My Hemianthus Glomeratus (micranthemoides) in my 2ft tank is melting. The leaves are turning translucent. I'm not sure if it is the weather, plants undergoing transition in my 2 weeks tank, or plant nutrient deficiency. I'm using EI Method of dosing. Could someone who has grown Hemianthus Glomeratus (micranthemoides) successfully please share your experience? My tank parameters and fertilizer dozing regime are:
Tank Dimension: 60x30x36cm (60L or 15.7 US gallon)
Soil: ADA Powder Amazonia Soil (9L)
Filter System: Eheim 2228
Plants: Staurogyne Repens, Pogostemon erectus, Hemianthus Glomeratus, Ludwigia Arcuata, Elatine Triandra, Rotala sp.*Nanjenshan, Mini Fissiden on artificial coral structure, Hydrocotyle Tripartita, Rotala Macrandra Narrow
Light System: Green Element EVO24 (16x3W LED)
Light Period: 6hrs.
CO2 delivery system: ISTA External Turbo CO2 Reactor
CO2 injection rate: 2 bps
Temperature: maintained at 27.5 degree celsius by Cooling Fan
Fauna: None at the moment. The tank is still undergoing cycling. 2 weeks only.
pH Reading: 6.4
kH Reading: 3
GH Reading: 5
NH3/NH4+: 0.5 ppm (mg/L)
Nitrite: 0.1 (mg/L)
Nitrate: 25 (mg/L)
Fertilizer Dosage
EI Method:
KH2PO4: 10 ml on Sun, Tue, Thu
KNO3: 5ml on Sun, Tue, Thu
Seachem Flourish: 2ml on Mon, Wed
Seachem Iron: 1ml on Mon, Wed
Seachem Trace: 2ml on Mon Wed
Seachem Equilibrium: 1/2 tsp on Sat after 50% water change on Sat.
No Fertilizer Dozing on Friday.
HM is very easy and fast to grow, so if the leaves are turning translucent, then its short of nutrients.
Just increase your EI dosing amounts in stages and observe the new growth. If you are currently dosing based on the results from online EI calculators, those values are just starting points, you have to adjust and increase the dosing amounts as the plants grow, since their requirements increase too.
Which part is melting? older/lower part of stems or the tip, new leaves?
Do you see any growth on the 2 weeks that they have been in the tank? If yes, how long are the stems now? Did you try trimming them?
It can grow at wide range of temp. My tank swings at 29C to 32C and it keeps on growing. It's more of a nitrate sucking plant so your 25ppm nitrate should be fine. Is your K source only coming from KH2PO4 and KNO3? You might wanna try adding more from K2SO4. Go for 20-25ppm total K per week. then observe.
Allan, Thanks for sharing. The melting is mostly at the top part. I'm suspecting iron deficiency. However, I'll take your advice to pump in more K from Seachem.
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You can try to increase iron, double the dosage probably. hopefully you can get hold of K2SO4 because seachem potassium is very expensive if you target 20+ppm per week.
And how long are the stalks now? When i plant pearlweed, I immediately trim them after a week or at least when I see significant growth. I'm not sure what's happening but perhaps this way It helps the plant establish its roots while not having to support so many leaves/stems.
Eventually they stabilize and grow thick and lush.
Just gotten my K2SO4 today and added 80g into 1 liter of distilled water. Will be dozing that tomorrow. I'm wondering if I should remove all the stems of melted HM or should I leave it alone. The bottom part of each stem seems ok.
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Just trim away the melted parts, since they will stay melted anyways... let the plant redirect more energy into growing new fresh stems and leaves.
Roger that. Will update on outcome next week.
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It has been almost 2 weeks of maintaining my K dosing in the range of 26 PPM per week. I have also trimmed my MM and replanted some of my healthier stalks. The melting has reduced considerably although not completely. I'm planting to dose K2SO4 daily and monitor. So far no algae observed. I have added 4 Octos and 4 cherry shrimps since last week. All doing well.
I was at East Ocean Aquatic today. The MM in their 2ft tank(facing entrance) has leaves that are so narrow as compare to mine. It is also short and so bushy in appearance; almost like a carpet plant. The long hair lady tells me that I need to trim my MM regularly to derive that look. Is that correct?
Yeah, in order to achieve the dense bushy growth, you need to trim the MM frequently, so that the stems branch out into multiple stems as it grows. Each time you cut a stem, 2 or more stems grow from the cut part, so the density of the stems increase exponentially.
This is a good diagram showing the process:
Diagram from Google Images.
So if you start with say 20 stems at the base and trim them at every 2-3cm of growth height = 20 > 40 > 80 > 160 > 320 stems and so on, that's how you get a super dense amount of leaves at the top.
Btw, if your MM leaves are still rounded, those are the emersed form... the submersed form are thin and narrow, once you trim them frequently, the new submersed growth form will appear very quickly.
Thanks. I will share updates down the road.
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Can you show a screenshot of your pearlweed?
I'm attaching a picture of my tank. these grow in like 3-5cm per week. So I have to trim it regularly (every WC which is once a week). So it's both good and bad. Bad because it's high maintenance. Good because it's one of those plants where you can actually "scape" without having to wait too long. It's also once of those plants that just blooms if you get things right.
You mentioned that this is a newly setup tank. about 4 weeks now I assume? How's the diatom stage? No bloom yet or already finished? In my experience pearlweed is also one of those plants that can get covered by diatoms easily causing it to struggle.
Can you check if the melting leaves has diatoms? Pull one and scratch the melting leaves if a dark brown stain can be removed and sticks to your fingers. If that happens, that's diatoms. And if that's the case, that could be your problem. Controlling diatoms is best by putting otocinclus into your tank. How's the ammonia levels? safe enough to add fish? If yes, drop 10+ otos.
If diatom is not your problem, have you check your CO2? Since you still have no fish in the tank (i assume), you can crank it up without issues. Don't worry about drop checker turning yellow. This is just to make sure your CO2 is sufficient. Note that CO2 is the most important fertilizer for the plants. When it's insufficient, no other nutrients can compensate. And if you are pushing your light high, it's going to make matters even worse.
If you can confirm CO2 and diatoms aren't the problem, you might want to check your Phosphate levels. Have you measured your tank's phosphate uptake? If not, just crank up phosphate dosing. I'm dosing 10-15ppm of KH2PO4 per week. Don't worry about algae. The common talk about phosphate causing algae is total bullshit to me. Light is what causes algae. I overdosed fertilizers and gas out tanks with CO2 and I never triggered algae. But once I push my light source way beyond what my CO2 and fertilizers can provide to plant growth rate, algae blooms. How much ppm is 10mL KH2PO4 you are dosing? Is it anywhere near my dosing amount?
At the end of the day you're doing doing weekly water changes. So you don't have to worry if something goes wrong. You can always reset your water parameter levels every week. What's important is you understand how your tank behave and its needs. Every tank is different.
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Hi Allan
Thanks for sharing.
I don't have any visible algae or diatom in my tank. Prior to changing 50% water this morning, my
NH3/NH4+: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0.005 ppm (I'm using Seachem Nitrite/Nitrate test Kit)
Nitrate: 25 ppm
My 4 Octocinclus which have been in my tank for a week are doing well. They are very active and hardworking. So are my 4 cherry shrimps. I've just added 10 Fire Shrimps last night to beef up my algae clue. I have not added any school fishes yet. I'll wait until my NH3/NH4+ and Nitrite hit "0".
My CO2 injection has been consistent at 2 bps.
I have reduced my phosphate dozing from KH2PO4 to 5ml which gives a 0.54 ppm per doze.(1 week is 1.632 ppm). EI recommendation if I'm correct is 1-2 ppm weekly. Could this be my fine tuning? Hmm...
EI recommendation is just a reference or starting point. You need to adjust your dosing according to your plant growth conditions.
Let me start with CO2, because this is the most important fertilizer of all.
Do you have drop checker? If yes, what's the color after around 4 hours of light and CO2 injection? Is it light green or close to yellow?
My CO2 injection is 5+bps, maybe even 6. Yet My drop checkers are barely breaking light green. That's how much CO2 the plants are consuming. And that's even when right now I'm using EVO LED 3Wx16 light which is medium lighting at best.
I would assume that you're 2 bps is fine at the moment because the plants have not grown thick and lush yet so If you can see that your drop checkers show light green then your CO2 injection should be fine.
Now for the P dosing. Yeah I think that's quite low. Try to double it, heck even triple it. I'm not sure if phosphates will irritate shrimps but I highly doubt it. If you have 1-2ppm of phosphate floating in your tank at all time I think it should be fine.
At the end of the day, you're resetting your water parameters every week so I wouldn't worry too much about the increased level of phosphates in your tank. Best is if you can measure your tank's phosphate daily uptake though as I suggest in my previous post. This is if you have test kits.
One thing to note also is that while CO2 is the most important fertilizers, phosphate is next to it. You will notice that when you have phosphate deficiency, your nitrate/potassium content remains the same in your tank. This is because the lack of phosphate inhibits growth thereby causing other fertilizers to not be absorbed, particularly iron. Iron though is pretty hard to measure so your best reference is checking the nitrate content of your tank.
So as Jimmy says, EI is just a reference point. When using nutrient calculators, don't stick on the minimum levels. I bet you that once you finally got your tank's dosing sweet spot, you will notice that you are actually dosing way beyond the recommended minimum.
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