What is the wattage of your lights?
What plant is affected? What other plants do you have?
BC
need some help, I wanted to know what element is missing from my tank as my plant's new leaves seems to be clear of chlorophyll. I'm dosing K2SO4 3 tspn, MgSO4 1.5 tspn weekly after water change and daily micros from Dr Mallick daily of 70 drops for my 4ft 220L tank
What is the wattage of your lights?
What plant is affected? What other plants do you have?
BC
Likely to be Ca deficient. As mention in Chuck's article.
Too much Mg dosing can affect Ca uptake.
Too much K can affect Mg and Ca uptake.
Here's a good discussion on K, Mg and Ca in Aquabotanic.
koah fong
Juggler's tanks
KF, it seemed inconclusive that K or Mg inhibiting Ca uptake for aquatic plants. Personally, I have doubts that 20-30ppm of K will inhibit Ca uptake. I trying to find a reliable GH kit before I test this out in my tank. BTW, by calculations, I am dosing >30ppm of K on my tank now.
BC
BettaPassion,
By clear of cholorphyll, do you mean yellow or transparent leaves?
Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
I am still observing too.----------------
On 7/8/2003 11:37:20 AM
KF, it seemed inconclusive that K or Mg inhibiting Ca uptake for aquatic plants. Personally, I have doubts that 20-30ppm of K will inhibit Ca uptake. I trying to find a reliable GH kit before I test this out in my tank. BTW, by calculations, I am dosing >30ppm of K on my tank now.
BC
----------------
My gH, coming from coral chips in filter, is about 13 dgH. kH about 3 or 4.
After I started Mg dosing at about 3~5ppm per week, the leaves start to curl and shrivel. Not all plants are affected though. Blyxa and E.diversifolia are OK. But my L.brevipes curled up. MM and E.bleheri started melting. Only a few weeks after I stop Mg that things are beginning to go back to normal.
I have also reduced my 20ppm K to 10ppm weekly.
BC: could it be that you have a lot of Ca in comparison to Mg and K?
koah fong
Juggler's tanks
I dose the old formulation Equilibrium... 7K : 1.6Mg : 1Ca + some K from KNO3.
Total I have 30ppm K from equilibrium + 8ppm K from KNO3.
BC
BC: Thanks for sharing. Let's see what else could be the problem with Adrian's case above.
koah fong
Juggler's tanks
the news leaves does not look so green more like tinted glass sort of look, looks translucent. After 2 wks ago i increase K2SO4 and MgSO4 I saw some light opaque green started to spread outwards from the stem. Then just last week I increase dose by 1 tspn but the signs seems to stop, I also drop in a CaCO3 600mg tablet cause I also have curled up leaves problem.----------------
On 7/8/2003 11:58:13 AM
BettaPassion,
By clear of cholorphyll, do you mean yellow or transparent leaves?
----------------
Bettapassion, what is your lighting level? What plants are showing signs of the problem?
Do you have NO3 and PO4 readings?
BC
He seems to be dosing extra K, Ca, Mg but what if the Fe and other traces ran out mid-week?
My MMs gave me small yellowish, wrinkled leaves that fall off prematurely a few months ago. Tried Calcium Nitrate but didn't do me any good (I have low NO3 and many people attribute wrinkled new growth of low Ca).
Only until I dosed extra traces did the problem went away. Apparently, it takes 3-4x the recommended dose of Flourish to give a decent level of Fe (0.15-0.25ppm? need to go home to check my spreadsheet).
ThEoDoRe
"daily micros from Dr Mallick daily of 70 drops for my 4ft 220L tank"
Correct me if I am wrong, shouldn't the recommended dosage be 1 drop per 100 litres because of the high concentration of the product?
----------------
On 7/8/2003 11:13:17 AM
need some help, I wanted to know what element is missing from my tank as my plant's new leaves seems to be clear of chlorophyll. I'm dosing K2SO4 3 tspn, MgSO4 1.5 tspn weekly after water change and daily micros from Dr Mallick daily of 70 drops for my 4ft 220L tank
----------------
You tank is probably lacking in NO3. I am also certain that you will have BBA soon.
70 drops of Aqua to 220L is only giving 0.5ppm of NO3, 0.8ppm of K and very little TE (0.003ppm of Fe). That amounts to only 3.5ppm of NO3 per week. Far too low. For 220L, dose about 100~110ml of Aqua per week after 50% water change. Stop your MgSO4 and K2SO4 dosing. K and Mg is taken care by the 100~110ml of Aqua. You may want to add some PO4 too, 1ppm/week in 2 dose.
If that don't work, I buy you kopi.
Oops! Did you say new leaf? Was that Micro? Forget about what I said earlier. Sorry, didn't read your post properly. My fault, owe you 1 kopi.
Need to know what plant is turning pale. Is it Lobelia? Had the same problem with Lobelia but added 5ppm of Ca with CaCO3 tablet, at the same time lowered Mg and the problem went away.
Hey Geoffrey,
I have the same problem but with exsisting leaves on my newly bought plants. Does that mean that the previous advise might be applicable to me?? My glosso and E. Bleheri are beggining to show 'fading' leaves... I tried keeping the lights on for 12-14 hours but its not helping.. HOW??
Thanks.
I have the same problem with juggler. My brevipes new leaves curve up after i dose potassium so i reduce and put in calcium now better .
I had the same problem Limnophila aromatica and eusteralis stelata are the first to be affected by it (white curled new leaves) it is an inability to absorb Ca in new leaves caused by K toxicity.
I am using aquarium landscapes test for K and realised that I had huge amounts, 30 ppm and upwards with the addition of 17 ppm weekly K from both KNO3, K2SO4. This proves that K is not consumed, I would target for no more than 5 ppm K in the water this days And would add just traces of Mg just to be on the safe side. By the way aromatica is really responsive to K reduction concerning new growth.
Bettapassion, if your GH is 3 or above, the notion of calcium deficiency is really rare. Low CO2 or NO3 comes to mind....I did get some crumpled leaves on some plant stalks recently but my wallichi is dark orange and near to red which points to a possibility of low nitrate despite me adding 1/8 tsp of KNO3 3X a week to my 14gallons of tank water blasted with 72W of light ...I don't trust my NO3 test kit as the result are inconsistent and shocking at times. It registered some high values while my wallichi is dark orange in colour and my cories spawned!!! Unless you use a solid test kit like the one from lamotte or NO3 specific ion meter, I would not jump to a conclusion of a Ca deficiency so fast...it can happen but you would need the truth rather than hold back the plants. CO2 and NO3 are the two biggest things to watch out for first and double check if problems arises..
Plant Physiology by Taiz and Zeiger
Bettapassion, your tank is probably suffering from some macro nutrients deficiency. Not an easy game to guess...----------------
On 7/8/2003 2:23:03 PM
Bettapassion, what is your lighting level? What plants are showing signs of the problem?
Do you have NO3 and PO4 readings?
BC
----------------
To help yourself, it's better to provide us with whatever information about your tank, as asked by BC. Better if you can take time to fill up the "Newbie Planted Tank" questions.
Either do that for a more conclusive solution, or solved it using Tom Barr's estimative dosing method.
So far, I've upped my K to 30ppm for several weeks. Sometimes more depending on my KNO3 dosing. No sign of deformity found. Still like to keep that level since new growth seems to look better.
If existing or older leaves at the bottom of the plant are pale, it is usually associated with the lack of mobile/macro nutrients. In most cases NO3. K limiting exhibits a different symptoms; you get spots of necrosis. Furthermore, most people here are very generous with their Mg and K, hence very unlikely these two elements. On the contrary, most people tends to limit NO3 and PO4 for fear of algae. Attributing PO4 and NO3 to algae would only be pedantic.----------------
On 7/8/2003 7:03:04 PM
Hey Geoffrey,
I have the same problem but with exsisting leaves on my newly bought plants. Does that mean that the previous advise might be applicable to me?? My glosso and E. Bleheri are beggining to show 'fading' leaves... I tried keeping the lights on for 12-14 hours but its not helping.. HOW??
Thanks.
----------------
Your lights on duration may be too long if you have strong light and may want to shorten it. Keeping your light stronger and longer will only accelerate the uptake of nutrients (now limited), thence aggravate the situation. Very importantly, ensure your CO2 level is okay and go by the dosing above for a couple of weeks and you will most likely see improvement.
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