What sort of deficiency?

**mandz** · 18th Jan 2004, 23:39

Hi, can anyone help me identify what sort of deficiency leads to this? this is the crown of my ludwigia inclinata. it seems like the leaves are burnt at the edges and are slowly turning transparent.

the burnt edges are also evident on my tonina sps....

i'm not able to identify the deficiency through the tables from chuck.

pictures are in here...

http://www.arofanatics.com/forums/sh...hreadid=107075

**Sleepy_lancs** · 18th Jan 2004, 23:53

Can't see your pics. But are you dosing alot of Potassium? If you are, are you adding Mg and Ca too?

**mandz** · 19th Jan 2004, 00:17

[quote:493ad3fb2f="Sleepy_lancs"]Can't see your pics. But are you dosing alot of Potassium? If you are, are you adding Mg and Ca too?[/quote:493ad3fb2f]

i've only started the fert regime today as this is a new tank. i've not dosed anything for the past week. my pH is 6.8 and my kh is 4

could this have been attributed to high temp? my tank has been about 29 to 30 degrees before i installed fans today. could this be the cause instead of nutrient deficiency?

**Simon** · 19th Jan 2004, 00:41

it looks more like dying then burnt.. I only experience this when I had the plant under shade and a low light situation. Under a MH, it revived.

**juggler** · 19th Jan 2004, 01:29

[quote:a7e341f7ad="mandz"][quote:a7e341f7ad="Sleepy_lancs"]Can't see your pics. But are you dosing alot of Potassium? If you are, are you adding Mg and Ca too?[/quote:a7e341f7ad]

i've only started the fert regime today as this is a new tank. i've not dosed anything for the past week. my pH is 6.8 and my kh is 4

could this have been attributed to high temp? my tank has been about 29 to 30 degrees before i installed fans today. could this be the cause instead of nutrient deficiency?[/quote:a7e341f7ad]

What about your previous dosing regime? Some nutrients could still be in excess that can trigger this.
Just a guess -- What about base fert turning "bad"? I saw some other plants you have are tied to driftwood. And so probably not affected.
Maybe just let the plant float to see if it can recover.

**mandz** · 19th Jan 2004, 07:36

Simon, the plants are well away from the shades

juggler, what do you mean by the base fert turning bad? there are no plants tied to the driftwood in the tank. i held the crown of the ludwigia inclinata in another tank to take the pics.

this is kind of a new setup so there are no previous dosing of ferts. this setup is the one that i'm using the coco peat + Sera base fert as the base.

from this deficency table, http://home.ptd.net/~jdietsch/defici~1.html
could it be a bad case of macro deficency? the description seems to tally with lack of NPK...

oh, my other rooted plants like my rotala mac 'var' and 'narrow leaf' , lobelia are all showing good growth with new shoots.

btw, i've updated the links to the pictures...
http://www.arofanatics.com/forums/sh...hreadid=107075

[/url]

**PeterGwee** · 19th Jan 2004, 09:07

There are ways to go about troubleshooting for your problem but personally I would do the shotgun method. Prune away those unhealthy growth and then do a large 50% water change before dosing back the N, P, K, traces and if necessary the GH (Try to keep a ratio of 3:1..Ca:Mg) while making darn sure the CO2 is in good range during the entire photoperiod (20-30ppm...error to the 30ppm side). Guess another 1-2 more dose mid week or so to prevent the nutrients from running out while the large water change should prevent things from building up to excessive levels.

But if you wish to troubleshoot, go down this path:

Light: (Do you have enough? 2-3W/gallon is about most what folks need. You do not need loads of light to grow plants or to achieve reds. Having more light would mean more dosing and tricky to get reds without killing the plants as the uptake is pretty fast.)

CO2: Do you have enough? Make sure the CO2 is good before blaming the nutrients. 20-30ppm is a good range to target for.

NO3: 5-10ppm (Higher NO3 for more growth and lower for reds. Try to keep things on the greener side would prevent any possible chance of killing the plants.)

K: Estimate for 10-20ppm per week should be more than enough. In fact it is quite in excess as to what plants need.

GH: As long as it is 3 or above, you do not really have to worry about it nor add anything to it.

traces: 5ml per 20 gallons of tank water is about max uptake for plants. Please take note if you are using Lushgro micros...you might need a different dosage as it is more concentrated as compared to commercial traces like TMG or flourish. The contents in the micros seems limited as compared to the commercial traces or perharps Dr Mallick is not showing all the contents...mmmmmmmm...

PO4: 0.5-?ppm (As long as there is enough, you do not have to worry much for this. Just make sure you don't run it too low or else N uptake would slow down excessively.)

Regards
Peter Gwee

**mandz** · 19th Jan 2004, 10:16

Hi peter, thanks for the advice. i'll follow through the steps and see if there's anything amiss.

tried to scrape off the brown stuff on the leaves of the tonina with my nails and it comes off.....

i wonder if it's the brown algae? diatoms?

**Simon** · 19th Jan 2004, 10:34

mandz, I have some under direct light and still melted, especially those at the bottom and the rotala macrandra 'narrow' growing like mad :P

**mandz** · 19th Jan 2004, 11:05

[quote:172296f13a="Simon"]mandz, I have some under direct light and still melted, especially those at the bottom and the rotala macrandra 'narrow' growing like mad :P[/quote:172296f13a]

hi simon, are you suggesting that my lights are insuffucient? currently, i'm having 2.2w/g in my 55 gal.

but strange thing is, these toninas and inclinatas were under exactly the same lighting conditions (if not worse due to aging of the light tubes) in the previous tank and they were are doing very well (i shifted the plants from a lower tier tank to the upper tier tank). thats why i didn't think it was due to the lighting