On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 12:40:23 -0800, "Daniel Morrow"
wrote:

Bottom posted.
Richard Sexton wrote:
In article ,
Daniel Morrow wrote:
I have a ton of hornwort growing in one of my tanks (the silver
dollars, 1 angel fish, a couple white cloud mountain minnows, and a
ton of fancy guppies) and have noticed female guppies and a couple
of male fancy guppies possibly getting stuck in the mass of
hornwort. I haven't actually witnessed any thing except for the
occasional fancy guppy death which I previously attributed to other
causes. Is it possible that any of my fish are getting caught in the
hornwort and that that causes them to die (starvation?)?

No.

Should I just rip out a chunk of the hornwort once in a while and
throw it out in the trash afterward (the hornwort dies off in my
other tanks and I don't know why and if I keep adding the spare
hornwort I am afraid of water pollution from doing that as the
plants would die off in the other tanks and cause excessive
dissolved organic compounds and who knows what else)?

Hornwort dies when it runs out of food or light, athough it doesn't
need much light. Add some aquatic plant fertilizer containing nitrate.

Thanks Altum, dc, koi-lo and richard sexton! I am going to rip a bunch out
from time to time so at the very least my silver dollars and soon to be
physically mature angelfish can swim around decently, and it might help the
fancy guppies to keep them from getting stuck (just in case only as the
consensus here seems to be that fish will always be able to find their way
out of the mass of hornwort) and I will put the ripped out hornwort in the
compost pile. Thanks all - and I think you are probably right koi-lo, the
guppies might be taxing their environment here by over breeding. My water
quality isn't perfect nowadays probably because of overcrowding of the fish
thanks to the fancy guppies breeding so much (but that shouldn't happen for
much longer as from what I have read on the web angelfish are excellent
guppy fry eaters and my angelfish will most likely be big enough to help
with that soon I think I hope). Nitrite is borderline and nitrate is way too
high. Every other parameter is fine except for maybe the ph being at 6.5.
Ripping out the hornwort should cause more to grow and thus more nitrate to
be removed in the process. Thanks again - good luck and later!

The compost heap! Too bad. It's great to have a little on hand for a
quick water cleaner upper. I should have you send me some before it
gets added to the list of banned plants in my state. It seems to have
those qualities most likely to get it blacklisted soon.

-- Mister Gardener