Java Fern Dying.. HELP.. :(

[Asher0606]

Good day, I have a 135g fish tank. It is freshwater and have like many fish and eel on it. Many fish, but not too many for a 135g tank.
I have huge filter and a lot of air pump. I also have something that cycle the water under the gravel.
I have 1 big lighting and I recently bought a new one, but it is LED.

I bought 2 huge pot of java fern. I left it on the pot for 2 months, until I decided to separate them. I didn't cut them or remove their roots. I carefully took them of and tie them on the rocks. Some of them, I put their roots half to the gravel. They are healthy with LED light and other light when I didn't took them off the pot, but they look like transparent and turning black. Literally from transparent white to black. Some of them starts on side them middle and some of them where just middle. I t is also the time when I added banana plant with snail on them. (They are separated ofcourse) Then I just recently put pointy snail to rock so that they can clean it. (They are mutliplying, but i'll wait until they are enough for me to put assassin snail.) I do 30% water change already and the water is all in safe zone, expect a little excess nitrate, but in good amount. I also added tropical nutrients too. I don't do tablet fertilizer because my tank have many fish to poop already. They have to take nutrients on it or it will be too much.

The water in has a lot of minerals on it, but I dechlorineze it.

All fish are doing fine and well and happy. I can figure it out based on their color and behavior. I have many baby guppies that is separated; some of them are in the main tank and some in vase. I put 2 ghost shrimp so no one will decay and a lot of plants from the main tank. All of them are doing good too.

The light is 24 hour open, until I change it now. I put night mode and turn off all white light when I am going to sleep. I also turned off the LED permanently because I suspect that it is the problem, but I still don't know.

My algae problem is not a big deal. I can see some hair algae, but they are only on the Anubias leaves that is already dying. And I won't see them on anywhere except some on the dead huge anubias dead leaves. Other than that, no algae problem.

So in summarize, I put all nutrients necessary already, light (1 led and 1 not) 24 hour open before and now its not. water chemical is in safe condition, all fish is doing good and java fern is still dying.

If you still can't understand my english, here some picture that can help you.











HERE are the link if u can't see it.

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For some reason, I can't upload anything to this site.

[teowxu]

you got to shrink the picture size in order to upload the picture. try providing shade for java fern. they do well under some shade instead of direct light. their leaves may get burnt under direct light from what i've observed so far. do not root the fern into gravel. expose the root in the water instead. their roots take in nutrients from water instead of the gravel. planting their rhizome and roots into gravel will cause them to rot and decompose.use a timer to control lighting. preferably 4hours in day and 4 hours at night. straight 24hours of light may invite lots of algaes and may caused leaves to be burnt from the heat emitting from the lights. check your light wattage. jave fern tend to thrive better in low wattage lightings. too high and it may damage the leaves instead. this is same for anubias.

[eeJamboy]

Hi.. I seemed to be suffering the same plant problem like you. Not that i have found a solution but just sharing and hopeful for an answer from fellow forumers too..

I have been keeping these plants for the past 2 years. Currently i have Java Ferns, various Nanas and Java Moss. All plants seems to be doing well.
Moss growing and creating a 'bushy' look and Nanas clinging to their anchored hardscape. Growing new leaves and even digging their roots into the substrate!

All except Java Ferns. Keep melting within 2 months of introducing new ones into the tank.
Its kind of disappointing for me knowing that other low light 'beginner' plants survived except Java Ferns.

On a side note, you can never go wrong with Nanas. Well at keast thats one advice from me.

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[Asher0606]

you got to shrink the picture size in order to upload the picture. try providing shade for java fern. they do well under some shade instead of direct light. their leaves may get burnt under direct light from what i've observed so far. do not root the fern into gravel. expose the root in the water instead. their roots take in nutrients from water instead of the gravel. planting their rhizome and roots into gravel will cause them to rot and decompose.use a timer to control lighting. preferably 4hours in day and 4 hours at night. straight 24hours of light may invite lots of algaes and may caused leaves to be burnt from the heat emitting from the lights. check your light wattage. jave fern tend to thrive better in low wattage lightings. too high and it may damage the leaves instead. this is same for anubias.

hi. I am pretty sure that it is not because of the light. They are doing fine with 24 hour open light, but when I moved them. They can't survive. The black part is spotted and look like a dot and a plague.
Like they were just drowning. The leaves is also glass; it look like it's almost transparent. So what do you thing should I do?

[thebaldingaquarist]

Can I ask you, you placed the fern into the tank in potted form for how long? How long since separation do you see the melting? Any picture on the placement of the lights?

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[Asher0606]

Can I ask you, you placed the fern into the tank in potted form for how long? How long since separation do you see the melting? Any picture on the placement of the lights?

Sent from my 2013023 using Tapatalk

I think it's a month already. I can see the java fern trying to revive. It was getting more and more plant let, but turning black after a 1.5 inch long. Not really block but spotted black then just missing. It's like melting.

Here are some picture.

i used to use only the two bulb light. Two of them are open 24 hours. Right now I only open the blue one. The other one is led 24 inch and I just also bought it a month ago. So I turned it off for a meantime. Help me please.

[thebaldingaquarist]

ok.

Here are my 2 best educated guesses.
1. light burn too much light or too skewered light temperature.
the amount of light is too much or too skewered towards a certain spectruum. that said, remedy for this is to leave all the lights on (not just blue), for a shorter period of time. say... 4 hours. idea is to blast them and let them have enough light to survive, while for the rest of the day.. rest.

2. acclimitization
java ferns along side all plants, do not like being touched by us. when moved, trimmed or cut, they tend to throw away their existing old leaves and go into a brief state of hibernation. until the external source of change is gone and it slowly adapts to the new environment. this could be what happened to the ferns. for this, switch on the LED for 8 hours a day and switch off all the lights after 8 hours.


the LED you have, is it for planted tanks of your tank size?