Help with frogbit?

Recently I got a single plant of frogbit for my betta tank. It is growing like mad putting out new plantlets, but as soon as I put the plant in, the older leaves started to rot away.

I know that it is normal for many aquatic plants to shed their old leaves when you move them to a new environment, but the problem is this - as fast as new leaves and offshoots are growing, the older leaves are rotting away. It's not getting a chance to spread, because as soon as a new leaf pops up, an old one goes! Each leaf is lasting barely a couple of days.

I'm worried that if this continues, the ammonia levels will creep up as the plants decay.

Is there anything I can do, or can anyone suggest why it is happening?

My levels are ammonia 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm, nitrate 5pp, pH7.2, sometimes creeping up to 7.6 as my mopani root is still leaching a few alkaline tannins, I control this with water changes. Temp was 27.5C, I have lowered it to 26C over a couple of days to see if this slowed down the plant decay. Lighting is an 11w tropical lamp, the frogbit is about 10cm beneath it. Liquid fertiliser was added last week, and all other plants in the tank are doing well, even a red-pigmented one.

No one actually replied to this post!

I know! The problem has subsided somewhat... I think it might have just been taking a while to get used to my water, I have no idea in what conditions it was grown so maybe the plant was in shock or something.

It's now growing and reproducing fine, I have about ten plants which have branched off the original one. Still though, the leaves get to a certain size, about the size of a 1p coin, then die off. The leaves on the single plant I bought were about twice the size, maybe something to do with temperature or my very soft water?

Hi KJ.

My frogbit did this for a about a month, and now mine has settled and they don't die off very regularly, maybe the odd leaf every week. Mine have gotten HUGE and have long roots that some almost touch the tank floor. They reproduce fine too, which is handy for my other tanks. I think the plants need a month or so to settle into the water and then they really start sending out their roots. Mine water is always PH 6.5 as I have IAL in all my tanks, the frogbit probably came from tanks with a higher PH. My tanks temps are at around 28oc also.

HTH!

Mine are reproducing in the tank that was Ed's, soon to be cleaned out in preparation for a different boy, but I popped some into Citizen Fish's section of the divided tank and appear to have killed it all!

The roots reached the bottom, so a foot long, and looked a bit ridiculous so I trimmed them back to about 4" to give him more swimming space. I've done this before with no ill effects, but obviously the trimming was a bit harsh this time, especially after just having been moved! The roots all fell off then the leaves disintegrated.

Plenty more where those came from though still a few manky leaves now and then but I think it's because they don't like how my water becomes slightly alkaline over time.