Rcs Eating Brazilian Pennywort

Hello,

I have a 5 gallon RCS only tank. There are maybe 15 adults and lots of shrimplets in there. My RCS keep eating my floating Brazilian pennywort. It grows new leaves but not as fast as they eat it. is there any way to prevent this? Or is this not a good plant for RCS?

I don't have much left of the six original stems I put in. They don't seem to eat the other plants. I have guppy grass, anubias nana and java moss. It's a low tech tank. I do not fertilize or have co2.

I feed the RCS half a veggie stick with calcium and a few HikarI micro pellets alternately every other day.

Any input will be appreciated.

Thank you.

 

Here is a picture

 

Red Cherry Shrimp don't eat live plants unless it is already dead or dying. It could be a nutrient deficiency which is causing the holes.

 

Thank you. I just researched it more and I read that their ideal ph is 6.0-7.8

I used to have the test strips and my ph on the strip showed 7.5 so I thought this plant would be ok. I've only just recently bought the master API testing kit, and actually My ph is 8.2, do you think this could be the problem?

 

The Brazilian Pennywort I had struggled to grow at after 7.8 ph. Maybe mine was the exception to the rule, but IME it struggles to grow at very high ph. However, what it looks like to me is the leaf is decaying, is there other plants shading over it? Also, Pennywort uses a lot of nutrients from the water column, so I would recommend doing some ferts.

 

I’m experiencing the same thing. It started with one shrimp and within a couple of weeks they all started eating the Brazilian Pennywort. The plants are healthy but at this rate they will be over taken by the shrimp. Any advice is welcome.