# Java fern dying in Low Tech Set-up



## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

If you've only had it in there for a month, I suspect that the plant is just acclimating to its new environment. Just leave it alone and new leaves should fill in over time.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

How about trying some KNO3. Dosing with it saved my plants and have no gh or kh in my tap water.

Love the scape. What plants do you have?


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## Ghostie (Mar 28, 2009)

I have green temple, blyxia japonica, chain sword, crypt balansae, crypt walkerii, crypt wendii, a few corkscrew vals, java fern and java moss. I have been dosing with 1/8 tsp KNO3 weekly. I just did my dosing this past Monday. I also noticed the new growth of green temple is very yellow and the growing point seems almost white. The new growth of the crypts seems odd with very small yellow spots. I thought the low tech method was supposed to be easier!


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Ghostie said:


> I have been dosing with 1/8 tsp KNO3 weekly. I just did my dosing this past Monday. I also noticed the new growth of green temple is very yellow and the growing point seems almost white. The new growth of the crypts seems odd with very small yellow spots. I thought the low tech method was supposed to be easier!


Yeh, I thought the same thing. I found that since my tap water has gh and Kh of 0 I have to dose ferts. I am decreasing dosing of ferts by putting ferts and charcoal in the substrate. After running the tank for a month I will post the results.

At rex griggs (distributor of dry ferts) you will see that KNO3 is not to be dose dry. A small solution is 2oz of tank water and 1tsp of KNO3. Then I would dose 2ml daily for a week. You have to gradually increase KNO3 or it will affect your fish. Then hopefully you will only have to dose with it when you do water changes. This is what helped my plants to acclimate.


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## Ghostie (Mar 28, 2009)

I cross posted this on Tom Barr's website. He suggested that the lighting was too bright (the 2-14w t-5's being very efficient.) So I put 2 layers of tissue paper on the glass to cut down on some of the light. Here is the thread: http://www.barrreport.com/general-plant-topics/5592-problems-low-light-no-c02-tank.html


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## Karackle (Dec 11, 2007)

I'm not sure about the Java fern, I've never had luck with them in my tanks either and I run low light, low tech setups. 1 thing that does come to mind though is that (and you should check with other members on this) but i think 2x 14w T5 light is not actually very low light over a 20g tank, so if you are not injecting CO2 or adding ferts, the plants might be trying to grow faster than they have nutrients for. 

As for the soft water, and *Hilde* this might be an idea for you too, a VERY simple way to raise your hardness (as well as buffer your pH) is to add a bit of crushed coral in a mesh bag to your filter. Put it in and forget about it. The calcium in the coral leaches over time buffering your water. I have VERY soft water also, i was having problems with my fish dying for what appeared to be no reason until I realized my hardness was so low that my pH was dropping from the 8.4 it comes out of the tap at to 5 or lower over the course of only a few hours. I added crushed coral to my filters and i have not had a pH crash in any of my tanks since. All I do is rinse out the bag of coral when I clean the filter to get the grime off of it. The bonus is that it's an extra substrate for beneficial bacteria to grow on.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Karackle said:


> I'm not sure about the Java fern, I've never had luck with them in my tanks either and I run low light, low tech setups.


Java fern is the only plant I have left from when I started with planted tanks. Only the windelow version died when I upgraded from 10 gallon to 29 gallon tank. This is with low light, low tech setups too.



Karackle said:


> As for the soft water, and *Hilde* this might be an idea for you too, a VERY simple way to raise your hardness (as well as buffer your pH) is to add a bit of crushed coral in a mesh bag to your filter. My pH was dropping from the 8.4 it comes out of the tap at to 5 or lower over the course of only a few hours.


The ph of my tap water is 8.5 with no gh or Kh. Have sometimes found it at 7.4. It never gets lower than that. Perhaps your ph went so low because of build up of Co2. I shall check it day after I change water to make certain. Now I just add baking soda when I change water. Now have gh at 2 and Kh at 5.


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## Ghostie (Mar 28, 2009)

I have lowered the light. Today I just noticed that some of the leaves of the green temple have turned glassy also the growing point of the chain sword appears to have died (the part that sends off new plantlets.) I read somewhere that I shouldn't be dosing iron (in equilibrium) and ks2po4 at the same time (I think it was Rex Grigg's site.) Is this true?


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## Karackle (Dec 11, 2007)

Hilde said:


> Java fern is the only plant I have left from when I started with planted tanks. Only the windelow version died when I upgraded from 10 gallon to 29 gallon tank. This is with low light, low tech setups too.


Oh I'm not saying that I don't know about Java Fern in terms of whether it will grow in low light, I know that it thrives in low light for most people, i just meant that I simply don't know how to answer the poor growth problem because I too have had bad luck with java fern. :tongue:



Hilde said:


> The ph of my tap water is 8.5 with no gh or Kh. Have sometimes found it at 7.4. It never gets lower than that. Perhaps your ph went so low because of build up of Co2. I shall check it day after I change water to make certain. Now I just add baking soda when I change water. Now have gh at 2 and Kh at 5.


Sounds like a good solution also, I just prefer the crushed coral method because it buffers the water without me having to do anything during water changes, and I think it's keep the gh/kh slightly more stable that way, and since you mentioned you thought low tech tanks were supposed to be easy, i thought i'd just mention this tip on an easy fix for a low/non-existant gh/kh  



Ghostie said:


> I have lowered the light. Today I just noticed that some of the leaves of the green temple have turned glassy also the growing point of the chain sword appears to have died (the part that sends off new plantlets.) I read somewhere that I shouldn't be dosing iron (in equilibrium) and ks2po4 at the same time (I think it was Rex Grigg's site.) Is this true?


I think lowering the lights is a good place to start, but it sounds like you are dosing ferts which i was under the impression you weren't so maybe that isn't the issue? What is your stocking? are there enough fish in there to provide fertilizer? :tongue: I have no idea about dosing iron and ks2po4 together, sorry, but i am sure someone else will chime in on that


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## Ghostie (Mar 28, 2009)

*,*

Yes, I am dosing weekly. 1/4 tsp equilibrium,1/8 tsp kno3, 1/32 kh2po4, and a cap full or flourish trace.


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## NightSky (Feb 16, 2009)

I've had my low light tank set up for over a month now and I have one little plantlet growing out of the bad leaves that have not completely died, but aren't doing growing at all. For being a "low light" kinda plant, it sure doesn't show it in my tank. I have more complicated plants like narrow leaf ludwigia that do better than the java fern. I dose pretty heavily too. It should be growing like a weed, instead it's growing like a rock.


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## TalukderE (Jun 10, 2007)

Ghostie said:


> I have had this 20 gallon going for 8 years now. I had given up on plants but decided to try again a month ago. I decided to try the low tech, no c02 method discussed on Tom Barr's website.
> 
> My light is 2x14w t5. I have very soft water here in NYC. I am dosing 1/4 equilibrium weekly, 1/8 kno3 weekly, 1/32 KH2PO4 weekly and one cap full of Flourish trace weekly.
> 
> ...



Looking at the picture of your fern, it seems your water may not have buffering capacity. Did you check the PH of your tank water few days after the water change? My guess is the PH goes down to a seriouly low level. Doesing with Equilibrium will help but your water may require dosing with Calcium carbonate or calcium chloride and magnasium sulphate to increase it GH first then continue weekly dosing as you are doing. There is a relationship of general hardness and carbonate hardness. 

Hope this helps.


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## Ghostie (Mar 28, 2009)

I don't have any PH, GH, or KH tests right now, I will go buy them.


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## NightSky (Feb 16, 2009)

TalukderE said:


> Looking at the picture of your fern, it seems your water may not have buffering capacity. Did you check the PH of your tank water few days after the water change? My guess is the PH goes down to a seriouly low level. Doesing with Equilibrium will help but your water may require dosing with Calcium carbonate or calcium chloride and magnasium sulphate to increase it GH first then continue weekly dosing as you are doing. There is a relationship of general hardness and carbonate hardness.
> 
> Hope this helps.


I wish that would fix my problem. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case for me. I have been dosing calcium since week 2 I believe. I'm going to stick it in my paludarium when I get it all set up and if it doesn't improve there, I'm throwing it out and giving up on the plant.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Ghostie said:


> I don't have any PH, GH, or KH tests right now, I will go buy them.


Check out EBay for test kits. I got master kit for $13 and they sell for $35 in the stores.

If you have high ph and low gh or kh the tap water probably has buffers and phosphates in it. Thus you wouldn't want to add more phosphates. Large amount of phosphates affects the plants ability to absorb nutrients.


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## Ghostie (Mar 28, 2009)

I ordered PH, GH and KH test kit, so I should know by Friday what is going on.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

I suspect that to really get decent results with your light fixture you need to put CO2 on this tank.

20gal tanks are very shallow; therefore all the plants are close to the light.


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## Ghostie (Mar 28, 2009)

So I got my API test kits. 
PH 6.0
KH 1 (or less!)
Gh 10 

I obviously need more KH, and GH is high. I also tested the tap water it is KH of 1.5 and a GH of 3. Should I just add some baking soda to slowly bring up the KH? Should I do a water change to lower the GH?


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Ghostie said:


> So I got my API test kits.
> PH 6.0
> KH 1 (or less!)
> Gh 10
> ...


Perhaps you have something in the tank that is raising the gh. I would work on getting the gh lowered first. Read here that RO water mixed with tap water lowers gh. Also read that it can lower the ph. 

For low KH dosing with 1tsp of baking soda per 15 gallons of water is recommended. I do it weakly.

Looking under water parameters found that Gh may not be a problem. Read here info from Hoppy, experienced aquariust.

I have not seen RO water in the grocery store, thus thought distilled water could replace it. To make certain posted a thread here. Researching this has made me think this would help diminish phosphates in my water.


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