[Wet Thumb Forum]-BIG plant die off

[superjohnny]

Well something got outta whack. I had a very large plant die off in my "natural" tank last week. I had a ~40-50 leafe java fern almost completely die, I lost 20-30 leaves off various crypts and lost all my hornwort. My guess is a nutrient deficiency so I did a 50% water change and dosed some ferts for 3 days in a row to bring some life back. It seems to have helped. So my question... in the book it says to feed your fish based on the size of the tank, not the amount of fish you have. How much should I be feeding a 29g tank? Currently I give one large pinch of flake every 2 days.

Thanks for the help

[superjohnny]

Well something got outta whack. I had a very large plant die off in my "natural" tank last week. I had a ~40-50 leafe java fern almost completely die, I lost 20-30 leaves off various crypts and lost all my hornwort. My guess is a nutrient deficiency so I did a 50% water change and dosed some ferts for 3 days in a row to bring some life back. It seems to have helped. So my question... in the book it says to feed your fish based on the size of the tank, not the amount of fish you have. How much should I be feeding a 29g tank? Currently I give one large pinch of flake every 2 days.

Thanks for the help

[~SP~]

Taking into account short time of this dying off and vast diversity of affected plants (slow- and fastgrowers) I'd rather propose as a reason some fast drammatic change in water conditions, most probably pH, which is highly corresponds with very low carbonate hardness.
Although, I totally agreed with Diana about the necessity of supplying the plants with nutrients which are absent or scare in this regionaly specific kind of water.

[dwalstad]

Dear Johnny,

Portland OR has very, very soft water.

Your plants died from not enough calcium (deficiencies in other nutrient will only manifest themselves as decreased plant growth or yellow leaves. With calcium deficiency, you get death! See page 114-115 in by book.

Hornwort is a hardwater plant that would be especially susceptible.

There are commercial products designed to increase water hardness that contain calcium, magnesium, potassium, bicarbonates, sulfates, etc. All these will help your plants. On p. 86 in my book I describe other ways to increase water hardness and add calcium to the water.

A few flakes of fishfood every two days will never provide enough calcium for the plants in this very softwater.