same time.I dosed the tank with the profito as per instructions but the leaves seem to be getting worse slowly and ive noticed some small black spots on the new plant that i bought.
the tank is a fluval roma 240
lighting is two fluval aquaskys
temp is 20
i havn't done any other water tests yet as i didnt think i would need to as i was told that java fern is a hardy plant and adapatable to most water conditions.
Im using tap water that has about 40ppm out of the tap.
Does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong as i dont want to keep buying more plants if are a going to wither away and die
Tanks in advance.

 

[zozo]

There is one thing you have to keep in mind when you are buying aquarium plants. Even tho the lfs displays them very misleading in a submersed setup. 90% of the available plants (100% of the bog plants) are growen emersed at nurseries supplying the lfs.

Thus the bogplants suitable for in the aquarium live in 2 forms, an emersed form and a submersed form. For some plants you see an obvious difference in the grow forms for others you don't but the difference is still there. The emersed grown plant first needs to transition back to it's submersed form with new growth. The already grown emersed leaves will end up in a shock when suddenly put submered and likely will suffer damage and die off. All new growth formed submersed is the submersed grow form. Java fern is such a plant not always showing the obvious difference, both form look failry simmular.
This makes it very difficult to detirmine what grow form you are buying in the lfs, if the plant arrived yesterday from the nursery you likely buy a 100% emersed form, if the plant already was at the lfs for 6 months or longer you might as well buy one that already is completely transitioned into submersed form.

These are all things an LFS doesn't bother to tell you.. They only tell you it's an easy beginner plant, good luck and goodbye!?

And yes once established Java fern is a relatively easy plant compaired to others.. But it still has it's same issues, it first needs to establish new submersed form growth. And all old emersed form growth slowly dies off. Even a change in parameters moving a already submersed established Java fern to a completely different invironment can suffer from the same issues. It needs to establish again to the new parameters and all old leaves will be shed. If it doesn't consider yourself lucky..

Java fern is an extrem hardy and slow growing plant, it not only grows very slow, its older leaves also die very slow. Keeping this plant in colder temps doesn't favor the cycle it makes it go even slower. Bellow 10°C it fairly stops doing anything and it's take an awfull long time to get around with a few degrees over 10° in a submersed form.

As easy as it is descibed, microsorum is the one of the most difficult plants to read regarding defficiencies. Just because it is so slow and also a bit because you don't realy know it's current form when you buy it. Best to assume it's an emersed grown form. But in both cases you always have to wait for new young growth. Shedding old growth is something you have to take for granted.

Best to not look at the Java, because this will drive you nuts.. What ever you change it will take way to long before you see this plant react to it. Also use and look at fatser growing plants. If these are growing healthy, than there surely is enough for the java fern. It will finaly go through it's cycle and establish. How long this will take nobody can tell.. But in a cold invironment this will take a lot longer.

 

[ceg4048]

Does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong as i dont want to keep buying more plants if are a going to wither away and die

Yes, these are classic symptoms of poor CO2.
Since you are probably not injecting gas or using a liquid carbon product, placing the plants under water with bright lights is usually counterproductive and results is a CO2 shortfall.
You can try turning off all the lights for a few weeks or you can allow the plants to float for a few weeks while they become accustomed to the tank conditions.

Cheers,

 

[tam]

I agree, it could well just be the old emersed leaves dying off so I wouldn't panic yet. Are you getting any new growth?

 

[MirandaB]

I had a similar problem when I switched a tank to cooler temps due to a change of fish.
Had a piece of wood in there covered with lush healthy java fern but when I dropped the temp and upped the flow it did exactly the same thing.
I would say in my case it may have been the extra flow and subsequent oxygenation that may have led to the co2 deficiency.

 

[vialli]

ok thanks for all the replies and advice so far.I havnt got a co2 unit so i picked up some liquid co2 from LFS called flora grow carbo by a company called colombo and im dosing the recommended amount daily .Ive also lowered the output of my filter to give less surface agitation.I havnt noticed any new growth yet but hey have only been in the tank 2 weeks.At the moment i have the light on 8 hours per day ,the aquasky has 6 different presets and at the moment im just using the one that looks the "brightest" in the tank but im not sure if its really suitable or not.

 

[Konsa]

Hi
Using LC products is nothing like using gas CO2 .There is no option where U will be degassing CO2 as U are not adding it.I will return the filter output to max because it is only helping with gas exchange while agitating the surface.It is good idea to reduce the light period to 6 hours for now and once plants settle a bit can increase it back to 8 by adding 30 min per week.
Dont know how bright are your lights(photos may help) but if U have an option to dim them U shold as will make things much easier to manage is the initial stages of your tank life.As ceg4048 mentioned this is most likely a case of too strong lights and plants in transition.
And last but not least U will need a complete fertiliser as profito is only trace elements and doesn't provide everything needed for plant growth.
If the rhizomes are green the plant will recover.I had cases in past where I removed all but one leaf from shop bought plants and it has recovered and flourished once addapted.Keep trimming the bad leaves without fear.This will stimulate new growth.

Regards Konsa