Hornwort = BAD!

ina1032

ina1032

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Jun 12, 2008
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I will NEVER EVER buy hornwort again. I'll admit, the kid @ Petland told me it would shed, so I was warned....but I didn't realize it would shed THAT bad! I got a good 4 or 5 bunches and threw them in my tank. Within a day, BOTH of my filter intakes were completely covered in the plant sheddings. Within a couple weeks, the plant has started to turn brown, even though I put Fluorish in it and keep the lights on as much as I can. Needless to say, it took me awhile to get it out of my tank (much to the chagrin of my shrimp, I'm sure) and net as much of the floating "leaves". NEVER again!!! :mad2:
 
if you let it float, it sheds A LOT less

imo hornwort is the indestructible plant. i cant kill the stuff. ive had it turn white, get covered in hair algae and pruned it back to a 1" nub. the stuff always comes back within a couple of weeks. the stuff i have now is the remains of the stuff i bought over a year ago for my ten gallon tank. it had been pruned to a 1" thanks to hair algae and now (about a month since the pruning) its over 4 feet long.

i use flourish and i dont have any problems with it, but i tend to underdose
 
I had it floating in a 75g along with a piece of driftwood (going on 2 months now and it still hasn't sunk!) If anything I probably undernourished it too with the ferts because I ran out. Embarassingly enough, I don't currently know what my wpg is...but I'm guessing maybe not enough? I use 2 "standard" bulbs, you know the kind that come in a "kit" you might buy @ Walmart.
Even though I was completely DISGUSTED by the stuff, I didn't throw it out (except for the furries that were floating about), I just moved it to my 10hex, but not currently using any light (little bulb burned out apparently). It's still causing a mess in that tank, I already netted out a big old clump of furries off the filter intake. The filter flow is VERY VERY low (barely noticeable) so it's not really getting disturbed by the water flow.
 
Temps are running a little higher than I'd like (upper 70's), but if I make it any colder in the house, I'll have to wear a parka and snow boots, lol. It'll prolly be my luck that the stuff will flourish and green up while it sits in an unoccupied 10g tank o' water in the dark. I just can't get the stuff to STOP shedding! GAH!! Good thing it was cheap.
 
Do you also use Excel? If so, that will cause hornwort to come apart and die over time.

Also, hornwort does really well with a high KH because it is one of the plants that can use calcium carbonate as its carbon source by splitting the molocules.
 
No, I'm not that schooled in the fertilizer section, only one I've ever used is Fluourish. Can it go bad over time? I noticed the bottle I just finished off had a pungent smell and the liquid was more brown than normal.
I haven't had the plant very long, maybe a couple weeks?
 
ina1032 said:
I will NEVER EVER buy hornwort again. I'll admit, the kid @ Petland told me it would shed, so I was warned....but I didn't realize it would shed THAT bad! I got a good 4 or 5 bunches and threw them in my tank. Within a day, BOTH of my filter intakes were completely covered in the plant sheddings. Within a couple weeks, the plant has started to turn brown, even though I put Fluorish in it and keep the lights on as much as I can. Needless to say, it took me awhile to get it out of my tank (much to the chagrin of my shrimp, I'm sure) and net as much of the floating "leaves". NEVER again!!! :mad2:
Click to expand...

I never had any luck with it either. I have only had a few plants, but that is the only one i tried and threw out.
 
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