Melting Frogbit

[DaveWatkin]

Evening all,

My frogbit seems to be melting from the bottom up. Trimmed loads of dead leaves this evening but as per the picture, some of the healthy (when looking from the too) that are left are melting on the bottom side. Still have growth of new leaves and roots but not sure what is causing the melt.

I just removed the lid from this tank to make it open top, never had this issue before that, could it just be transitioning to the open air?

 

[MichaelJ]

Hi @DaveWatkin, Hard to judge from the picture. This sounds like a deficiency issue though... whats your fertilizer regime? I have tons of frogbit - removing fistfuls every other week - all very healthy. My tanks currently have a pretty tight cover (only a 1 inch opening towards the back and typical clearance between water level and glass is <1 inch), but I also had the tanks more open in the past and I didn't notice any "transitioning" in terms of health or growth of my floating plants

Could you post a shot from the top so we can see how the leaves look? Also post more info about your tank setup.See Plant help guide.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[DaveWatkin]

top looks alright just now as I cleared away all the damaged leaves last night. Will get a picture in a few days when these start showing signs of damage from above.

Tank is a 15 gal low flow chili rasbora tank which contains java fern, anubias and buce only, no rooted plants. It is dosed with 1.5ml of ATP complete daily via auto doser.

 

[Parablennius]

How did you progress with this? I now front load Nitrogen , Phosphorus, Potassium and Magnesium at water change and just add Urea and trace daily across the week. Details here.

Floaters

I have to say I'm particularly pleased with my Limnobium at the moment. Deep green with 3 inch diameter leaves.

www.ukaps.org

Prior to this what I noticed with Limnobium was that just as it was starting to take off, I'd do a weekly w/c without any ferts, ( or Magnesium for that matter ) to reset and this appeared to set it back, it only ever achieved 1 inch diameter or so and remained light green, the leaves also had a very short life span, due I think, to moving ferts into funding new growth. I can now tell as each new leaf appears it's going to be a whopper. I also noted that it sends out much longer runners for daughter plants than it ever did, 12 inches in some cases. I also employ a longer photoperiod than some. Not very scientific and it may be specific just to this tank. Basically there are no dips in fert levels, or any other chemistry at w/c. Maybe worth a shot. This has been my best regime so far and I'm sticking with it. HTH.

 

[DaveWatkin]

A few days later and the leaves that were showing lower damage are no rotting at the top too.

Does this view shed any light on the issue? As you can see, there is still new growth coming in, leaves just aren’t lasting long.

 

[G H Nelson]

Do you have snails in this aquarium?
Post more info about your tank setup.See Plant help guide.

 

[_Maq_]

Do you have snails in this aquarium?

I think snails usually attack only those parts which are decaying already. The colour of the leaves suggests that this is @dw1305 's field of expertise (i.e. low nitrogen).

 

[G H Nelson]

Snails will lay batches of eggs on the underside of Frogbit....damaging the plant!
When the eggs hatch....the damaged plant might be their first meal....this is only conjecture as its obviously difficult to witness.

 

[DaveWatkin]

Just a nerite who goes nowhere near them. Amanos sit on the underside of them to eat biofilm but not seen them chomp the plant itself.
Like I said, low flow 15gal with 1.5 apt complete daily. Open top recently from being closed to previously.

 

[Parablennius]

I keep Ramshorn snails and I don't catch them eating, not even the soft underside. No expert, of course but my Limnobium used to do that, leaves didn't last very long, stopped when I started front loading NPK.

 

[G H Nelson]

If you have sufficient lighting I would increase the ferts dosing to 3ml per day!
Java fern look as though they have had a potassium shortage.

 

[MichaelJ]

If you have sufficient lighting I would increase the ferts dosing to 3ml per day!
Java fern look as though they have had a potassium shortage.

I agree. It can be really hard to pinpoint exactly what deficiency you are dealing with - could be either one of the N P K's, Fe, Mg, etc. (Darrel / @dw1305 any ideas?) I would just go ahead and up the dosage for a couple of weeks. Trim the already deteriorated leaves - they wont recover and will just stall overall recovery of the plant.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

The colour of the leaves suggests that this is @dw1305 's field of expertise (i.e. low nitrogen).

No expert, of course but my Limnobium used to do that, leaves didn't last very long, stopped when I started front loading NPK.

I agree. It can be really hard to pinpoint exactly what deficiency you are dealing with - could be either one of the N P K's, Fe, Mg, etc. (Darrel / @dw1305 any ideas?) I would just go ahead and up the dosage for a couple of weeks. Trim the already deteriorated leaves - they wont recover and will just stall overall recovery of the plant.

I'd guess the same as the others, probably one of the macro-nutrients, possibly magnesium (Mg), but the majority of plant nutrients are mobile within the plant, which means that:

• the plant can shuffle them to the newest tissue and, unfortunately,
• there are lot of different possibilities.

If you have sufficient lighting I would increase the ferts dosing to 3ml per day!
Java fern look as though they have had a potassium shortage.

Try that one, nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) are the nutrients plants need most of, so are always a good starting point for deficiencies which cause pale older leaves.

cheers Darrel