need help with elodea

[szymon328]

im aware that elodea is a total noob plant, but im new to aquatic plants and mine arent doing too well. i no there is a Brazilian and Canadian strand, according to google , and i have a native fish set up and i left the water at room temp. could the water be too cold for the plant? its around 68-72 degrees in my room and im thinking it might be from the temp. the plants have turned a whitish green color and have separated into segments like plants do in the fall. i gave my friend 2 peices of the plant i bought and his are doing fine, and he has a heater. do u think its from the colder temp that mine are withering? please help and i will gladly be corrected

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

I had alot of trouble growing this plant as well until someone told me that they do not grow well with photo periods that mimick winter/fall.

So i raised my light about 12" so I would not get any algae and increased my light ON time to 12hrs. And now they grow an inch a day sometimes.

My tank temp is 74-76 just from normal fish room heat. No heater.

 

[szymon328]

raising your light 12 inches? as in a lamp? b/c i have one of those over my tank right now since i dont have a canopy for it so 12 inches away from my the water would be a good idea? i have it on for over 12 hours, once i get up in the morning at till around 10 at night so thats around 13 hours. but it is a standard desk light, not anything ecspecialy designed to grow plants. ill try the heater idea any way cuz once i get my bass out of that tank im going to aquascape it and have alot of tropical plants in it along with fancy gups so the added temp might be a good idea thanks

 

[szymon328]

bump

 

[xEchOx]

What size tank is it? Good lighting would probably help. A desk lamp is probably an incandescent bulb which isn't the best lighting for aquarium plants.

 

[szymon328]

yea ive been short on bills so its been an incandesant light over a 20 gallon with no heater. i now know that the water temp is supposed to be 70-80 and mines at 68 most of the time droping down to 67-66 at night b/c its in my room but im going to get a heater and a canopy for my tank soon since sunday was my bday and i got some money to spend for this stuff

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

I justed raised my light so that I did not over light the tank and run into algae problems.

And it was only raised 8". My eye ball measuring tape is flawed as I measured it last night with a tape. LOL

I use incadescent fixtures on a few of my planted tanks with awsome results. But you have to use the Compact flourescent spiral bulbs in the daylight color range. It says 6500K on the GE package.

A regular light bulb will not grow plants 99.9% of the time.

I would suggest 1 26 watt 6500k CFL spiral over your 20g. I run 1 26wt and one 15wt over mine. But I use excel and fertilizers as well to keep the algae at bay.

 

[szymon328]

thanks hybrid, ahh your the only person that comes back to my special elodia questions lol yea its a realy small bulb, its about the size of a christmas light, but it gives off alot of light proly just not enough energy or somthing. thanks for the help im gona by a hood soon and power up my watts and hopefuly my plants will do fine. i also need a canopy because im keeping a lmb in the 20 and he splashes around alot

i no i gota get him out of the 20 and buy a 75 then build a 300 but hes still about 4.5 inches so its k

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

No problem at all

Most consider this plant very easy to grow. But myself and others have had considerable problems with it.

And since I have done alot of research trying to figure out what was going on with mine. I thought I would share my success.

 

[szymon328]

lol thanks man i bought a canopy yesterday so i think theyll grow