# Val not growing tall



## Raith (Jun 27, 2014)

The biggest thing is, what are your water parameters?


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## Capsaicin_MFK (Nov 15, 2009)

I'm showing in the greenhouse that vals with really low nutrient availability and direct sunlight have very low growth. My Vallisneria americana should be getting leaves about 4 ft long but they are 2" at most after 2 years of growing. Unless you have sunlight, it is probably a nutrient issue.


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## janivr (Nov 17, 2019)

Ph 8.2
Tds 362
Po4 1
Nh3 0.25
No2 0
No3 40 liquid api
No3 10 stick api
Kh 240
Gh 180


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## janivr (Nov 17, 2019)

?


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## Raith (Jun 27, 2014)

So your pH is around mine, off tap I run 8.0pH already, and I don't run any nutrients in my tank albeit I have a different vallisneria (nana), but grew probably 60 nodes in a mixture of dirt/fluval stratum/eco-complete/botanicals in a span of 4 months. I want to say your lighting may not be that great if it's not growing tall. I have the opposite in my 55 where I do grow jungle val, and they're growing super tall, but they're not wanting to propagate. I also have leopard vals that are doing super well, so I guess it all depends.


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## allexx46 (Feb 15, 2019)

They need extra iron, light and root tabs. I grew them in my refugium and threw out a garbage bag every 3 weeks. Super fast growers. the Jungle Val was growing 3+ft for me. Quit growing them because they hate Excel and I was having issues with staghorn algae at the time. I had lots of fish in the main tank providing nitrogen so you might need to add flourish or something on top of the root tabs. I run my tank at pH 6.6 to 7 with CO2 so might not be comparable to yours. Wiki says they grow to pH 8.5 but I think 8 is high for a planted tank. Not sure this is any help but might give you clues. I had your results before adding root tabs and Iron.


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## davemonkey (Sep 21, 2008)

I apologize if this seems like a dumb question, but are you sure that what you have is actually Vallisneria? Maybe you've got _Helanthium tenellum_ (formerly known as _Echinodorus tenellus_), or _Sagittaria subulata _(dwarf sag.)?


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## nicepoeci (Sep 23, 2020)

Do you have a picture?


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## dornblaser (Sep 8, 2020)

Which type of Vallisneria do you have? Not all grow tall.


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