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Water Lettuce
Hi, about a month ago I purchased a nice water lettuce about the size of
my fist. It immediately began reproducing like crazy, but these new
platelets never gained any size. Within a week I had 20 plants networked
together. Each platelet would grow for about two days until it had about
eight small leaves, then they would lay down their leaves and send out
shoots which produced four or five new platelets. Next, the mother plant
would die and I would be left with three or four plants, smaller than
the one I had before. I didn't really mind the lack of size, because
with the rapid reproduction the lingering green algae on my tank glass
was gone and hasn't come back. Now, unfortunately I only have a couple
of really small samples of water lettuce left. They got so small that
either the fish would eat them, or they were just too small to survive.
The rapid growth of my water lettuce has been replaced by some recently
recovering water sprite, but I have always wanted some nice large
floating plants, like water lettuce or water hyacinth. This is all
happening in a med.-high fish load, heavily planted 20h, with 2X20w
fluorescent lighting (1 GE plant/aquarium, & 1 Sylvania Gro-lux), plain
gravel substrate, no CO2. I weekly do 10% water changes, additions of
Kent's micronutrient mix with iron, and a small addition of
macronutrient fertilizer. My tank runs around 80F (even with the air
conditioning on it is as low as it will go in my poorly insulated
apartment in Alabama), with a pH of around 7.0. Any ideas would be
appreciated.
Thanks,
Jason Cobb
In hot central Alabama