# Myriophyllum matogrossense in a low tech tank



## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/plantfinder/details.php?id=48
First I think you should put a question in the fish section on treatment of fin rot.
Some of your treatment for the fin rot may be what is giving the plant trouble.
Have you tested your tap water for nitrates before you used it?
With that daily water change and very low bio-load you have no reason to have any nitrates. Then also "a simple fluorescent light"...well that link says the plant needs 2WPG of it...so the plant seems to need just a bit more than low light. Do you have
any way of knowing how much it's getting?
I also can say this about the water changes...usually the shrimp people do far less than one per week. Then the Wisteria is a plant that uses more Potassium than other plants.
And since you aren't dosing any noticeable amount that suggest your MM plant may
not be getting any of it. Without the Wisteria a 50% water change per week would
likely come close to bringing in enough nutrients unless you have so many plants
that you can't see the back of the tank. The last thing on my list would be that salt.
It is absolutely deadly to some plants. The majority of plants can tolerate some.
And it is beneficial to some fish like Guppies/Mollies. But I don't know of any "Don't
use salt/w these plants" type of list.
So finding out what is/doing the proper treatment for fin rot. See that you have enough light for that plant and think about using full/complete ferts would be what I would do.


----------



## Kubla (Jan 5, 2014)

Salt might be an issue also. Most plants can handle salt in low levels but some are more sensitive. You can definitely have a salt concentration that is fine for fish but will kill plants. Do you know what the salt concentration is?


----------



## youbettarecognize (Aug 25, 2015)

First, Thank you Raymond S. and Kubla for your quick replies. Very much appreciated


Raymond S.
I've beaten the fin rot question to death and I don't want to bore you with the details but after several suggestions I've decided to attempt the 'pristine water method.' In other words, do many water changes during the week to keep diluting the water. If this doesn't work, I do have a 3-gallon hospital tank that I can try and quarantine him with while I use medicine. But I will try the water change method for a bit before I do that.

- Thank you for that link. It's bookmarked and I'll use it going forward.
- The aquarium salt is the only treatment I'm using.
- Nitrates show up as zero in my tap and you are correct in that they are very low in my tank b/c of my, currently, frequent water changes (5-10ppm). Based on your link this amount is sufficient for this hardy plant.
- Good question on the light. I've been assuming that my lights is good enough for such a small tank so I had to do some quick research and based on that, I used this formula to find my WPG: Volts x Amps = Watts. So plugging in my numbers I get: 120 x .18= 21.6Watts for my lighting. Assuming that's correct and I found the right formula, my WPG should be okay. 
- The Wisteria is a 3-4 inch small stem (also purchased from the private seller) and it couldn't be soaking up all of the Potassium? Every time I change the water I go through a regimented routine. I dose the conditioned water with Seachem Equilibrium and Flourish to replace how much I have taken out (2-4 gallons). They have a 23% and .37% concentration of "soluble potash K2O" respectively. I do a GH test afterwards and usually stick with 4-7 degrees as an acceptable reading. Not sure if this answers your question or those amounts are still not sufficient enough. 
- As to the question of salt, I just did a quick 20 minute search on the compatibility for salt and Mattogrossense. Couldn't find anything concrete. Drats. Will do more searching later.


Kubla
I put in about 1 tablespoon of salt for my 5-gallon, per the instructions. I also replace this amount when I do water changes. 


After reading your posts two things have come to my attention: Lighting: I'm not sure it's getting enough light. I think I leave on the light less than six hours a day. Also, I'm going to cycle out the salt. (You're not supposed to use it that long as a remedy anyway) I'll up the amount of light the plants gets and take out the salt concentration. This should really do... something. I hope. My shrimp like it and I would love for it to grow into a massive bush so they can hangout/hide/perch on/in it as evidenced by the photo.


----------



## youbettarecognize (Aug 25, 2015)

An update and solution for my thread:

I decided to go with a 14-watt, 6500K CFL bulb. It's in a light fixture directly over my 5-gallon tank. I's say it's about 4-6 inches from the surface and my tank is approximately 10 inches tall. That's about 2.8 watts per gallon, which should be sufficient for a petite aquarium with semi-low level light plants. I'm also dosing the tank with Seachem Excel now (along with Flourish & Equilibrium)...and Jungle Val is the new edition to my clean little tank.

The light is a bit hot so I had to turn down my thermometer but that's the only problem that I ran into. For a low tech setup this will do and fancy LEDs or T5 lighting is not necessarily needed, as I happily found out.


----------

