Water Sprite

Question
QUESTION: I have what I'm almost positively sure of is watersprite in quite a few of my aquariums.  I started with just one, but it has grown tremendously and I have taken a lot of the newly produced plants and put them in other fish tanks.  

I have florescent lights on all of my tanks, good water temps (between 76-83 degrees F)and 192 watts on my 40 gallon breeder.  I don't fertilize.  I have them in a sand substrate.  My question is, why are the leaves turning gold then to brown.  It almost looks like there is algae on it.  I've tried to wash a few off in water.  It seems to clean up, but the leaves are still goldish.  The leaves are very delicate as well and break off easily when washed.  I leave my lamps on for a good portion of the day, between 10-16 hours a day I believe.  Snails have been eating the leaves a lot, not cleaning, but actually eating them.

I have a 40 gal breeder with an HOB with a betta, many guppies, mollies, 2 khuli laoches, 1 CAE and snails, has been set up for about a year or 2.  Has had sand for the past year along with plants.  It also has an amazon sword growing quite nicely since I put the 192 watt light on.  Nice tall long leaves.  

I have a two 10 gallons both with sponge filters, one contains 3 rainbowfish juvies and 2 guppy juvies  with 2 snails, the other has quite a few convict juvies (their plants are the worst mostly brown)both have been set up for at least 2 mos

I have a 5 gallon with an HOB and one betta.  It has only been set up for about 2 weeks.  It also has a small amazon sword, and the new leaf that is coming up is yellow.  

The fronds come up bright green until they reach their full length and a new frond starts to develop.  Then it starts to lose its green.  

I'm curious to know what might be causing this.  Is it low light, too much light, lack of nutrients, or what?  And in my betta tank, why is the sword not doing so well?  May it need more light?  I'm not sure the wattage of the bulb because I just bought the fixture at a LFS and it came with the bulb.  I'd appreciate your thoughts and opinions.
Thank you
Jill


ANSWER: Hi Jill:  If you do have algae growing on the plant leaves the leaves will die much as you have described.  The algae blocks light that your plants need to produce chlorophyll.  In the newer tanks there is probably not enough nutrients to feed the plants so you will need to fertilize those tanks.  With the sword plant... if its a red sword or has reddish leaves it will need to have higher light requirements then the green variety.  Also with broad leaf plants they tend to collect extra fish food, etc. on the leaves which can also block the light they need and they turn brown and die.  Plants need specific light from the spectrim so you will need either a full spectrum bulb or a plant bulb to provide your plants with the proper light sources.  The tank with the convicts in it may very well be suffering from the nibbling fish.  Also convicts love to dig... and they disturb the root structures and will eat roots, leaves, etc.  Plants probably need only about nine hours of light per day right now.  So you can reduce some of your lights and see if that helps.  Replacing the bulbs with plant specific bulbs will help too.  For snails... they love to eat... so if you have snails you can consider a loach such as the khuli or even a clown loach to eat the snails.  Just be warned that some loach will eat your plants too.  The bigger loach such as the Dojo can also disrupt and unearth the your plants... I hope this helps... let me know if you have further questions.  dave

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: How should I go about getting rid of the algae?  
In my 192 watt tank, I have 12k bulbs.  I know that is really high, but they came with the fixture and I was planning on purchasing 6.5k bulbs when the bulb no longer works as well.  I've been feeding my snails more and that's helped them to stop eating the plants, but in the fry tank, the snails 2 mystery snails are rather small and can't find the food quickly enough and it spurred what I think was a planaria outbreak.  It wouldn't hurt my fry, but I wasn't completely sure it was planaria so I decided against it.  I also have vals growing in the 40 gallon growing very quickly.  I planted them 3 weeks ago and there are already 2 new shoots.  I'm pretty sure the algae would be what is causing the dyeing of the water sprite leaves.  It's a brown algae and I've heard that may be hard to get rid of.  I must have spread it to my other tanks by transferring plants.  What would you suggest to do about it?  

Thank you for the quick response, I greatly appreciate it.
Jill

Answer
you could consider an algaecide solution such as algaefix. You could also get a chinese or siamese algae eater as they do not usually bother the plants thought they will eat the algae from the leaves.  reducing the light too will help.  Also... florescent bulbs lose a great deal of their benefit after they are about 6 months old. They may still light up but the benefit to the plants will be greatly diminished... so replace your bulbs every six months.  planairia is not a bad thing... yes worms can be unsightly...but in this case they are benefiting your tank and your fry.  I would try an algae eater rather then chemicals.  I would also try to reduce the light source a bit.  The tanks may also be getting natural light even if it is not direct sunlight... it will help to sprun the algaedave