When dealing with live aquarium plants, hobbyists will often deal with the discouraging sight of their plants “melting” away.
This phenomenon, where plants appear to disintegrate or lose life, is not an uncommon occurrence in the world of aquariums, but it is certainly something that can be remedied, or limited.
Melting can often be fixed by performing regular maintenance, which includes regular water changes, substrate cleaning, and pruning. When first planting you can help reduce melting by being gentle with the roots and avoid overcrowding.
Knowing what you are dealing with is crucial to being able to fix it, so let’s take a deeper look into what plant melting is, and some strategies and techniques to help your plants flourish.
What Is Plant Melting and How to Fix
Plant melt in the aquarium world is the action of plants having their leaves turn a brown, or translucent color, in other words dying back.
There are several reasons your plants may be experiencing melting, and knowing the cause increases your chances greatly in resolving it.
Each of these causes of plant melt will require a different approach, or solution to help limit, reverse the issue, or in some cases realize the natural process of plant melt that is necessary for the growth of your plants.
New Plants and Becoming Established
A common reason your plants are melting, especially with newly planted aquarium plants, is a conversion process taking place.
Most plants in the aquarium trade are grown outside of water, in a humid environment.
Depending on where you source your plants, this conversion process may have already started, but at the very least, it will be finished while in your tank.
Many plants have different leaves when growing emersed (out of water) and submerged (underwater), so during this process, these plants will lose those emersed leaves and grow submerged leaves.
If you are experiencing plant melt with new plants, this is normal, and in most cases, your plants will grow back, and be perfectly fine.
It just becomes a waiting game when the conversion process completes.
If you want to find out when your plants should become established in your tank, read my article here.
Water Parameters and Lack of Nutrients
A big change in water parameters, especially in a short amount of time can cause shock to aquarium plants.
These changes will have the plants attempting to change, wanting to get used to these new parameters, and having their system and roots become restructured to begin taking in nutrients.
During this period of change, the plants will begin to consume their internal resources resulting in the plant melting, or dying back.
If this is a new plant, this will be a normal occurrence as in most cases your home aquarium differs in parameters from the source of your plant.
If these are established plants, consider changing the water to normalize your parameters.
It is important to do periodic water tests to know what your water parameters are and be able to see major changes in them so you can help reduce and fix any plant melt.
Nutrient deficiencies are another way that can cause your plants to begin to melt.
The lack of fertilizer added either in the form of liquid, or root tabs can cause the plants to die back as the tank nutrients are used up in the plant’s growth cycle.
Once a point is reached in the tank where these nutrients are no longer at high enough levels, the plants will begin to consume themselves to survive.
To get an idea of how often you should be fertilizing your aquarium plants, you can read my article here.
Plant Damage
When damaged, or injured the plant is not able to be at its best, as damage to its leaves and roots can limit the amount of nutrient intake, as well as increased levels of energy needed to try to repair itself.
Damage can occur while the plant is still at the grower, during shipment, during the planting process, or even from digging or nipping tank inhabitants.
From this there can be the possibility of plant melt as it tries to reduce the required nutrients and energy outputs, and go into a survival mode as it tries to repair.
Depending on the severity of the damage the plant can recover, or it may not.
If damage has occurred, there are very limited things available to a hobbyist to try to save the plant and time will tell.
If the damage is caused by the tank inhabitants, it may be necessary to remove those inhabitants, or the plants to allow them to recover.
Otherwise, it will greatly depend on how quickly the plant can recover to determine when the melting will stop.
Algae
Algae in itself is not necessarily bad for a tank, but when it becomes unmanageable or comes to a point where it is removing too many nutrients or other requirements from your plants, it can become a problem.
It is important to keep any algae blooms in check, making sure that your plants do not become covered in algae on their leaves.
When plants are covered, they will have the possibility of having nutrient deficiencies, but also having reductions in other necessary resources like light.
While covered light is not able to get to the entire plant, and in turn you may witness the plant begin to melt as it goes into survival mode from these resource reductions.
Be sure to monitor the algae if it begins to encroach on your plants, which can normally be visually seen during your regular maintenance.
Also, be sure to remove any algae that may be growing on the surface of your water as it will have the opportunity to limit light from reaching your plants even though there may not be direct contact.
Other Plant Requirements to Consider to Deal With Plant Melt
CO2 Supplementation
CO2 is a major proponent of plant growth, and when in limited supply, your plants can begin to die back as they reach the point of not having enough.
Many aquarists, especially those that have many plants in their tanks will opt to provide additional CO2 to their aquarium to help with its depletion.
Remember though with adding CO2 that this is only effective when the aquarium lights are on.
Plants will only use the CO2 during the photosynthesis process which requires energy from light, CO2, and water to produce oxygen and the sugars the plants use for growth.
Read my article here, about when and how long you should run CO2 into your aquarium.
Proper Planting Techniques
Root rot from improper planting
In some cases, like with Anubias, if roots are planted too deep into the substrate, rot can set into the root system.
This rot can consume the entire plant if left alone, but the beginning stages will appear to be plant melt.
To prevent this consider planting plants like Anubia on rocks, or wood.
Be sure to also take care of the roots when removing the plant from the container it arrives in.
Damaged roots prevent nutrients from being properly received by the plants, and also lead to root rot which will cause plant melt.
Over Fertilization
Just as a deficiency in nutrients and lack of fertilizers can cause plant melting, too much can be just as detrimental.
Overfertilization can lead to algae blooms and hindrance in plant growth.
It is important to ensure you use a balanced fertilization containing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and trace elements to ensure the nutrients in your tank are balanced.
Final Thoughts
Knowing the possible cause of your plant melting is just as important as knowing how to fix it.
If you have just added your plants, it is important to understand that the plant melting is all part of the natural cycle for plants to become accustomed to their new environments, and for the first few weeks should not be something of a concern.
Many things in the aquarium hobby are fixed, and prevented by active monitoring of the tank.
Performing regular maintenance, checking water parameters, fertilizing your plants, and observing your plants are all ways to help prevent plant melt, as well as finding the cause and then performing the action to resolve it.