# Cabomba lower leaves browning



## aquabruce (May 10, 2012)

Your lighting is too low. IME, it needs med to high light. Doesn't do well in low light for me.


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## adive (Oct 30, 2013)

aquabruce said:


> Your lighting is too low. IME, it needs med to high light. Doesn't do well in low light for me.


A few months ago I actually started partially blocking out the natural daylight the tank receives with a screen as my water had turned green.

I will experiment with removing some of that screen, thereby letting in more light and see how it goes. Also my lights are on 8 hrs/day. Do I need to increase that?

With more light, more or less I am sure I will get more green algae on my glass...


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## The Trigger (May 9, 2012)

Yeah bottom part of the plants are probably not getting enough light, hence the dead leaves. I had to bake my cabomba under high light for it to grow well when I kept it in previous setups


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## The Trigger (May 9, 2012)

adive said:


> A few months ago I actually started partially blocking out the natural daylight the tank receives with a screen as my water had turned green.
> 
> I will experiment with removing some of that screen, thereby letting in more light and see how it goes. Also my lights are on 8 hrs/day. Do I need to increase that?


I think it has more to do with the fact that the intensity is not high enough to penetrate the water to the bottom part of the plant and less to do with how long the lights are on. Are you just using a desk lamp for the cfl bulb?


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## adive (Oct 30, 2013)

The Trigger said:


> I think it has more to do with the fact that the intensity is not high enough to penetrate the water to the bottom part of the plant and less to do with how long the lights are on. Are you just using a desk lamp for the cfl bulb?


No the CFL bulb is hanging from a round hook meant for bulbs in the tank's hood. Its an Osram 23W 6500K daylight spiral shaped CFL, 3 inches in length. This is on the left of the tank. On the right of the tank there is another CFL, same specs except its not spiral. So thats 46W artificial lighting for a 42g. 

Daylights streams in from the rear of the tank (65% of the right side of the tank is exposed to the window, the rest 35% is a concrete wall) and its quite bright so thats why I think light's enough and it comes from the rear, right from the the level of the substrate up. Even the cabomba on the right side which is the highest intensity light side, show similar browning behaviour. So right and left side are the same that way.

But sure let me experiment with more light. Thanks for your suggestions and time.


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## adive (Oct 30, 2013)

I wasnt dosing the prescribed quantity of liquid ferts for fear of algae, so I have upped that considerably this week, lets see how it goes in a couple weeks. 2 days gone by after upped dose and no algae problems yet - so far so good.


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## Django (Jun 13, 2012)

I had some Cabombas a while back and the lower leaves turned brown and died too. I am pretty sure that the leaves turn brown, die, because down at the bottom of the plant, it isn't getting enough light. No guarantees but it may help to thin out the Cabombas and plant them further apart. Maybe also cut them further down. No guarantees.


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## ForensicFish (May 19, 2013)

I gave cabomba a shot because my wife liked it (not a fan). Anyway, I have a 40b with T5's. I run two Zoomed flora bulbs in my T5. I run one bulb for 8hrs and the second for 3 - 4 hrs after I get home from work. My cabomba seems to be doing just fine with my lighting. But keep in mind the 40b is a shallow tank so my lights sit very close to the bottom of the tank.


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## mnemenoi (May 28, 2012)

Cabomba is always tough for me in low tech tanks, lower leave loss due to low light being a norm. We do have a 10 gallon that keeps it looking great, but lighting is just right and around 1.8 wpg. Still deal with occasional thread algae issue, if we don't stay on top of Excel dosing. My guess would be lighting though


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## adive (Oct 30, 2013)

Thanks for your responses everyone. I keep replanting the cuttings & I see that the newer generations of my cabomba stems are much better all the way down. So the plant get more and more accustomed to the tank over its generations and starts thriving.


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