Weird symptom.

[Sleepy_lancs]

I have a weird symptom in my tank. The Alt Reineckii var Lilacina I have weird new leaves.. its small round. Looks deformed. Hydrophila polysperma is curled new leaves. Hydrocotyle vertleucocephala has new smaller and yellowish leaves. Ludwigia grandolsa also exhibited the same curling leaves.

NO3= 5-10ppm
K = 7.5ppm added weekly
PO4 = 0.5-1ppm added weekly
Ca and Mg supplied by Coral chips

KH = 4 (end of the week)
GH = 9 (enf of the week)

Lights sufficiently bright no worries about that
CO2 more than enough... above 40ppm

I suspected it to be too high K and not enough of Ca/Mg. Any expert can comment on this? All the other plants looks okay.

[PeterGwee]

Since you are sure of your CO2, what kit are you using to measure the NO3? Have you check the kit's accuracy against a standard solution? If you are dosing enough of KNO3, you definitely do not need to dose K2SO4 for the additional K unless your NO3 is pretty high. For every 1ppm of NO3 dosed from KNO3, you are getting 3ppm of K which is already in excess. Be critical about things one at a time and don't blame the K unless you are dosing well for the rest that is.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Aeon]

http://www.csd.net/%7Ecgadd/aqua/art_plant_nutrient.htm

This might help you.

[Sleepy_lancs]

[quote:03a873c50b="PeterGwee"]Since you are sure of your CO2, what kit are you using to measure the NO3? Have you check the kit's accuracy against a standard solution? If you are dosing enough of KNO3, you definitely do not need to dose K2SO4 for the additional K unless your NO3 is pretty high. For every 1ppm of NO3 dosed from KNO3, you are getting 3ppm of K which is already in excess. Be critical about things one at a time and don't blame the K unless you are dosing well for the rest that is.

Regards
Peter Gwee [/quote:03a873c50b]

Heheh. Now thats good. I have the following data and they are dose 2x weekly:

16.25 ml of KNO3 @ 0.23 ppm of NO3 getting 7.475ppm weekly
and K@ 0.14 ppm getting 4.550ppm weekly

30.25 ml of K2SO4 @ 0.09 ppm of K getting 5.445 weekly (oops made an error in first post)

1.5 ml of KH2PO4 @ 0.26 ppm of P04 getting 0.78ppm weekly

9 ml of Fe @ 0.024 getting 0.432 ppm weekly

Therefore weekly dosage will be:

NO3 = 7.475ppm
K = 9.995ppm
PO4 = 0.78 ppm
Fe = 0.432 ppm

Test Kit is from AP. Not expired. Verified with sera. Concluded around 5-10ppm at the end of the week.

I hope this helps.

Aeon,
I have gone through that doc. I am to verify my finding now Thanks.

[PeterGwee]

What kind of stuff are you dosing for the Fe? Only Fe? No other forms of traces? 9ml is too little if you are mentioning about the 4ft tank you are having. Even the 3 footer might be a also too low with the current dosage for traces. Just a rough value for both 3ft and 4ft tanks...10ml 2-3x per week (3ft) and 15ml 2-3x per week (4ft) depending on plant load and lighting over the tanks. Do not use Fe as a guide for dosing traces..it just ain't accurate at all. The amount of PO4 is also too low...try 1ppm 2x per week instead of once. Overall, you need to verify that your NO3 kit you are using is accurate enough or not. I posted an article written by Tom Barr from APD on how to verify if your current kit is close enough or not in the FAQ section. You might want to look into it. NO3 is a critical nutrient and can cause loads of problems if too low or unavailable to plants. Make sure of that and you can go on to nutrients like traces and PO4 which are less critical.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[geoffrey]

For every 1ppm of NO3 dosed from KNO3, you are getting 3ppm of K which is already in excess.

I think it's circa 8ppm of KNO3 gives 5ppm of NO3 and 3ppm of K. Or 1ppm of N (not NO3) comes with 3ppm of K.

[juggler]

Sleepy_lancs:

The parameters look good to me. Since you have enough lights and CO2, can try more PO4. Weekly, I dose 2 x 0.75ppm PO4, 10ppm K. NO3 is from overfeeding of fish. Not dosed or measured.
BTW - the coral chips you got are the chunky ones or those with crush shells? I found that the latter is better and has more of Ca and Mg.
Wonder if you still add baking soda for the kH or got it from the coral chips?

[PeterGwee]

I think it's circa 8ppm of KNO3 gives 5ppm of NO3 and 3ppm of K. Or 1ppm of N (not NO3) comes with 3ppm of K.

Oops...my fault. Wrong info. It should be like this...

Looking at a mass balance of N/K+ ratios, __most/many__ plants have about 1.5 :1 ratios of N:K(Epstien 1972).

Now take into account the O3 part of NO3 and to get elemental N and you suddenly find you have plenty of K+ for plant growth.
So 1.5/4.4= .34 N's for every K+ you add.

So you should theoretically have 3x as much K as you need relative to N x the 1.5/1 ratio = 4.5x as much K+ relative to N per dose.

Info from Thomas Barr

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Sleepy_lancs]

Hi Guys

Thanks for the responses. Okay lets go through it person by person:

PeterGwee,
I am using Dr Mallick's Rexolin APN.
I don't think am so into ensuring NO3 test kit is accurate or not. I don't mind give and take that there is a possible chance of 5ppm difference.

Geoffrey,
Erm.. don't think you were referring to me? Or am I lost? :P

Juggler,
I am using crush shells. About 6-8 pieces. quite small amount. Used to have about palm size amount but most took it out fearing of too high KH. NO3 cannot go any higher. in fact I reduced the dosage to about 5ppm per week because I constantly get green water attack. I don't add baking soda I rely on the coral chips. Feed my fishes 2 times daily. And I think they don't finish all the food anyway. hmm.. 0.75 ppm of PO4 2x.. would mean weekly its 1.5ppm Wow!!!

To all,
Did I mentioned that my tank now seems to have hair algae growing again *Scroll back* OOopppss.. I really forgot to say.

So my conclusion drawn as the above is to:
1. Increase my PO4.
2. Increase my NO3??
3. Should I increase the coral shells in my tank?

[geoffrey]

Sleepy,

My algae are slowing down significantly this week after resuming back to my normal dosing plus weekly water change for the moment (took a long time to rid them!!). You may want to consider dosing more N and P into your tank. You have good lightings and CO2, chances are most macros are depleted quickly without us knowing. Now, your fishload is not exactly high compared to Juggler. And you should see how generous Juggler feeds his fishes!

[juggler]

Follow up from Geoffrey's suggestion.... try more coral chips if N and P don't solve the problem. For my 160L and 210L tanks, I have a fistful of those crush shells in the filter compartment.

[Sleepy_lancs]

Sounds good to me. But what about the constant green water?? what should I do?

[geoffrey]

Do a blackout. Get rid of existing algae in whatever form they manifest themselves otherwise whatever correction your make is futile.