Do plants recover from nutrient deficiencies and how?

[stream]

I'm still learning the fine art of dosing the right amount of NPK/Fe into my tank and the recognition of plant deficiencies. Doing research in this forum and watching Youtube posting helps tremendously. I feel like a doctor to my plants.

My plants' leaves are starting to show sign of chlorosis; old leaves are turning slight yellowish at the edge. I was following the recommended dosage from Seachem and proportionate it to my 28 litres nano tank. Seems like the recommended dosage is far from sufficient in terms of NPK/Fe for my planted tank heavy with stem plants in the background. My AR 'mini' top leaves are showing a bronze color instead of red while the underside of the leaves are showing a fine magenta color. Spending an evening with the "Yet Another Nutrient Calculator" and reading the recommended PPM for these macro nutrients, I have come up with the Seachem dosage I think is suitable for my tank. The plant is to try dry fertilizers soon. One thing I've learned is that the PPM is for weekly dosage and should be divided according to your schedule before weekly water change.

So my question is; do plants recover from nutrient deficiencies and how? Will the leaves that exhibit deficiencies at the early stage recover to be lush green again? Or the plant only recover by sprouting healthy leaves and those affected leaves with deficiencies will wither away?

TIA.

[Shadow]

nope, it will not recover, not that I knew of. One of the reason I use EI dosing, I cannot afford my plant to grow unexpectedly . Old leaf will wither away even though you fixed the deficiency but normally it does not really matter because it will be covered by other plant in front. New growth like distorted leaf, mini/stunt leaf is more irritating . For this case the only way is too trim.

However, I'm not sure if you manage to identify it early, it is not easy to do though.

[Urban Aquaria]

The online nutrient calculators can be used as a point of reference, but the calculators do not know the exact type of plants and the density of plants in the tank... for example, even though EI dosing encourages higher nutrient levels, how can someone with a new tank that only has a few clumps of anubias dose the same amounts of ferts as someone else with an established tank full of dense HC and rotalas?

So it still depends alot on the individual to further adjust the fertilizer dosages to match their own tank setups and plant growth requirements.

If you follow the calculated EI dosages and your plants still show deficiencies, then increase dosing in stages, until the deficiencies stop appearing in new leaves. After a while you will get a feel for how much to dose just from experience.

At the same time, trim away the older leaves that show deficiencies or are melting, as the leaves themselves will not recover from damage anyways. Regular trimming and pruning of deteriorated leaves will allow the plants to re-allocate more resources to growing newer healthier leaves.

Btw, if you are doing EI dosing, its definitely much cheaper to use dry and DIY ferts.... using commercial bottled ferts will end up costing a bomb due to the much higher dosages required by EI dosing regimen.