If you’ve ever spent money on plants that melt away to nothing, you know what I’m talking about. It is one of most frustrating things that can happen to an aquascaper. You spend your hard earned money at the local fish store for those healthy-looking stem.
You carefully plan where they’re going to go, set up the scape, drop ’em in, and…nothing. The leaves gets all mushy and transparent and vanish before long. What happened?
They melted! And many beginning hobbyist lose interest in planted tank because of this. Melting is no exception and I can understand the frustration.
It seems like it’s a mistake. It seems like something went wrong with lighting or fertilizer. No. But nothing dramatic are happening.
Understanding Why Aquarium Plants Melt After Planting
Why Aquarium Plants Melt After Purchase
Something biological is happening instead. Usually, melting mean adapting. Nurseries-grown plant are in situation different than what they need to survive inside the tank.
Knowing about this change will save your aquascape. Why? That’s due mostly to the growing conditions of the plant.
The Biological Reason Behind Plant Melting
It was grew in high CO2, high light conditions. This promote rapid growth and the plants produce thin leaves. Often times these leaf are above water or partly above water.
Once they’re under water, they cannot performs very well at all. Then the plant drop the old leaves off and makes new ones adapted for living underwater. What we see as melting in the tank is actualy this shedding.
This is a sacrifice made by the plant for its survival. Energy that would of been used by old leaf is being redirected into new stems and roots of the plant. Stem plants like Rotala or Hygrophila may die at their tip but be firm at the base.
Don’t trim out the dead portions because you might be cutting out the only living tissue left. But you’re frequently cutting out the only living part. The rot isn’t causing death.
It’s a symptom of it changing. The best solution is patience. At this stage confusion begin with lighting.
Common Mistakes Novices Make During Adaptation
Many novice growers turns on the lights in an attempt to revive a struggling plant and what happens? Typically, they hasten death. Extra lighting provide excess energy that existing foliage cannot support.
Because the plant isn’t structurally sound enough to use it, those leaves burn out quicker. More light is not what’s needed at this stage. You are forcing a plant to renovate itself; adding more light hurt it.
CO2 injection is also often blamed incorrectly, however. Placing a low-tech plant into a high-tech tank with a robust CO2 supply can shocks that plant. This shocks its metabolism by suddenly making resources available.
It begin growing rapidly, resulting in weakened stems. Rapid growth are the shocker; not the absence of nutrients. For example, moving Amazon Sword plant to such an environment cause them to melt.
How to Care for Melting Plants
When it starts melting, you should just let it go naturaly and don’t try anything. Just allow the dead leaves to rot. If it’s clouding the water, trim it but that’s it.
Maintain consistent temperature and stable water parameter. New shoot coming out from the lower nodes (or the base) of the plant are correct shapes for your tank. The debris will be replaced by new growth in time.
Fresh green leaves will sprout out of the old. That’s your sign that the plant has adjusted. Now you can tweak things like light and CO2 accordingly.
Once you know that melting is normal, it takes some of the worry out of hobby. You’re working with the plant’s biology rather than fighting it. For a week or two the tank might appear a mess.
But the end result is a thriving aquascape that lasts for years. Melting was just the plant getting used to its new home.
