Rotala sp. Deficiency

[IUnknown]

Looking through my books all I could find was either a Iron deficiency or Calcium Deficiency. I don't think its Calcium because my GH is 12. I read that Macros and Micros should not be dosed at the same time because they can create insoluble compounds such as iron phosphate. I am using Seachems flourish and phosphate, do I need to worry about this with Seachems product line? Has anyone had Rotala look almost white before, what did you do to fix the problem?

[IUnknown]

my fertilizer schedule so far is
M flourish .5ml
tu nothing
w flourish .5ml
th nothing
fri water change 25%,No3 5ml,K 12ml, flourish .5 ml, Po4 .5 ml
sat/sun nothing

I am dosing nitrate to be around 10 ppm. I will test again today to make sure that it's right. I am dosing phosphate to be under .5. The last time I tested, phosphates were around that target.

[IUnknown]

10gallon tank 8 green neon tetras, 5 cherry red shrimp, SL-50 wet/dry filter 52 watt PC lighthing Pressurized CO2 30,pH 6.8,KH 6,GH 13, AMM 0, Nitrite 0,N03 12.5, Phosphate <.5

[vinz]

Flourish is low on iron, because they separate iron as a separate fetiliser for custom dosing. It is unlikely to be calcium since there are no deformed growth. Are any of your other plants showing defiencies?

Most likely iron deficiency.

[bclee]

Vinz got a point.

Your dosage of 0.5ml will give approx 0.05ppm of Fe. So you are adding about 0.15ppm over the week a bit on the low side.

Usually base fertilisers will supplement Fe. You did not mention anything about base fertilisers.

You may consider uping the Flourish dose or dose additional Fe. Personally, I have used up to 4 times the recommended dose of Flourish.

BC

[bclee]

I see that you mentioned that you are dosing K 12ml. I assume you meant Flourish Potassium (4% K).

This dosage will give you about 12 ppm. Maybe you can consider upping to 20ppm per week.

BC

[FC]

Flourish is quite an aggressive trace solution that contains nearly everything one can mention, plus vitamins, though it is a bit low on Cu, Mo and Zn.

The dosage recommended is way too low in nearly all aspect of the traces. For your 10 gallon, try dosing about 3ml (raise Fe by 0.3ppm) twice weekly or better 5ml (raise Fe by 0.5ppm) once a week. The plants should response in 5~10 days time. In addition, you may also try injecting it near the roots to quicken the effect.

[IUnknown]

Thanks everyone, none of the other plants show anything yet, except the glossostigma looks a little yellow (I just planted it). I will up the flourish dose and see how it goes. I have Flourite for substrate.

[vinz]

Flourish is really low on iron. Don't depend on it for iron and don't use your tank's iron levels to guage how much Flourish to dose.

Btw, whiteness in Calcium deficiency is due to deposits on the leaves... i.e stuff left of the leaf surfaces. The whiteness you see in your Rotala is due to lack of chlorophyll... i.e. chlorosis.

[juggler]

This is very interesting. I am guessing it could be Mg because from Chuck's article Warning signs of Nutrient Deficiency, he mention for Mg that "Often appears similar to iron deficiency since mg deficiency prevents a plant from properly using iron."

But the "leaves to first show deficiency" says "old leaves". So I could be wrong.

Have you been fertilising Mg?