Dying Plants

[aquarius]

Some of my plants in my 2ft tank are dying. I'll start off with my dying vallis. Hope the experts here is able to help with the diagnosis. It started off with the leaves turning yellow (below)





To later becoming like this


Even the runner shoot also started to die off


My Tank Specs are as follows
2ft x 1.5ft x 1.5ft
Lights : 1x 36W PL (8hrs a day)
Subsrtate : ADA Amazonia New
Temp : 26 - 28 deg
Fert : KNO3 - 3.6ppm, PO4 - 0.2ppm, Seachem Potassium - 1ml,
Seachem Flourish - 1ml
CO2 : Non CO2/Low Tech
Kh : Did not measure
Gh : Did not measure

I feed my fishes generous amount of food everyday. What am i missing out that is causing the plant to die off??

[|squee|]

Perhaps calcium? Try dosing half a teaspoon of Seachem Equilibrium weekly with your water changes.

[felix_fx2]

Taken from shadow's blog

Nitrogen (N)
Effecting old leaves
Symptom: Stunted growth, leaves turn yellow and die off, the plants may also become reddish from the presence of the red pigment anthocyanin.

Best read the whole list of plant deficiencies, compare to be really sure.
From my quick reference picture taken from google... i though Iron..

[Shadow]

How long have you plant it?

[aquarius]

Thanks for the replies.....

I had the Vallis around the middle of Dec 2011 and by the the middle of Jan 2012, the leaves were starting to yellow. That was when i started to do my liquid fert dosing. I found it strange that since my ADA soil is new and the vallis being a root plant, should have gotten it's nutrients from the soil unlike my stem plants and that the nutrients from the soil should have been enough to help kick-start plant growth but it didn't. I tried searching for websites on how nutrient definciencies in plants look like but can't seem to be able to diagnose the problem.

I understand from Tom Barr's Non-CO2 Method tread that he use SeaChem Equilibrium instead of Traces because Equilibrium has Fe and Mn as well as Ca/K/Mg/SO4. I would like to know whether is it necessary for Non-CO2 or Low tech/Low maintenance tanks to increase the Kh and Gh of the water cos i believe the Kh and Gh of my tap water supplies is very low??

[felix_fx2]

it can still absorb nutrients from leaves. i do suspect another reason...

Is this once a day, per 3 days or once a week.

Fert : KNO3 - 3.6ppm,
PO4 - 0.2ppm
Seachem Potassium - 1ml
Seachem Flourish - 1ml

[aquarius]

It's once a week...... It's a Low tech tank so i presume it should be enough especially since it's not a heavily planted tank with lots of stem plants?? Besides the vallis should be gettting most of it's nutrients from the soil.

[felix_fx2]

Unless the roots are not doing well. I don't see a direct impact. You did remove the rockwool right?

Personally, I do dose once a week but only seachem flourish & a pinch of Equilibrium when I WC. But the dose of flourish is more.

[aquarius]

Yup, i did remove the rockwool. I've recently cut off all the leaves of the vallis cos the "white" leaves were causing health issues for my fishes. I believe the roots are still ok.....

[Peanut8787]

I was wondering why nobody say about "non CO2 injecting"? You should at least have some DIY CO2 or excel to cover the loss of compress CO2. I would say it is the CO2 problem.

[Shadow]

Its a 36W over 2x1.5x1.5ft tank, should be fine without CO2 injection. However, additional CO2 sure will help but make sure not to add Excel. Vallis known to have melted due to excel.

[Peanut8787]

Its a 36W over 2x1.5x1.5ft tank, should be fine without CO2 injection. However, additional CO2 sure will help but make sure not to add Excel. Vallis known to have melted due to excel.

Learnt something today. Excel will caused vallis to melt. Luckily all my previous tank with vallis has no excel..

[aquarius]

In a CO2 enriched tank, you'll need the Kh to be at least 4dkh to prevent very wide Ph fluctuations. Since my tank is Non CO2, do i still need to increase my Kh to 3-4dkh since plants can and will use the calcium to make food in the absence of CO2?? I remember that someone said that for ADA soil, you don't neeed to increase the Kh cos the ADA soil will bring down the Kh again..... Can anyone plse clarify this?

[Shadow]

not really, if you use soil with buffering capability, there are many brand ADA is one of them. The soil will take care of the pH fluctuation.

ADA soil in particular have pH and kH lowering capability, does no point of trying adding something to increase the kH. IT was not necessary in the first place anyway.

[aquarius]

What about Gh?? Do i need to increase the Gh with Seachem's Equilibrium and is this important for healthy plant growth?? It seems that not many people here dose anything to increase the Gh in planted tanks here.

[Shadow]

I never measure gh, not sure whether ADAA affecting gh or not but I do add seachem equilibrium once a week after water change.

[aquarius]

When you add the Equilibrium, did you add based on the whole tank's water or just the amount of water that you changed? BTW since my tank is Non CO2 and water changes is not advisable unless i'm doing a rescape, can i treat it like i'm adding any other ferts and just add the equilibrium every week or every fortnightly?

[Shadow]

I add based on the total volume of the tank. I can't comment on low tech tank. I found low tech is more tricky than high tech.

[|squee|]

I'd add Equlibrium every fortnightly, say one teaspoon for your 2ft tank. That's what I did for my 2ft nonCO2 based on Tom Barr's Non CO2 method. If you want to add it every week, say about 1/4 teaspoon. Just guesstimate.

[aquarius]

Some updates..... Added 1 spoonful of Equilibrium (the white small n long plastic spoon for stirring coffee) starting on 10th mar and adding the same amt or more every week till now. So far i observed that the vallis only grew 2 new shoots each and the new shoots never grew taller than 2inches.

My hairgrass is also doing well even after dosing Equilibrium. They are turning brown and yellow..... because of this, the tank is having hair algae problems. Aside from the hair algae problems, what do i need to do to grow the hairgrass well? BTW i've recently stopped dosing macro and micro ferts to let the tank stablise first.