Deficiency photos of plants in my Tank

[freemann]

Here is a number of nutrient deficiencies in my tank.
The curling of the leaves one I have seen in other plants like hygrophilas and nasaea in various times since the setup of the aquarium.
Ideas, suggestions?
Site url is:
http://www.bellybean.com/~pave/defic...deficiency.htm
Thanks in advance

[lorba]

Not very sure regarding the plants, but isn't the flow rate a bit too high for a planted tank? 1.4k/h for 143litres. The tank is cycled 8-10 times an hour.

[sherchoo]

Could it be Ca deficient? You're not the only one experiencing this problem esp after dosing with heavy K. There was a similar discussion on this by Vinz.

Try giving it a search.

[sherchoo]

ahhh.. found the thread

Effects of dosing pottasium thread

[freemann]

1400 lt/h is bearly noticable in the tank, output is split between the Co2 diffuser and spraybar I am always using big filter turnover in my tanks
The one I am constructing now is 500 lt and will have 5000 lt turnover.

[sherchoo]

Is there a reason why you want such high water turnover rate?

[David]

Hi Freemann

You have got a pretty nice tank to start[].

I dont think your KH is a problem at 15. If you want to lower your KH, 10 will be good, but I dont think is neccessary. In fact due to your MH light set, the high KH point will compansate if you happen to underdose your CO2

One thing is for sure is that your K dosage is rather high and perhaps you may want to consider lowering your dosage. The two possibility I can think of is CA and/or Iron.

As for the Macarandra, It seems to me that it is not getting enough light, for the Hairgrass I am not too sure.

[juggler]

The kH and gH may be due Mg salts. And you still added extra Mg. Excess Mg prevents uptake of Ca. And plants will show Ca deficiency.

Try to add Ca and maybe try stop dosing Mg for a while.

That's my guess. Good luck.

[David]

Hi Juggler

oooh I missed the epsom salt part for the Mg......

It may not be need to dose for Mg as Mg should already be present in your base fert.

[sherchoo]

I'm using JBL base fert but my Echins showed heavy Mg deficiency where the leaf tissues where dissintegrating (?spelling) leaving veins only behind. After dosing Ca and Mg, problem cleared up.

[freemann]

Juggler
Interesting and maybe true to reality observation I always had the suspicion that something is blockin Ca assimilation myself, this whitening and curling thing really looks like Ca deficiency but that can happen only throu interaction of elements cause water here is for sure rich in calcium. It seems that I must get one way or another a mains water analysis cause I have no idea of how much magnesium is there to start with, this is why I have added it if magnesium may be blocking Ca then that explains the Ca looking deficiency.

David
Thanks for your nice comment it is just an experimental tank to help me sort as much as I can on plants and interactions big 500lt one is coming soon. I am pretty sure I never underdose CO2 actually I am always overdosing. As for the macrandra you maybe right cause as i said it freaked when there was green water on the tank and no enough light was reaching it but still I suspect there is something else that is also responsible for that white rotten appearence on this tops.

Sherchoo
I am a firm believer of the saying a rolling stone gathers no moss, as I said there is no big current obvious in the tank (1400 lt/h on the filter is 800lt/h maybe less after going throu the CO2 diffuser and the filter material full of bacteria and detrious) anyway but still a high flow rate helps to prevent dead (full of ferts or without) spots among the plant also and most basic for me it removes dead organic matter and detrious from the leaves of the plants also it gives a chance to my fish to have some exercice. I would ideally like my plants to be in a perpetual motion of maybe 0,5 cm it creates a nice effect aswell, I can control CO2 loss from to much water motion by simply increasing it.
Thanks again people. I dont precisely know why but I feel a diffent air in this board, a more friendly atmospere.
I wish there were more controlled experiments from all this companies that take our bucks and some more positive results on all this. maybe eventually we havew to do it ourselves. By the way dosing pumps I love them. So much more control I make ones from seperate parts they cost me 60 euros.

Rasboras are having sex 1 meter away, they do it every morning

[FC]

Freeman,

I cannot tell what is the problem yet before you change your method of fertilizing. I mean for your plant to grow properly, the nutrients need not only be balanced but also to have certain trusthold. I suggest:
1) Add full dose of macros at water change and not daily. PO4 is best injected into substrate.
2) For micros, continue your method but heavier 1st dose after water change.

[freemann]

FC
I dont understand your statment what is a trusthold? I reckon you mean threshold. Why should I add ferts after water changes and not daily?
What is the difference apart of the fact that here I don't overdose the first day and get the plants limited the last day before the water change? and anyway I am above a threshold 2.5 ppm K daily for example, constant 0.5 ppm PO4 e.t.c. Apart of that I don't have to bother on fertilising apart of additionaly calibrating my nutrient solution I have been using the dosing pump method for the last 6 mounths and the results have been very satisfactory up to impressive (no even a speck of algae apart from some green water once or twice) and no worries anymore, did i dose yesterday or not, did I put 2 ml iron or 3, what will happen if I go away for 10 days?. No my friend I don't want to do anything but prune and finetune the ferts. Even the water changes in my new tank will be automatic. My approach to this type of tank is that I should aim to as much as possible controlable fertilising conditions and mine are quite stable apart of this deficiencies. I would like in the future to be able to give a describable "fully" automatic controled fertilising regime to someone that wants to spend sometime on this part of the hobby. I mean look at hydroponic books this is what they aim at and in a way isnt a planted tank a hydroponic culture? What we really need is to short some plant volume versus consumption of ferts in a daily basis, I know this may sound easy to say but difficult to do but still I reckon that there is an average estimation maybe keeping the ferts a bit on the limited side but just a bit. By the way the daily dosing aproach is not mine to start with but Duplas and I quote from the optimum aquarium book:

The Challenge of Nutrient Springs
The discovery of nutrient springs, and the observation that certain critical nutrients are continually replenished in plant water, led us to certain conclusions for the aquarium.
These critical nutrients are principally iron, manganese and other trace elements which are needed by plants only in very small quantities, but which when absent from aquairum water, lead to severe plant damage. The problem with these nutrients is that they have a toxic effect when present in large amounts, so over fertilization should be carefully avoided. However, they also precipitate quickly during oxidation. Because of their toxicity in large amounts, they cannot be supplied with each change.
The binding of these «critical nutrientj to chelators represented a tremendous breakthrough, and an enormous step in the care of aquarium plants. Many plants which are common today were unknown in aquariums a few years ago.
Recent studies have shown that then are conditions under which the supply of these critical nutrients can not be achieved from water change to water change, with the necessary continuity. The amount of oxygen, the pH value, plant mass, light fish and salt content are all factors that in-fluence the behavior of chelated nutrient. Thus, the dosage to be added to the fresh water when changing water should be divided into daily portions. Another better method would be to pre-pare a daily or a 24 hour fertilizer, like fish food, consisting only of the "critical" nutrients and to add it in doses. This should be combined with iron measurements because all trace elements behave like ironl towards oxygen, pH value and other factors that determine their use and precipitation An Fe content of 0.1 mg per liter is desir-able, whereby it is important to remember that small traces of iron are present even in the absence of light. We believe that higher levels of iron such as 1.0 or even 2.0 mg per liter which is commonly suggested are too high and quite unnatural. So called hose pumps with electrical dosage mechanisms have proven excellent for the dosing of daily fertilizers, because then guarantee an even and continuous supply of the critical nutrients.

[Allen_1971]

Freeman,

I've been looking through your setup and I tend to agree that the leaf curling could be due to calcium... I am a bit curious though, why are you maintaining your KH at such high levels? What are your tap water KH and GH values?

Also, I ran your numbers through my calculators and I do not get the values you put. For example, 85g of K2SO4 works out to 85000mg/4000ml=21.25mg/ml of k2so4. Since k2so4 is 44.87%k and 55.13%SO4, this works out to 9.53mg/ml of K. Dosing 4 doses of 6.6ml gives 26.4ml. So your daily dose adds 251.592mg of K. Since your tank volume is 143L, you get 251.592/143 ppm = 1.759 ppm of K daily not 2.64 as you stated.

I'm not sure of the composition of iron gluconate and microplex, but just considering your k2so4 and mgso4-7h20, you have daily doses of 1.759ppm K, 2.7ppm SO4, and 0.137 ppm of Mg.

Also, try slowing down your filter output. The reason I suggest this is because there is an optimum flow rate for plants to effectively photosynthesize... I believe both kasselman and walstad point this out. Some plants are just not adapted to faster flowing waters, and may not be able to grab nutrients effectively.

Considering that your substrate base is laterite, I'm doubtful if you have an iron deficiency. Laterite isn't the most nutrient rich substrate, but one thing it has lots of is Fe.

All in all, my suggestions are these...

1. Slow your flow rate to 2-3x your tank volume
2. try and bring down you KH... a high KH will require a higher bubble rate to achieve the same CO2 level as compared to a lower KH.
3. Stop your dosing of everything but the K2SO4... most of the rest are probably not needed at this point in time.

Also, I may have missed this, but whats the PH of your tank?

[FC]

Dear Freeman,

"I dont understand your statment what is a trusthold?quot;
Sorry, you are right, my spelling mistake, it should be threshold.

"By the way the daily dosing aproach is not mine to start with but Duplas"
You are partly right, however, if you study the chemistry of Duplaplant, Duplaplant24 and Duplagan, you would realised that they are suggesting:
1) macro first and in full dose after water change, plus some basic traces.
2) daily doses are limited to traces only, with Fe as main part.


Your regime clearly lack of K threshold. Try increase the whole tank water to about 20-25 ppm of K. You would then experience this:
1) your NO3 level would go down from current 10 to about 3-5 ppm in a weeks' time.
2) your PO4 level would go down from current 0.5 to about 0.2 ppm in a weeks' time.
If not, it means that certain conditions are not right that includes (in running of order of posibility):
a) certain nutrients are in short supply.
b) lighting
c) water flow rate

[freemann]

Allen_1971
You are right but I am right aswell
You see I dose KNO3 also which gives 0,792 ppm K daily additionally and this is where the rest of the K comes from, don't you worry I am pretty sure of my calculations.
My substrate base is forest soil the first 2cm (1 1/2/ year old Substrate) plus 2 handfulls of laterite in dust from a mine in Greece (laterite is within the soil so i reckon the conditions are pretty well anaerobic for iron to get chelated and assimilated. Still my dosing of additional iron the last 3 days has made some of the top leaves in plants to turn green again like new small growth in micranthem and lysimachia, plus the white curled leaves of stellata now start to be greenpinkish curled leaves so I prolly was lacking in fe also testing with the sera iron test there is a slight redening of the water much less than the chart but still it is an indication that iron is there, I think that an additional 1ml daily per seachem flourish iron dilution 1% iron gluconate in water brings the iron to the desired point more than that and I start seeing a small clouding of the water (green algae) by the way yesterday realised that even the film on the surface of the aquarium is green algae cause after wiping it from the empty part of the tank during the water change water with a napkin the napkin got colored green.
I still insist that the flow in the tank is minimal, the CO2 split output is behind a plastic holding various ferns and is of no importance while the spraybar flow is not that much aswell, I will take this into consideration thou in my new big tank. My Kh is the Kh of the mains here I can overcome it's buffering capacity by simply keeping my CO2 high which I do, Ph in the morning is 7 which quite a lot, it is obvious anyway cause plants bubble like crazy.
As for stoping dosing everything I dont see the logic behind it, the only one I think I could stop dosing is KNO3 cause of the constantly existing 10ppm
I wish I could measure K so i know what is going on with it also I am going to measure with one of this marine tests the Ca content of the water.I will have a general analysis of the mains water here tommorow so I will keep you posted on the results from this measurments.

Fc
I still believe that dosing once or incrementally makes no really difference on the contrary daily dosing is better in the sense of a constant flow of nutrients.
As for my NO3 going down, this could happen prolly only if I stopped dosing KNO3 completely, but Barr and others have said that 10 ppm is ok and I see no bad effects from it. My PO4 as a matter of fact goes down to 0 ppm if I stop adding the current amount I have seen this before.
As stated in my posting before light is 150watt (1 mounth old bulb) HQI in 143 lt of water so no way it is to low.
By the way I am not trying to be a smart *** I am only trying to be analytical.

[FC]

Hi Freeman,

I am free too and I like to use time wisely and if possible have fun too.

If you do not mind me commenting, like many here, clearly you are an analytical guy. You are one step further, a perfectionist who would go through details till last ends to get everything right. I was and still in many ways like you. However, lately, I am trying to change that. I began to treasure life and try to be more relax and have some fun. Now, I like to ask/share and hopefully some guys would past by and be kind enough to say "hey, I have something better" or "aye, you are talking rubbish".

Back to business. In my opinion, you have got most of the things right in your tank. However, due to too much information around us, one tends to loose focus and in many instances, misinterpreted the messages. Veterans like Tom Barr, Steve Dixion, Chuck and what have you, are preaching the same things but with slight variations. The idea to add macros and traces to certain levels are not there to be there but to be consumed. If you analyze closely, they always give you a level range, eg, NO3, 3~5 ppm. So, when I was new to it, I take the average and try to keep it at 4 ppm. Now, I found that he merely means 3 is the threshold and anything more than 5 may not be good.

So, come back to my earlier post. I am trying to suggest that in order to find out the source of your tank problem, you may need to get what is wrong, right first. Having the K level right seems important to me because I saw that your NO3 is at ceiling level and PO4 fine. Traces are consumed in minute amount and so is the requirement for concentration, so, I would put them aside now, though they are the likely cause. You do not have K tester, so do I and many in AQ, I believe. No problem, N and K is the most consumed nutrients I had found recently in my tank. In right condition, they would be wipe out in a week’s time. If you trust me, just calculate and add K as if there is non, to 20-25 ppm, in 2 days. And if you beleive I make sense, then follow my suggestion in my earlier post. Come back to us after 1 to 2 weeks.

Thanks for sharing and have fun.

[freemann]

Fc
I am free only because I am aware of my slavery in this ****ed up world
My pursue of perfection is the only way for me in this hobby the day this hobby stops creating problems I will prolly lose interest for it. Believe me I treasure life to the out-most, I spend lots of time in nature observing the natural processes and trying to have a spherical understanding of things I also have lots of simple fun. As for the 2.5 ppm of K I am pretty sure there is nothing wrong with it (I will order a test and check K soon just to know if I overdose. I have added 20 and 30 ppm of K before but nothing can compare with the current growth of my plants so I am sure I am on the right track, only thing is the aquarium is going fast and problems arise easier in this way and are more pronounced . The choice of "difficult" plants like stellata wallichi e.t.c is a conscious one and the reason for this choices is a need to understand why this plants are difficult to grow.
Let me for example state another idea, what if the fact that stellata as they say is a purely soft water plant makes it to assimilate to much Mg for it's needs and in this way block completely the assimilation of the small amount of Ca it needs, what I am trying to say is that the fact that stellata is a soft water plant by it's self means nothing than that it's physiology is unable to coope when there are lots of salts around.
Also problems like what is the need of the plants in Na arise after long talks with friends who are also scientists on the plant fertilization regime.
Thanks for all your advice thou my friends the Mg - Ca relation is the one I am going to pursue next.

[FC]

I actually have the proportion of Ca vs Mg for plant use, it is 3:1. Since we add only about 2~6 ppm Mg, I do not see a problem as Ca level easily exceed that, either from water source or liquid fert.

Having said that, the intensity of light played an important role in getting things balanced. However, too much light means all fert threshold would be brought down as plants are being asked to work harder and plants would be pushed to grow better. The underlying risk is deficiency would quickly come into picture if one does not manage the chemistry well/right.

Take it easy.

[freemann]

They will come from the responsible for the mains water of the area and measure the water in my house as a reference within 20 days they said they like the idea of doing the testing in a house where water creatures leave.
Good one and unexpected :. I will keep you posted