Care Of Bolbitis Heudelotii

My Bolbitis heudelotii is looking a little sorry for itself (older leaves have gone dark rusty brown). I suspect it is suffering nutrient deficiency (either phosphate or nitrate), but I was wondering whether anyone else has had / cured this? And if so, how?

I have some and I think Sue does as well...  mine is quite new to the tank but seems to be doing ok... remind me what ferts you are dosing @Helen ?

I do have it, and it does well in both my tanks. I do find odd leaves become detached between water changes but never more that 2 at most per week, usually one of none. I find tiny clumps floating in the water. The leaves on my plants are dark green, even the detached ones.

I have a large clump in my 180 litre and a small clump in the betta's tank, which has never grown as well as the one in the big tank possibly due to less NPK because the small tank has only one fish. (N from fish waste and P and K from fish food)
The big clump in the big tank is under the water sprite so it doesn't get the full effect of the lights. Before the water sprite grew, it did suffer from BBA on the leaves.
I have GH 5, KH 3 and pH around 7.4 in the tank. And too many fish for the tank. I feed the tank with Seachem Flourish (the trace mineral one) once a week, if I remember, at half the stated dose. I do not use carbon, either gas or in liquid form. Though all the fish, and their waste decompsing in the substrate will produce a lot of CO2.
The other plants, apart from the water sprite, are all slow growing - java fern, anubias and bucephalandra - so they won't out-compete the bolbitis for food, though I also have hornwort which is now taking over on the surface.


I know Helen is slowly increasing the fish stock, so the NPK in that tank won't be as high as in mine.
What fertiliser do you use? And at full dose or less? Since mine grows well at very low fertiliser dose and no added carbon, it may well be a plant that thrives in a low food environment 

The CC gives me as 88% stocked, and since I consider the CC to be over-generous, I consider 88% to be over stocked  That % is not helped by the fact that some of my fish species aren't in the profiles so I've had to substitute with others in the CC. I have looked at aqadvisor and they don't have all my fish either. Stiphodons and rice fish are missing from both.
The betta's tank (when I have a betta in there) is 19% stocked according to the CC and the Bolbitis does not grow nearly as prolifically in that tank.

I feed a piece of algae wafer (not a whole one) for the stiphodons, a few New Life Spectrum 0.5 mm pellets and Omega One freshwater flakes on most days with frozen food once a week.

The % is based on water volume and standard internal. I do have 2 filters but both of them combined don''t make oversized. Besides which, I don't believe that increasing filtration increases the amount of fish a tank will hold, it just increases water flow.
I only feed the fish once a day, about an hour after the lights come on, except water change day when I feed them after the water change - that's the day they get frozen food.

After reading your comments in your other thread, maybe adding some NPK would help.




I seem to have found by trial and error which plants do well in my tank and which won't survive at all. I have no idea why these plants survive while others don't. I have have lush hornwort, and someone on another forum tells people never to get hornwort as all it does is drop leaves everywhere. My java fern loses more leaves that my hornwort!

Mine is attached to a piece of wood no more than 3 inches high, and it is under the water sprite/hornwort tangle. It is the windelov variety rather than the standard form. I've never had any problems with the standard type; I do wonder if windelov is not as robust.
I got rid of all my standard java fern because windelov is so much prettier and I'm beginning to wonder if that was a mistake.