# HELP: established plants melting for no apparent reason???



## Redshrimp2709 (Mar 21, 2016)

Hi fellow planted tank experts/hobbyists. I'm enlisting anyone's help at this point as my sagittaria carpet began melting within the last week for no apparent reason. 70% of the carpet is melting or melted. I have minor degrees of melting with my crypts, and my monte carlo is fine, but seems to suddenly be struggling a bit and is less vigorous. 

This came about within the second week of a two-week period of no water change. I usually do a 40% water change every week and fertilize, similar to the EI method, but I thought I'd try skipping a week this time around. I did fertilize accordingly. I also use Excel, but I have NEVER overdosed and I have been using Excel since the beginning of the aquarium over a year ago, problem free. It also seems to be affecting mainly the sagittaria that is rooted in the substrate. The other plants that don't seem happy, are also rooted in the substrate. 

I used Tropica aqua soil that has served me well so far for over a year. The plants are well established plants and the sagitarria has been there for over a year. I also used root tabs as additional supplement, as recently as 3 months ago.

No new plants or fish have been introduced to the tank within the past two weeks. I have a portion of my hydrocotyl tripartita overtaking a portion and competing with the sagittaria at one point and suspected it was that. However, I have healthy sagitarria growing with my hydrocotyl in another part of the tank. 

I’m stumped. I have pressurized CO2 running a constant 1.5/2 bubbles per second and nothing has been tampered with for more than 3 months. I also just changed two of my 39W T5 Power Glos and I have two Kessils. The only think I changed 3 weeks ago was I dimmed one of my Kessils as algae was beginning to grow on my Xmas & Pheonix Moss. 

My pH has been a constant 6.4 for the last 6 months and have hovered around that since the beginning of the aquarium. I have a soft water aquarium with the mentioned pH that is stable as most of my fish and plant are native to the Amazon or Southeast Asia. I have next to no ammonium (acidic water), no nitrite, and normal level of nitrate (20 ppm). 

Anyone have this problem before? Anyone have any insight?


----------



## imtrippedup (Apr 25, 2010)

1. check c02
2. check c02
3. try lowering photoperiod, add some root tabs and try dosing slightly more this WC


----------

