# water lily rot and just plane plant rot



## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

Ok so for the plants i have... I have 1 water lily, 2 long fox tails (hornwort), aponogetons.. about 4, and a heaping bunch of Water wisteria. 
Tank specs are 20 gal, DIY co2, 9 fish, 2 shrimp and somehow brought home a few tiny snails long ago with the hornwort. Lighting is from a total of 76 watts but dropped it to 20 due to large algae growth (about a week ago). Dose the tank with seachem flourish about 1x/week and i also dosed with osmocote ferts palce inside disolvable pill tabs. Last time for the pill tabs was about November and at the same time i had some iron that i made into balls smaller that a marble to give the plants iron. Dosed in November with about 4 pill tabs with 10 osmocote balls in each and 4 iron tabs place next to the pills deep in the gravel. About a week after that dosing in November the plants ate it up. They grew and looked like they should be a magazine feature. 

My question is all my plants were fine. They looked healthy..nice and green and green and purple (lily) and now they are either getting fine hair like agae on the leaves, stems rotting (lily) or holes in the leaves. The ones that look ok are the hornwort which i know are arial plants and should help with removing any toxic chems present in the tank. My wisteria came home from the store and i had about 4-5 stems and since then have taken over the tank and constant trimming is required. They are actually starting to be a visual nusence since they just root anywhere.

-What im wondering is why is the lily getting holes in the leaves and rotting stems.
-Aponogetons as well get rotted or holes in the leaves. 
-Wisteria no longer has the nice spread green finger liketop, it seems they are now growing leaves near the bottom of the stem in one oval looking leaf.. not the finger like leaf. 
Water is changed 1x/week. 
Any advice.
Also fish are happy ,healthy, no disease, eating well. Also the plants get a little extra food from the left over fish food as done by way of the Walstad method of feeding.


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## Big Dog (May 17, 2010)

How often are you doing water changes? How much light do you have for the plants? How long are the lights on for?


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

Stated above. WC 1x/week, lighting is right now 20 watts in a 20 gal and didnt mention on for 9 hrs a day


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## Kehy (Apr 19, 2011)

I have a dwarf lilly in my tank too, and I get some issues with algae too. Usually I try to figure out what's causing the algae and stop it that way, but that's not the only reason why lillies can melt. Actually, the only time mine melted at all was after they had produced a ton of lilly pads that were floating on the surface for a few months, and then plants went dormant for awhile...a couple months I think. After lillies get floating leave, they stop producing the pretty submerged ones. The submerged leaves melt, and when the lilly goes into a dormant stage, the pads melt off as well. And then they multiply...I had one lilly bulb, now I have 3-7 plants, including 3 on the bulb itself and 2 independents.


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## garryp (Jan 14, 2012)

Kehy, good info. Thanks. I had been told to clip leaves just before they surface, now I know why. I thought they would die, but then you clarify that they just go dormant, as in "DO NOT TOSS THEM!


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## jeff5347 (Aug 15, 2011)

I did notice reducing the lighting has halted pretty much 90 percent of the algae growth. The fake driftwood i have would have algae covering it in 4 days from cleaning it. Its over 4 days from a cleaning and a WC and i dont see any algae growing on it at all. 
Also yea on the lily in the beginning it was throing new stems up every day. I didnt always get to trim before surfacing but most of the time. It spread out from the bulb and has 3 other attaching points in the gravel. I never gave dormancy a thought but good to know. HOw long do they go dormant for usually?


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