Horwoth's unstable growth

Good day everyone

I have this strange struggle with hornsworth. Some time ago I got small piece frm a friend (he used it for snails to be more comfy while transporting them to me). At first it did not grow at all. For like... 5 months. Later I was establishing a new aquarium, put hornsworth there. To my suprise ot started sort of grow fast, but strange.
What I mean by that is: sometimes the grow goes like crazy, but after slight relocation (it floats loosely anchored on a wood, so relocation means just changing way it goes) of plant or waterchange it usually massively sheds leafs.
The aquarium is now 8 months old. It's roughly 7gallons.
I use ferts sporadicly (Bioflor brand) and daily I use liquid CO2. There's not much fish in there: 9 pygmy cories and few shrimps. On bottom is soil substrate (I don't remember specifically brand) covered by fairly thick layer of sand. Other plants are java fern (it's doing terrible), hygrophilla corymbosa, echinodorus uruguayensis and anubias nana (not doing great either) I had salvinia natans in there, but I removed it, since it was mostly just dying). There used to be a LOT of java moss, but I had long term issues with various green algaes especially in the moss, which I was sorting out by manual removal, feeding control, addition of said echinodorues and additional 2 hygrophila smaller plants from other tank and by putting light higher and dimming it a lot.
pH of tank is around 7.5-7.8, kGH is around 18-21 (there's pretty hard water.) NO2 and NO3 are hardly detectable, shrimps and cories are doing very well (for cories it's actually first time I have so many for so long with no cassualties. Basically only 3 died since I got them and it was very shortly after they've arrived). I use stripe tests, so the information is probably fairly unnacurate.
Temperature is kept at 25°C (77°F).
Filter is hang on back placed in mid of a sidewall.

I do think that there's not enough nutrients in water, since plants that are actually rooted are doing better than other ones, but at same time there's still some ammount of green algae present.

I'd love to hear some advices on this hornworth topic, bcos once the leafs start to shed, there's just mess frikin' everywhere. And I also feel still very uneducated in plant keeping (having 3 planted tanks, 2 of them grow nicely, allowing me even plant other tanks or give out from my abundance, but I feel like I have zero part in it xD is just happened).

 

Hornwort is fairly easy to grow in the right conditions. I think the way you’re describing it just sounds like how mine behaves. The leaves are very brittle, so they break off very easily. They get everywhere. Shrimp do looove to eat hornwort leaves that break, so I just leave them in. I think you should have a regular schedule to dose ferts, rather than just do it occasionally. Plants benefit from consistency.

 

When you say you add liquid carbon daily are you talking about something like Excel? I found my hornwort wasn't too happy with me when I started using it while trying to get a handle on some algae. That may be the case here.

 

When you say you add liquid carbon daily are you talking about something like Excel? I found my hornwort wasn't too happy with me when I started using it while trying to get a handle on some algae. That may be the case here.

yeah, I it's something like that. Tho I use it for plants more than for getting rid of algae. I could try to skip carbon at all, but I am afraid I might run into issue with light again (and then there would be major algae problem).

 

yeah, I it's something like that. Tho I use it for plants more than for getting rid of algae. I could try to skip carbon at all, but I am afraid I might run into issue with light again (and then there would be major algae problem).

gotcha. It is often difficult to find the perfect balance between lighting and ferts. I just wanted to let you know how much my hornwort disliked it when I used Excel.

 

As stated by mattgirl hornwort is very sensitive to excel/liquid carbon. It generally will melt if tank is dosed with it. It also will kill some other plants but I do not recall them without looking it up again.
I had some myriophyllum in my tank that was being treated for algae, it was another that melts/has odd growth when exposed to excel.

 

As stated by mattgirl hornwort is very sensitive to excel/liquid carbon. It generally will melt if tank is dosed with it. It also will kill some other plants but I do not recall them without looking it up again.
I had some myriophyllum in my tank that was being treated for algae, it was another that melts/has odd growth when exposed to excel.

this is actually very interesting piece on information. I will check all plants I have in my tanks whether I can find info about their reaction to liquid carbon. I pressume they would be okay with CO2 gass dosed from pressured bottles xD since they need some form of carbon to grow...

 

this is actually very interesting piece on information. I will check all plants I have in my tanks whether I can find info about their reaction to liquid carbon. I pressume they would be okay with CO2 gass dosed from pressured bottles xD since they need some form of carbon to grow...

Yes liquid co2 substitute is not the same as co2 gas from a pressurized cylinder. Excel contains glutaraldehyde, its got alot of uses, lol I recommend looking that up as well so you know what your dealing with. I told my girlfriend never touch the bottle as she has sensitive skin.

 

just looked up what might be the carbon component in my "excel" (It's not excel, it's random liquid carbon made in Czech Republic).
The one I had before was made by Rataj had 1% of phenoxyethanol. When I look back I do think it did less harm than the thing I have now. Actually I'm not sure if it did any harm at all. However I ran out of that and I bought liquid carbon made by Invital, which has no information on whats in it besides "CARBON 2.5%" which seems a bit shady to me. Yes, for sure it's their know-how, but I would love to know what's in it. I'm probably going to ask them.