Bolbitis Heudelotii Keep Dying on a High-Tech Tank

[jiraiya]

It's a sad day today, as I had to trim 80% of my favourite plant .

This is my first high-tech planted tank (previously had a small low-tech 10G tank) so obviously what I'm doing is largely based on what I've read online.

I've just started a 3-feet tank (~40G) about 12 days ago. I quarantined all plants by putting them on a bucket with ista anti-snail and seachem paraguard, soaked them for about 48 hours with just ambient light. Some plants couldn't take it and melted after that (vallisneria spiralis, limnophila sp), but the hardier plants like ferns, anubias, crypts and bolbitis survived. Trying to minimize the odds of having algae, I started with a 6-hour photo period and crank up the CO2 to at least 3bps since beginning. I have done 50% water change every 2-3 days so far.

Everything seems to be fine without adding any fertilizer since I use good substrate, and I read somehere on the net that there's no need to add any fertilizer on the first 2-3 weeks. Some crypts, staurogyne and monte carlo melted on the first few days but they're doing fine now. The bolbitis however... started to deteriorate on day #5, when I noticed there were some leaves turning brown. I thought, probably they were just adjusting with the new tank so I let them be.

Day #9, I noticed that some anubias has turned yellow and some of the fern's edges looks a bit transparent. Since the stem plants and crypts are doing well, I guess the problem is on the nutrient in the water column, for the rhizome-based plants. I've dosed macro and micros since. No more problem on anubias and ferns but the Bolbitis are obviously getting worse day-by-day, until finally I had to trim probably 20 stalks today. I'm fine, but I'm crying deep inside.

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What puzzled me is, there are new Bolbitis shoots! And they looked fine to me. Does this mean that the plants are "just adapting", and nothing wrong with my water parameters etc? If so, is it really normal to lose 80% of the old leaves when it is adapting? I bought them from a fellow forum member, and he grew it on a larger aquarium with chiller, so I was expecting that it gets easier time adapting since they came from another aquarium (vs farm or those grown emersed). Was it my quarantine procedure that was too harsh and killed the old leaves? but the problem only appears on day #5.

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So the questions are: What do you think I should do to recover? Is it a good idea to put new Bolbitis plants on my tank now, or is it better to wait until it is fully cycled?

This is a shot of my tank, and some details that might help.

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tank:

• size: 90 x 45 x 45cm, 10mm thickness.
• light: green element EVO 3W LED, 3-feet. Turned on 6 hours a day.
• substrate: ADA aquasoil amazonia (2x 9L) + power sand special M.
• CO2: ANS 3L, solenoid, 3-5 bps, started 1 hour before photo period.
• filter: EHEIM 2075, Pro 3 - 600, rated at 1200 lph. + jebao WP10 wavemaker at 50% for additional circulation.
• water parameters: dGH 4-5, dKH 2-3, NO3 at 10-40ppm, NH3 at 5ppm, PO4 at 1ppm. PH is typically 6.2 to 7, roughly.
• temperature: 28C to 29C. No chiller no fans.

fertilization:

• seachem alkaline buffer 10g every water change (50%).
• seachem equilibrium 5g every water change.
• macro: aquavitro synthesis 10mL, activate 7mL, carbonate 10mL every 2 days.
• micro: flourish comprehensive 5mL, flourish iron 4mL on non-macro days.
• flourish excel 5mL everyday -- just because I still have plenty of it left after I sold my previous low-tech tank.

flora:

• bolbitis heudelotii
• phil. java fern
• anubias (golden, nana, petite)
• monte carlo
• MM (hemianthus micranthemoides?)
• crypt. parva (that's what the farm said, I think it's a different sp).
• crypt. balansae (again, I don't think I got the species name right).
• myriophyllum mattogrossense
• staurogyne repens

fauna:

• none

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[Urban Aquaria]

You tank parameters and setup look okay, since the other plants are doing well it's most likely not an issue with the tank environment.

From my previous experience growing bolbitis, they do take a longer time to transition and adapt to a new tank environment (compared to most other plants), so it's quite normal to see them shed a lot of leaves when initially introduced into a tank.

Its a rhizome plant, and that's what these type of plants tend to do during transition (similar to certain crytocoryne, java fern and anubias variants too). As long as the rhizome is healthy, it will eventually regrow healthy adapted leaves. So it's just a matter of time.