Strange Toxicity?

[Philosophos]

Hi everyone,

I'm just trying to figure out some plant issues with anubias barteri nana, as well as nana "petite". I've got far more sensitive plants in the tank, but this one is starting to look off. The first thing I'm seeing is obvious iron toxicity; the plants went from healthy to having brown spots and a bit of bronzing within 24 hours. The confusing part is that there are parts of the leaves on the larger of the two species that have glob-shaped areas of normal color, with darkening outside of that. These also have dark brown spots, but no bronzing. Another leaf or two are showing transparent spots. My fiance is taking pictures right now, and will be posting them shortly.

- Philosophos

[Czyne]

Okay, here's the photos.. hopefully I'll insert them right.

In this one, the leaf on the far left shows darkening, normal color and dark brown spots clearly:


Best shot I could manage for the transparency of one leaf, on the far right:


And an example of how noticeable the symptoms are from farther away. The image wouldn't load, so here's the direct link (Fixed the image link for you. ~Vinz):


Sorry for the poor quality, but hopefully they're clear enough to get a general idea.

[Czyne]

Thanks for the fix, Vinz.

When we woke up this morning the anubias was much worse, and some of them now have small holes in their leaves. We did a 60% water change this afternoon so hopefully that will fix the toxicity issue. I'll try to post updated pics tomorrow if the plants still look as awful as they do today, it's really quite astounding how quickly they changed. I've never seen any plant effected like this so rapidly, so maybe there's others who would find it interesting too. No other plants are showing any symptoms, and the HC and rotala are still happily pearling away.

I know Fe toxicity will cause deficiencies of other elements, but I don't know what deficiencies or toxicities to attribute the dark green discoloration or transparency to. If anyone has any idea I'd be really grateful to hear it.
My guess is the problem stemmed from stirring the substrate during the tear-down for planting, since we inject ferts into it twice a week. The water after stirring was syphoned out, but there was likely plenty of nutrients still in the gravel that probably made their way into the column during fill-up. Feeling quite stupid now for not thinking of that before

[vinz]

Anubias are known to be pretty tough plants... the only time I've seen them deteriorate rapidly and "melt" away like Cryptocoryne within days is when I placed them in the same tank as a certain type of drift wood.

I never found out the real cause, but I don't think it was deficiency. Deficiencies will show up in other plants as well and generally do not work that fast.

Don't think that helps much.

[barmby]

My experience - they don't like direct sunlight or light. They need to be shaded. I went farms and anubias are always shaded. I tried once, failed and give up on anubias because I didn't shade it. I believe they are really 'slow' plant

[Czyne]

Vinz,
Thanks for the reply, anything helps! Did those anubias look similar to these before they died off? It probably is some sort of toxicity, but I don't know why it would effect only the anubias... possibly it has something to do with the rhizome vs root structure, no idea.

Barmby,
Are you thinking leaf-burn or something of the sort? We've had the larger anubias for over a month under high light, but I guess it's possible since we added an 8000K 15 watt bulb a couple of weeks ago. My iron test kit is expired so no way of testing to be positive that it's from Fe overdose. Did the anubias that failed on you change this quickly also or was it gradual?

Sorry for all the questions, and thanks for the replies. Even if we can't figure out what's wrong in time, hopefully it'll help for prevention of this or other similar disasters in the future.

[vinz]

Did you add something to the tank or do something differently in the few days before this happened? New plant, new wood, new fertiliser, change fertiliser dosage, anything?

[k3nlim]

I also have this issue with nana petite that turned yellow,with holes and melt in my tank.

[Philosophos]

Our fertilizers changed over to what I've outlined on this thread:
http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ad.php?t=53409

Our light level is 3wpg and the anubias had been doing fine under even 4wpg for quite a while. It seemed to go bad after re-scaping the aquarium, and a round of iron dosing. There was a lot of iron that we injected in to the substrate before tearing the tank up.

Today, I can't decide if it looks worse after the 60% water change, or if the old leaves are just rotting away. They'll need to be removed. The one new plant of A. Barteri nana 'petite' that we added just after the tear down and re-scape is looking like it's in great health, and is the only plant without major signs of damage. I'm not quite sure how to interpret this.

-Philosophos

[barmby]

I think you may focus too much on Iron. How about looking at the NPK first. K is also important. There is a fine line between overdose and EI

[Philosophos]

NPK should be deficient rather than toxic- it would be almost impossible to have toxic levels based on what I've dosed so far (not even 30% of a standard week of EI). Nitrate levels are chronicaly low (5-10ppm), phosphorous tested around 1ppm. K is something I'm not able to test for, so I can't be completely sure there. I will probably go back over my potassium numbers, since they're the most complex part of the equation. I've even started low at a 50% recommended standard EI dose.

I mention the iron because there was enough injected in to the substrate to equal about .6-.7ppm the first time, plus another .1ppm dosed in to the column after disturbing substrate. The first mass dose was because every plant in the aquarium started showing deficiency for it before I had worked out all the EI numbers properly, or the other ferts hard arrived. My iron test kit doesn't work, unfortuantely; it couldn't detect iron in a solution over 50ppm. I should get a new one.

The good news is that so far, all of the other plants look good. The anubias has some really nasty looking leaves, but the ones that only showed yellowing are starting to turn back green. It took a ~60% water change, but everything should be back down to safe levels, even if i dozed 5x what was intended.

-Philosophos

[Verminator]

In my experience they're very hardy plants. They cope well under any ferts i've ever tried. I know from experience they do not like direct light, with them generally preferring shaded areas. I have the chance to show a good comparison within my tank when i get hold of my parents camera. I hope to show you in the next couple of days the difference between a shaded Anubias and a non-shaded Anubias from my tank. Difference is pretty obvious. Shall upload pictures as soon as i take them.

[Philosophos]

I definitely wouldn't mind seeing what the burn looks like on them. I just can't figure out why they didn't burn under months of 3wpg light, sometimes even 4wpg light previously. The deterioration occurred within 48 hours of fertilizer dosing, while the light remained the same as it had grown under for a long time.

-Philosophos

[Verminator]

Unfortunately due to unforseen technical errors with the camera i've had to have it sent away to be fixed. So no pictures for alteast the next two weeks roughly. Sorry.

How is your Anubias doing currently? I have jsut rescaped mine a little. Moving all the exposed rhyzomes under shade to see if they're deterioating leaves pick up in health. I shall update on how it goes. I expect to see an improvement due to them being moved into shadier areas.

[Philosophos]

The anubias is coming back. We've left it for a couple days to see what leaves made it and what leaves didn't. Today we'll remove the ones that aren't surviving. It looks like we're only going to lose one very small rhizome of nana petite at worst, the rest have at least one or two leaves to start over from.

The cryptocryne is melting pretty bad; moving stressed it worse than i thought. Everything else is coming along quite nicely; it'll be time to trim soon.

-Philosophos

[vinz]

How about moving that tiny rhizome to a temporary container with better water? Anubias don't need much light, and are pretty tough. Placing the container next to the tank is probably enough light for it. Make a few small cuts on the rhizome with a knife... I've read people do that to encourage leaf growth. Though I'm not sure if this is good for a plant that is already in bad shape.

[Philosophos]

the water is good now, I worked out the numbers; there's nothing I know of that could be left that is at toxic levels. Two 60% water changes in a week can do amazing things for fert mistakes Besides the crypt melt and anubias, all the other plants are thriving. My fiance put an extra 15 watts of 8,000k light on since the glosso might be trying to reach a bit higher than desired.

I'm going to start reading on the idea of cutting in to the rhizome. Do you have any articles or threads showing the results around? We certainly have a lot of healthy looking yet barren rhizome right now. How is it done exactly? Is it a small incision? Half way through?

Thanks for the suggestion; I hope it works.

-Philosophos

[Czyne]

Sorry I never got around to the updated pictures, very busy week. About half of the leaves looked something like madagascar lace by the time we woke up on the 10th (less than 3 days after they started dying); completely eaten away with just the skeleton left, although some leaves were still green in the center with just the outside edge eaten away. The other half were (mostly) unaffected and are still doing well.
Yesterday the dead and damaged leaves were removed, and there's a few new leaves on some of the rhizomes already.
I just read up on cutting into the rhizome some, and from what I could gather a new branch of rhizome grows from the nick rather than just leaf growth. Couldn't find any photos or articles/threads thoroughly outlying the method or its effects though. We'll probably give it a try on a couple and see what happens.

[beetroot]

this is my nana, quite in bad shape too. having the same problem too?






is it because of too much light? it is tied to wood, tank is near window. low tech. no fert.

i can only presume it is due to too much light, as i have nana in another 2 shaded tanks, they don't have this issue.

[Philosophos]

I would've been happy if my anubias looked like yours. Upon a bit more thinking, it was probably leaving excel on the leaves for too long; it was treated out of water. The chlorophyl leaves dissolved in to mulm within 72 hrs. The pictures you see are 24-48hrs after the symptoms started. To be honest, after reading about the glutaraldehyde in excel, it isn't surprising. We used the same procedure on H. corymbosa "angustifolia" and some java fern (visiculari dubyana sp.) at the same time, and they also are slowly degenerating in to a pile of crap. I should've known that all of .9ppm Fe(III) wouldn't do so much.

For months before that, we had been hitting it with 3-4 wpg of light, varying nutrient levels, changing parameters, etc. None of this hurt the anubias; it was the toughest plant we had in the aquarium. Even still, the anubias is recovering while the glosso and hemianthus in the above picutres are now filling in.

Your symptoms look like a bit of potassium (K) deficiency, given the holes and issues with the tip. Fish food and regular water changes can take care of a lot of the macro, and even a good bit of the micro, but potassium is hard to come by without adding it your self. Consider asking at a hydroponics or chemical supply store for some K2SO4, or just go out and get some seachem potassium ferts. I'm not sure what your target dossing range is. The barr report web site might give you some good target levels of dosing to aim for. I'm not sure how fast plants metabolise the stuff on average per cm3 or per gram.

-Philosophos