# Why can't I keep Anacharis alive?



## PunkinOfSteel (Aug 24, 2013)

I've gone out and bought 3 different 'bunches' of Anacharis and they have all turned dark green, then green brown and died in a mushy yuck fashion. 

I'm on my 3rd bunch right now and just trimmed half of the dying dark green bits off- it's only been about 2 weeks i've had them. The first week was in QT but they still got a dose of liquid CO2 and liquid plant food. 

They are currently only in a 10 gallon, all planted with a BN (who is only in there until he gets a little bigger then he'll be moved into his permanent 20). Both swords and both Anubias are in good to great health as well as the 3 marimo that are also in the tank. 

I feed the plants once a week to once every other week of the API plant food and Seachem Flourish. I've been switching back and forth so I can get rid of my API. 

I also dose with liquid CO2, once a day or so. 

I use two UltraSun bulbs in the tank and the light is on a timer and stays on for 8 hours a day. I've recently increased to 10 hours to see if that would help and so far it's done nothing but allow more green algae to grow for the Pleco to eat. 

I cut an inch of the bottom of each stock and have them planted in the gravel right now, which has laterite (sp?) but currently no root tabs. I've tried letting them float around on their own, but those ones died the fastest.

The first bunch I had was from PetSmart, the second was Petco and this newest one is from a local pet store. 

Anyway, what am i doing wrong?


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## Stone (Jan 6, 2013)

in my experience water temp can kill anacharis seems to do better in cooler temps the 80 or so of most betta tanks seems to kill it


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## shellieca (Jul 12, 2012)

I'm guessing too much liquid CO2, when I dose it regularly my anachris literally disappears. Plus I don't have luck if I anchor them down so mine float & do much better.


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## Bounce (May 26, 2012)

If the liquid CO2 you mentioned is Seachem Flourish Excel, this is what is killing your anacharis. 

From: http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/FlourishExcel.html (If you scroll down, this is the second to the last question on the page):
_Q: I've been using Flourish Excel for the 4 days, and I've noticed that my Anacharis seems to be dying, while my other plants are doing fine. Why is this?_
_A: Anacharis is a particularly sensitive species (known to be sensitive to high temperature, trace copper, formaldehyde etc.). It is also sensitive to Flourish Excel. If you have Anacharis in an aquarium in which you are dosing Flourish Excel we recommend using Flourish Excel every other day rathter than daily._

I only know this because what you described is exactly how my anacharis did when I was dosing Excel -- and I was only dosing it once a week! :lol: I quit using the Excel and now my anacharis grows like crazy.


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## PunkinOfSteel (Aug 24, 2013)

Okay cool, I actually haven't added any CO2 since Thursday and I just did a 40% water change a few hours ago, so hopefully that's all in order.

My water temperature is at 76 degrees, I have an adjustable heater and that's the temp I keep it set at, my thermometer (not the one attached to the heater) on the other side of the tank says the same temp. 

I actually bought them to have them as floating plants, but with how quickly they died the first time when i just let them hang around i'm trying planted this time around. 


I got my initial information from this page: http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=768+780&pcatid=780

But have researched it a few other times over as well and it seems like I've just got bad luck with this plant. I'm determined, I really want to do this right.


edit
Bounce, thank you very much for that information! That's gotta be the problem. I've only ever had issues with Seachem, I know some people love them but when I first started using it awhile back i got extreme algae within days- and my plants didn't seem to care much for it either. But every other site i've gone onto they have told me to use it and dump the API because Seachem is supposed to be amazing. I think i'll go back to just API, I love their products.


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## Aluka (Dec 25, 2012)

there is a few plants that is sensitive to excel, but its great for the other ones.

I has no idea that they are suspose to be sensitive... i have a few stems of them in a bowl for the last 3 weeks. looks great =/ no light or anything either...


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## Bounce (May 26, 2012)

Aluka said:


> there is a few plants that is sensitive to excel, but its great for the other ones.


True. Vallisneria is another one I found that did not do well with Excel. 

I like Seachem Flourish Comprehensive and Excel, it's just that some plants can't tolerate Excel.


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