Question about my cabomba...

[Matt in Houston]

I bought several bunches of 6"-8" tall cabomba recently and planted them in my tank which has a substrate of Flourite with black pearl (small sized) gravel on top. They took off growing like crazy... two are almost to the top of my 25" tank.

My only problem is that there seems to be a lot of melting/rubbish at the base of these plants, but the debris seems to be at the base only. I will need to vac it up soon but I'm thinking about just pulling it all out to replace with some lower maintenance plant. I wonder would it help to just trim the leaves near the base, maybe the light is having trouble getting that deep?

Also the tips of the plants are yellow as they grow upward, then green out over the next day or so...is that normal?

As for me, I'm thinking I dont have enough light for these plants to grow properly, but they have grown very tall in just a couple of weeks. I have two Day-Glo 24" T5 HO 48watt fixtures on each side of my 5ft tank...the lighted area is about 20 X 13 X 25 tall. Bulbs are the 6700k Life-Glo.

[lachupacabra]

for the melting at the base of the plant you can cut off that part with scissors and replant the top (good) part in the gravel again. I don't know the answers to your other questions but usually when plants turn yellow its a sign of defficiency. I'm no pro at telling what kind though.

[Navarro]

If the plants are growing; the light is enough, not ideal but enough most Cabombas doesn't like water above 77 F so keep that in mind yellow means chlorosis or lack of Fe usually but the fact they are melting at the bottom could be a Po4 deficiency.
How tall is your tank and what else is in it? Do you use co2? Is your substrate plain gravel or something else? What type of fish do you keep in this aquarium?
Cheers,
Luis

[Matt in Houston]

Thanks for the reply but I decided to yank them out last week and replaced them with two large amazon swords. My tank is 25" tall and temps are 80 F.

Swords seem to grow well in my tank....I have Argentine, Amazon, and Ozelots and they are all doing great. Its a SA tank with rummy nose, cards, black neons, blue rams, silver hachets. Only planted on the ends, the middle is shady and shows three big pieces of driftwood full of caves and hiding places.

[Navarro]

You made a good choice, Echinodorus can tolerate higher temperatures much better than stem plants, try incorporating chain sword there are some like E spp. "Xingu" than can add contrast to the dark colors of the larger Amazon swords.
Cheers,
Luis