# Why do my stem plants always melt?



## ladybugzcrunch (Jul 26, 2009)

Seems like I can keep all kinds of plants except stem types. The only variety that I have had success with is hornwort. Everything else melts within a week or two. Is there something special that I should do with stem plants differently than with rooted plants?


----------



## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

what sort of stem plants?

The most common cause of melting is the way they were grown for the trade in the first place, but to completely melt away usually means lack of light, etc.


----------



## ladybugzcrunch (Jul 26, 2009)

Newly melted plants included moneywort, dragonfire foxtail, Ludwigia, Rotala, and some other bushy unid green stem plant. The moneywort was melted within a week but the leaves started melting right away, and the dragonfire stems are mostly still in place but all the bushies have melted off them. The green bushy is doing better but is melting at the point that I weigh it down. The Rotala melted completely within an hour of putting it in my aquarium, and the Ludwigia melted completely within three days. They shipped wrapped in wet newspaper priority mail-it took 2 days. I got these stems in a grab bag with a bunch of other stuff. I don't have the most light, one daylight T8 on a 29g but the tank is also between two windows which provide lots of light as well.


----------



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I don't keep those because they need a lot of light, and I have two watts/gallon.


----------



## adam79 (Jun 27, 2007)

Too much ligt without CO2 would cause them to melt away as well. If you don't inject CO2, stick with low light plants and keep your lights low.


----------



## kuhliLoachFan (May 30, 2010)

Try hygro. Can't kill it. 

I had the SAME exact experience. I have about 2w/gallon light intensity, tanks from 10 to 70 gallons. Hornwort grew like crazy. Everything else melted. I added Excel, I tried planted tank substrates of various kinds. I even went and bought fancy lights to up the light intensity, and still everything else melts.

Oh. And java fern. You can put that on a log and it will do fine, unless your nitrates kill it by coating it with algae.

Like others said, adding light but not CO2 doesn't fix much. Since I don't want pressurized CO2 inside my house, and since I don't want to mess with unpressurized CO2 gimmickry, I'm limited too.

W


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Just be carefull with Hygro species, they are illegal in some states.

My Rotala always rotted from below using the outdated WPG method, but did fine with the lumins/gallon usage. But I also needed to add CO2 with it as well.


----------



## AElliott (Feb 14, 2010)

It sounds as though the basic requirements for many of the plants you have mentioned are not being met. Some of the plants you have mentioned (rotala, and ludwigia in particular) can only do well in an environment with very high light(3+wpg), and balanced ferts/ph. One other reason these plants could melt is because they were grown out of the water and once you received them and immersed them in your tank they were not able to acclimate to living in a submerged state. Some varieties of ludwigia and rotala are very tough to grow even in ideal environments (rotala macranda, narrow leaf ludwigia, rotala magenta). Trying to grow stem plants can be frustrating but if you research each varitey you are trying to grow you may have more success HTH.


----------



## varya (Dec 28, 2009)

You are very lucky that you have many aquariums


----------



## ladybugzcrunch (Jul 26, 2009)

varya said:


> You are very lucky that you have many aquariums


  Agreed but I am not so lucky to be plum crazy with this fish thing!


----------



## Pali (Dec 22, 2009)

I use liquid carbo from happy life, I have also seen you can get C02 tabs at the LFS but have never tryed them myself. 
Also there is the option to make Co2 from yeast and sugar mixtures, if the thourt of a pressureiced bottle seems scary or too ekspencive to setup with pressure valves and all that stuff needed.


----------



## Maccgyver (Jun 6, 2010)

Seachem makes a product called Flourish for water plants that seems to do very well for me to make sure they get all the nutrients they require. I am a little under the 2watt per gallon as I only have a 15watt Life Glo T8 but my crypt and grasses seem to be doing fine.


----------

