# HELP!!! My Java Fern is dying off!!!



## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

OK, here is the problem. My Java Fern is turning brown and dying off. All of them. I have Trident, Tropica, Windelov, Needle Leaf, Wavy, and Standard in this tank and all of them have turned brown and died within the past two weeks. Here are my water parameters:

pH: 6.9 on average, 6.7 with CO2
GH: 25
KH: 6
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
Temp: 75.6 F

I dose the appropriate amounts of: Flourish Comp, Iron, Potassium and Phosphorous but no other ferts at all. I do not use Excel. 

There is nothing in the tank that would eat them, they just start to turn brown and disintegrate. At first I just trimmed off the dead leaves, but now it looks like ALL of it is dying. Some of the Windelov and Trident has been growing for years (the Trident is 18+ inches tall!!!) so it makes me really sad. Can anyone please tell me what may be wrong and how I can salvage these??? Thanks!


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## kalawai2000 (Jan 15, 2011)

That's a real bummer...when I was having problems with my Java Ferns it was due to high heat but at 75.6F that shouldn't hurt it at all. I have had it too turn brown and just disintegrate on me a while ago for no reason it seemed. I never could figure this out either...maybe someone else can answer this for all of us.


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## trixella (Jan 24, 2011)

Have they been in the same tank the entire time you've had them and have the parameters been altered at all recently? If I remember correctly, you were having ph problems and had to do some things to bring your kh up... if so then they are probably going through an adaption to the new conditions. As long as the rhizome looks like it's not dying then you will probably get them to grow back healthy leaves that are adapted to the new conditions.


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## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

trixella said:


> Have they been in the same tank the entire time you've had them and have the parameters been altered at all recently? If I remember correctly, you were having ph problems and had to do some things to bring your kh up... if so then they are probably going through an adaption to the new conditions. As long as the rhizome looks like it's not dying then you will probably get them to grow back healthy leaves that are adapted to the new conditions.


This was actually my first thought (the pH problem), but this is happening in a totally different tank. Great memory though! Some of the ferns were added in June of 2011; the rest had been in the tank for a bit less than three years. I am very confused at this time. Good catch on the KH potentail though!


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## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

kalawai2000 said:


> That's a real bummer...when I was having problems with my Java Ferns it was due to high heat but at 75.6F that shouldn't hurt it at all. I have had it too turn brown and just disintegrate on me a while ago for no reason it seemed. I never could figure this out either...maybe someone else can answer this for all of us.


 I did not think it was the heat, either. The range goes from 73.4 F to 76.1 F with no trouble at all. (The temp goes down when the lights are off...) Thanks for the info though, and hopefully someone can answer this for both of us.


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## KH2PO4 (Jul 18, 2009)

The browning color has distinctive gray tint in it.
Like this:








The image is from this thread:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/plants/138697-help-whats-happening-my-java-fern.html

And the symptom progresses at very fast rate. You can see the brownish 
area double or even quadruple in size just overnight. Right?

I had it too. Did intensive googling. Java Fern disease, Java Fern melt, 
Java Fern Browning, etc. Still no conclusion what causes it. But I'm sure 
it's not from CO2 as someone had said. Because now I'm at much 
lower level of CO2 than before, and without any improvement in water flow. 
And my ferns are still fine. 

Sorry, I don't know how to cure or prevent it. But most of the time, 
there will be some rhizomes survive and they will regrow. Just trim off 
the dead leaves/rhizomes.


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## kalawai2000 (Jan 15, 2011)

KH2PO4 said:


> The browning color has distinctive gray tint in it.
> Like this: http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu141/aspen19/IMG_5671.jpg
> 
> And the symptom progresses at very fast rate. You can see the brownish
> ...


This is what I did to my Java stubs and they grew back...slowly.


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## trixella (Jan 24, 2011)

Has your gh always been that high in that tank? I know Javas can handle harder water but your gh still seems a bit high for them. Here it says that it can handle up to 20 degrees and yours is above that.


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## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

OK, it is not like either of the photos posted. The whole leaf just turns brown, skeletonizes, and then disintegrate. Pretty quickly, too. Funny thing is, the adventitious plantlets are not dying at all.


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## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

trixella said:


> Has your gh always been that high in that tank? I know Javas can handle harder water but your gh still seems a bit high for them. Here it says that it can handle up to 20 degrees and yours is above that.


I had no idea about the GH issue. Thanks!


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## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

Should I pull off all of the dead/dying leaves? Is there any hope they will regenerate? What caused this to happen? How can I prevent it? Should I just get rid of the bad ones and just start over? Help! I am really confused about what to do...


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## trixella (Jan 24, 2011)

Yes, just cut off the dead leaves as they die. I wouldn't throw away the whole plant, if the rhizome is alive then it can re grow new leaves. I would just try to bring your gh down into the preferred range.


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## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

trixella said:


> Yes, just cut off the dead leaves as they die. I wouldn't throw away the whole plant, if the rhizome is alive then it can re grow new leaves. I would just try to bring your gh down into the preferred range.


What is a good (read: EASY) method to bring my GH down?


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## klaus07 (Nov 23, 2011)

It sounds to me that the adventitious plants may be robbing the mother plant of essential nutrients and by providing the growing basis for the adventitious plants the host leaf can no longer sustain itself. This my just be an example of asexual reproduction.


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## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

klaus07 said:


> It sounds to me that the adventitious plants may be robbing the mother plant of essential nutrients and by providing the growing basis for the adventitious plants the host leaf can no longer sustain itself. This my just be an example of asexual reproduction.


Excellent idea! This makes a lot of sense, as the adventitious plantlets are all doing well. It just seemed peculiar to me to have it happen to all of my java ferns (of multiple varieties) at the exact same time.


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## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

I read recently that when leaves on a java fern turn black/brown and die off, it is a sign of a new growth cycle beginning for the plant. Can anyone confirm or deny this?


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## ValMM (Feb 22, 2011)

I read something similar, where leaves will turn brown when creating new growth. Usually when creating new leaves off the rhizome.


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## wetworks (Jul 22, 2011)

The article I read (plus some info from a book) stated that once the adventitious plantlets are large enough, the leaf they are on will die off. I did not know it also would do this for new leaves sprouting fromt he rhizome.


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## Bandit1200 (Dec 11, 2010)

wetworks said:


> I read recently that when leaves on a java fern turn black/brown and die off, it is a sign of a new growth cycle beginning for the plant. Can anyone confirm or deny this?


I can confirm this to the extent of my personal experience.

I experienced basically what you described shortly after placing a healthy specimen of java fern into my tank. After about 2 weeks it started what you've described. I was worried about it for a while but since there were so many of the plantlets that looked very healthy I just let it go. Eventually the "mother" plant started to regrow and I had "fernlets" growing everywhere.


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## ucantimagine (Jan 8, 2012)

Mine kinda looked like that a couple weeks after getting it. I cut off all the large leaves, left the new growth and now it is growing nicely.


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## Arv (Oct 3, 2011)

when this happens to my javas they affect the host plant and plantlets. I've also done a lot of research and some say its a fert deficiency or excess of one or more macro or micro, low KG, low Mg, high temp, high light, co2, excel, salts,or even a virus or disease but nobody seems to be sure. in my case it first happened when I raised the temp and added salt to treat ich. However it still happens at 76-77F. One thing that's true is that the rhizome will sprout new growth after you trim off all the dead stuff. I definitely know its not high light since the ones that are really close to the top of the tank that receive the most light have not been affected (using 2xt5ho). I suspect that a melting leaf might "transmit" the melting to another leaf so cut off the dying leaf asap.

I really hope somebody comes up with a definte answer since there seems to be a lot of peeps affected by this.


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## livebearer (Jun 4, 2006)

i recently added salt to my tank too to head off a bout of ich i seen coming a mile away, and now both my narrow leaf and my other java fern have some blacken edges and some black holes which i call it (burns) from the salt, but its still throwing off babies from the rizome thats are healthy and not (burnt) i think its some kinda adjustment to the change in your water. i dont know alot about aquarium plants but i know in house plants when a leaf is yellowing or dying remove it right away becuse the plant is wasting energy and nutrients trying to keep it alive, once you remove all the dead or close to dead leaves you willsee a boom in new leaves on the rizome. just my two cents


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## livebearer (Jun 4, 2006)

oh yea i forgot to mention i have 2 mellon swords and some other green sword and they are doing just fine no other plant wass affected by the chemical change in my tank but the javas,


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## Arv (Oct 3, 2011)

livebearer said:


> oh yea i forgot to mention i have 2 mellon swords and some other green sword and they are doing just fine no other plant wass affected by the chemical change in my tank but the javas,


you may be right about changes causing the melt. I probably should keep a log of some sort so I can go back and analyze things. I always think I can remember so I never write anything down.

As for the other plants, the swords and anubais seem to be ok, but at one time when I upped the lighting and CO2 (= change) that is when some of the java melted (not the ones closest to the light and directly in front of the canister CO2 output) and some of the blades of DHG clumps kinda rotted closer to the stalks which I thought was caused by the diatom hair algae suffocating them.


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## Miles (Sep 9, 2011)

I had the same problem, it was caused by a nitrate deficiency, so I treated it with flourish aquavitro synthesis. My tank was literally too clean...


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## Trail_Mix (May 17, 2011)

I've noticed older leaves on Java Ferns tend to have this browning problem where they get brown patches or form little holes and slowly become "skeletons" and whatnot (and this is NOT due to a K deficiency). I just let it go, as it seems to happen to most people, and eventually old leaves will fall off, and I just let them float in my tank until they eventually sink and turn into leaf litter for my shrimp. Usually the leaves stay green and float for like 2 weeks at least, and during that time, several little plantlets will grow off it even though the leaf is unattached to any rhizome or roots.

I have all these little plantlets right now that I don't know what to do with. I'm considering setting up a Zapins style emersed set-up for them to grow up, and maybe attaching some to driftwood -- either now, or in the future.


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