Anacharis DEAD :( whats the dealio!

[meximan]

I bought some anacharis a month ago to help lower nitrates in my tank....

TANK:
10 gallon
2 CFL 6500k GE bulbs
Some Neon tetras

Over the last week it has seemed to go downhill VERY fast. I had it kind of planted in the gravel, and it looked like it was growing well at first...I had an OTO that was mowing down on it , but that oto has since died...I recently Supplemented the tank with Seachems Flourish...Only one dose of it. Regular RO water changes of 20%..

Last night i pulled the anacharis out of the tnak and it basically fell apart into a millions of peices..I had one tetra die as well....So i tested water this morning.

7.6ph
0 nitrite
20-40ppm nitrates (usual and trying to get down via plants)
and around .5-.75 ammonia....was usually (.025 or less this has spiked in the last week)

Could the increase in ammonia, be at all due to the decay of the Plants?

Should i replace the seachem flourish with a co2 booster? Im not sure if this had anything to do with the rapid decay of the plant.

[Fuzz]

flourish or flourish exel? exel is the same thing as API's "co2 booster".

I've never had anacharis, but I've read that it grows like a weed. there has to be something off in your tank. is it a new setup? have you trimmed it recently? what about circulation? trickle filter or sponge filter?

[Superfly724]

You say you only had a few small fish in the tank. My best guess is that the plant started decaying very fast which overloaded the amount of Ammonia that your bacteria colonies could process. Basically, you drastically increased your bioload and started a mini-cycle and it will take a little while for the beneficial bacteria to catch up to the ammount of decaying material. That's my understanding, at least. I may be way off.

[grogan]

Try some hornwort. If that wont grow then you have a serious problem.

[meximan]

flourish excel is what is on the bottle. my water temps are around 79 degrees. as well.

I also noticed that my main tank which is 55 gallons, the dwarf hairgrass in it all of a sudden started turning pale to , about the same time i started dosing the excel.

[meximan]

Seachem also has another product....Theres a Seachem Flourish and a Seachem Flourish Excel (which i have)...Would it be better to dose with the normal flourish? The wierd thing is that im not dosing every other day like the bottle says to...It was just one dosage and all of a sudden everythings dead lol...

My lights were stated up in the first thread. 6500k bulbs.

I just bought some more anacharis to try it again since its cheap and im thinking after a 50% water change , it should be alright...

I was reading on the back of the bottle that EXCEL doses Nitrogen into the tank....My tank already has high nitrates (20-40ppm).....by using this am i already adding to a problem i have a hard time keeping controlled?

[Superfly724]

The product adds nitrates because plants feed off of nitrates. In heavily planted tanks the plants absorb all the nitrates and you have to add more just to continue feeding the plants. To be honest, 20-40 ppm of nitrates isn't that bad. It's not necessarily good, but I don't think your fish will suffer any damage from 20 ppm of nitrates. Plants may help, but just adding a plant or two won't really make a noticable difference. Consistent water changes will do the trick.

[MarinneSmith]

I just put some Anacharis in my 125 gallon last Friday and they are starting to grow fast...I have been using Flourish on them, I even have African cichlids in there as well and the plants seem to be doing well

weird that yours are dieing with all you have been doing

[meximan]

flourish or flourish excel? theres two different ones

[MarinneSmith]

flourish...not excel