Glosso turn pale green (close to white)

[eric_kclee]

Hi need some help here.

My glosso, was crawling happily initially in a 1ft square tank with 11W PL light.

After I change the light to 18Watt PLL light, the new leaf turns curly and pale green (close to white), however it is still crawling, not standing.

Is it suffering deficiency in fertiliser ? trace element? Does anyone know exactly which specific component, N,P,K,Mg,Mn....?

Please help.
Other tank info:
My tank is 4mth old with base fertiliser with internal submerged overflow filtration. Other plant (hair glass, lotus, crypto, riccia...)look good and healthy, I have about 30 tetra in the same tank.
PH 6.8, GH 6, KH 5, CO2 rate 1bubble/sec, 18W light for 13hour.

[Simon]

Link
refer to the url above for Nutrient deficiency

[naturetan]

Firstly, reduce your lighting period to about 8-10hrs, till you get an idea of what's good fertilizing. Then let us know your fertilizing regimen, and we'll be able to help.

[vinz]

Errr.. sounds like Ca deficiency to me. By curly, do you mean twisted out of shape or deformed?

[eric_kclee]

I thing is good to post some pic to show you guys what I meant.

Please refer to this url:
http://www20.brinkster.com/ericlee/t...hiteglosso.JPG

Those in red circle, leaves are somehow twisted.
Those in blue circle, leaves are new and are very pale, (more pale in real life).

For fertiliser I used, a bit embarrassed to say I use a cheap taiwanese brand, ISTA

Both the
1. Water Plant Fertiiser (liquid form)
2. Water Plant Ferrous Fertiliser (liquid form)

I dose everyday, 4 drops of (1.) and 2 drops of (2.).
And lately, I am inconsistent in dosing, and most of the time did not dose Ferrous.

From the lead that Simon provided, it seems like matching the Symptom of lacking Fe.

Can you guys advice?

[vinz]

From the pictures, it does not seem as deformed as Ca deficiency would cause.

Nothing wrong with using the cheaper fertilisers, they should all contain what's needed.

Most times it's hard to tell whats really missing from the symptoms. At most you can narrow down to a handful of possibilities. You just have to eliminate the choices by analysing your fert routine and observing plant reactions to changes in the routine.

Since you guess it's iron, start dosing regularly, at least once every 2 days. Depending on the chelate, Fe does not stay in useful form for very long in the tank. Observe the plants for reaction. If it does not help, move on to the next candidate.

By the way, what's your water change routine?

[naturetan]

I agree with Vincent. Work on your fertilizing routine. If you've a busy life, I don't think you need to dose everyday for (1). Just dose their recommended amount as instructed, once a week will do. This will ensure good nutrients supply for your glosso.

When I used Taiwan liquid fertilizer, the problem I faced is something like yours. Leaves turn pale after sometime, not only for new ones, but old ones too. After dosing K, problem solved. But this might not apply to you since your brand is different. Do work on your routine first before any other thing.

[eric_kclee]

My water change routine is 25% everyweek faithfully without fail.

Another side question,
This ISTA brand I mentioned only have the 2 fertiliser (General and Fe). And I am not too sure if the liquid fertiliser contain Trace Element(not stated the active ingredient on bottle).

Thus I'm not too sure to buy Trace Element seperately, like AZOO brand?

Azoo brand also come with a Trace element tester, I was thinking, how could this be possible as trace element contain many component? unless it is actually testing the conductivity cause by the presence of metal ions.

Thanks for your reply.
rgds

[juggler]

Continue your Fe dosing. And observe if you need Mg as well.
According to http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nutrient.htm:

Mg deficiency: Often appears similar to iron deficiency since mg deficiency prevents a plant from properly using iron.

Does your fertiliser has Mg or did you add separately? Mg can come from our tap water -- did you do your regular water change?

[geoffrey]

My take is not to fiddle with Mg first. If you have done water change regularly, chances are Mg and Ca needs are met. Try increasing your Macro first. Best to know your PO4, NO3 and Fe readings.

[Plantbrain]

NO3.
Gloss loves NO3. It'll turn yellow, white, slow down growth and stunt etc without it.

Traces can help, but if the NO3 runs out for a day or more, then things get bad.

1ft cube is only 7.5 gal roughly or maybe 6 gal total water volume.

Not much.

Like Maime(sp?-very very small bonsai trees that need frequent watering etc) bonsai, they need more tending and frequent dosing IMO. I have two 4 gallon 25cmx25cm cubes. I run these non CO2 but might consider some form of CO2 later.

I'd do 50% weekly changes.
I'd add: KNO3, about 1/16" of teaspoon(Split a 1/4 or 1/8 into 1/2's to get roughly equal portions, this works fairly well.
Add 3x a week
K2SO4, add 1/16 teaspoon after water change
KH2PO4, 1/2 a hot pepper seed's worth. Just a speck.
TMG, trace etc: add 1.5mls 3x a week.

If the tap water has 3GH/KH you are likely in good shaoe.

As always, double check the CO2 anytime anything goes wrong. Then do a water change/pruning/dosing the nutrients like the routine above.

You might need to modify the routine slightly, but this should give you a good starting range.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[naturetan]

----------------
On 6/26/2003 9:12:14 AM

Another side question,
This ISTA brand I mentioned only have the 2 fertiliser (General and Fe). And I am not too sure if the liquid fertiliser contain Trace Element(not stated the active ingredient on bottle).
----------------

Yes, those 2 fertiliser you have contained trace elements. The only disadvantage of using Taiwan brand is you don't know exactly what's the exact amount of each nutrients you're dosing, thus not able to give a good judgement for your dosing amount, and makes troubleshooting a bit difficult.

Usually, such brands does not have enough macro nutrients, like N, P, K and need to be supplemented. But brands like UPs (which I used to dose) does contain a fair amount of Ca & Mg.

[eric_kclee]

Thank you all,

I just went to petmart and saw Seachem product, they have N,P,K,Fe and Trace as individual bottle at $12-14.
Is it good to use nutrients individually as we can control the proportion?

Plantbrain,
The chemical you recommended, where can I get those? What is the reason for people to choose these chemical over product like seachem? Is it the cost $ factor?

The above is just for learning, I will still be patient and troubleshoot my Fe dosing first. Please don't be mad at me.

Xie Xie [:]

[PeterGwee]

You can get those chemicals at Dr Mallick's retail outlet at crawford lane...look up the lfs list for the exact address. Cost is the main factor why people go for the chemicals instead of commercial products. Oh...wonder if Tom Barr understand what is Xie xie...LOL... []

[Plantbrain]

Eric, don't fret.
Folks have trouble getting it at first but it's pretty easy once the CO2 is set.

The local Dr Mallick's is a good place to snag the dry chemicals. I figure 20$ SD worth would last you about 20 years.
SeaChem has it all done up for you in water solutions.

You can dose your own with dry chemicals which is easier IMO.

You only add 4 things:

N=> KNO3
P=>KH2PO4
K=>K2SO4
Traces

And light, CO2, water changes, dechlorinator, fish/food etc.

That's about all there is too it.

Don't worry about asking questions, it's a bit rough at first, chemistry scares people.

Xie xie!

Regards,
Tom Barr

[eric_kclee]

Thank you all,
After dosing Fe for a few days, new leaf show normal color and growth continue (growth was STUNT and algae catch up).

Plantbrain,
Thanks for your recommendation. I will used up all my fertiliser first before switching to powder(will like to try).
However your list doesn't include Fe dosing which make me feel rather uncomfortable. It might be included in the trace? but how much? enough?

(By the way what is IMO...)


Rgds

[PeterGwee]

Eric_kclee, iron is one of the elements in traces....the amount trace dosing has been given to you by tom barr. You can try dosing traces over a range to find out if more actually improve plant growth but you need to keep the other nutrients in good range so that they would not interfere with the results. IMO (In my opinion?)

[eric_kclee]

Sorry, my question is not clear...

I meant how much Fe (in %) is in the trace powder. Because, if I need a certain ppm, i would need to know how much Fe the trace power contain.

Since it is part of the trace, that means I cannot dose Fe to higher level. Because other trace element will go high also which may have adverse effect.

Or you may say.... the trace proportion is well balanced. And if one could find a good dosing amount, all the trace element is in good proportion including Fe.
Can we conclude this way?

Thanks

[PeterGwee]

Doing Fe by itself is too much work for newbies...it doesn't really need that precision as they are only micros which are not required in large amounts and does not have much impact on growth as compared to carbon and NO3. Go with commercial traces like flourish, TMG or Sera liquid fert and dose according to the guide given by Tom (Fe is the major thing in the traces...testing for residual Fe does not tell you anything..You can measure 0.5ppm right after dosing but it would probably be gone in a couple of hours). You can play with the amount added by upping it to see if it makes any difference.

[naturetan]

----------------
On 6/28/2003 9:46:43 PM

Sorry, my question is not clear...

I meant how much Fe (in %) is in the trace powder. Because, if I need a certain ppm, i would need to know how much Fe the trace power contain.

Since it is part of the trace, that means I cannot dose Fe to higher level. Because other trace element will go high also which may have adverse effect.

Or you may say.... the trace proportion is well balanced. And if one could find a good dosing amount, all the trace element is in good proportion including Fe.
Can we conclude this way?

Thanks

----------------

eric, different brands differ slightly in trace composition. So it depends on which brand you're asking. But the usual recommendation is about 0.5ppm of Fe per dose. Well, if like to use ISTA brand, just follow the instruction and dose it faithfully. Slightly high for trace will not have any adverse effect.

You can combine your ISTA brand with those that is recommended by Tom Barr. Just dose lesser the amount will do.