Trumpet snails - kill or not?

[lexjae]

I have a 60g fully cycled tank with 5 discus, 1 loach, 3 plecos.
PH 6.5, 86 degrees

My Anubias is not dying and it looks so ugly.
Some people say trumpet snails eat the plant.

Do you think it's snails?

TIA

Justin

[Wahter]

I have a 60g fully cycled tank with 5 discus, 1 loach, 3 plecos.
PH 6.5, 86 degrees

My Anubias is not dying and it looks so ugly.
Some people say trumpet snails eat the plant.

Do you think it's snails?

TIA

Justin

Your Anubias is not dying and looks so ugly?

No, I don't think trumpet snails are eating the Anubias - maybe going through dead portions of the plant, but not attacking and killing live portions. Who is giving you that advice - did they have trumpet snails eating live Anubias? I've kept plenty of Anubias plants with trumpet snails without any issues for years.

You didn't mention other things:

Are the rhizomes planted in gravel (a common mistake)?

What is the general hardness of the water? (if tied down, Anubias will need to extract the nutrients from the water column)

How much lighting do you have? (although they are tough, Anubias will still need at least some lighting). For instance, a 15 watt normal fluorescent over a 29 gallon tank probably isn't going to work.

Which Anubias do you have? Anubias pynaertii is definitely one Anubias which does better when grow emersed/ emerged. Most of the other barteri species do well submerged.

HTH,



Walter

[lexjae]

Your Anubias is not dying and looks so ugly?

No, I don't think trumpet snails are eating the Anubias - maybe going through dead portions of the plant, but not attacking and killing live portions. Who is giving you that advice - did they have trumpet snails eating live Anubias? I've kept plenty of Anubias plants with trumpet snails without any issues for years.

You didn't mention other things:

Are the rhizomes planted in gravel (a common mistake)?

What is the general hardness of the water? (if tied down, Anubias will need to extract the nutrients from the water column)

How much lighting do you have? (although they are tough, Anubias will still need at least some lighting). For instance, a 15 watt normal fluorescent over a 29 gallon tank probably isn't going to work.

Which Anubias do you have? Anubias pynaertii is definitely one Anubias which does better when grow emersed/ emerged. Most of the other barteri species do well submerged.

HTH,



Walter

Thank you for your reply.
I can't answer most of your questions..:) I am not there yet.

BTW, it's dying. I see holes on the leaves and getting thinner from the edge to the center.

Hardness... I have not checked for a while.
No rhizomes
two regular lighting
it's Anubias 'mother' - seller told me
Not tied.
5 inches gravel
Feed them regularly

Maybe the water temp is too high?

TIA

Justin

[jball1125]

If it is indeed a mother plant then you must have rhizomes and lots of roots. Only the root can be in the gravel, if you have the rhizome in the gravel aswell then it will die. I you don't know what some words mean, I suggest you google them so you can answer the questions and we have a better chance at helping you. Pictures will also help...

Take care

[Tito]

I think you have the rhizome in the gravel.

Can you snap a pic for us.

Rhizone in gravel equals dead anubia.

[Wahter]

Thank you for your reply.
I can't answer most of your questions..:) I am not there yet.

BTW, it's dying. I see holes on the leaves and getting thinner from the edge to the center.

Hardness... I have not checked for a while.
No rhizomes
two regular lighting
it's Anubias 'mother' - seller told me
Not tied.
5 inches gravel
Feed them regularly

Maybe the water temp is too high?

TIA

Justin

Okay, let's help you out a bit and shed some light on this.

ALL Anubias plants have a rhizome.

Wikipedia defines it as:

"In botany, a rhizome (from Greek: ῥίζωμα, rhizoma, "root-stalk") is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes may also be referred to as creeping rootstalks, or rootstocks."

Here's an image of an Anubias plant from http://www.tropica.com (BTW, I would highly recommend that you read up some more about keeping aquarium plants, or else it could put a hole in your wallet if you keep buying more Anubias motherplants). I've circled in red the rhizome of the Anubias. You do NOT bury this part of the Anubias plant into the gravel.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=57403&stc=1&d=1278536138

You can bury the roots OR tie the rhizome onto some rocks or driftwood. Or if you have some smaller rocks you can use them to hold the roots down. The folks at Tropica give some pointers here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44cDbR2YvK4

What is the wattage of the lights ("regular lighting" isn't saying much other than you're not using Compact Fluorescent nor LED nor T5 nor VHO lights)?

"Feed them regularly" - can you be more specific? Feeding them with what and how often? For instance, "I dose 5 ml of Tropica's Plant Nutrition each week, plus I use 5ml of Seachem's Flourish Excel once a week". A lot of times people just pour in fertilizers without figuring out what is wrong with the plant and then they end up with an algae mess.

Keeping live aquarium plants isn't always a simple easy thing to do (that's why not everyone does it), but once you satisfy the requirement of the plants, they aren't hard to maintain.

I'd recommend that you check out some of the information on Tropica's website.

http://www.tropica.com/advising/tropica-abc.aspx

I'd also suggest that you ask around and talk with people who are in your area who are already keeping aquarium plants to find out what they do. For instance, if you lived in an area where there's copper in the water, that definitely limit your selection of plants to those which are not copper sensitive. If you want to keep some of the deep red stem plants like Rotala macrandra, chances are you'll need to upgrade your lighting and add CO2.

Hope that helps,


Walter