# Leaves Turning Black all of a sudden



## W1368 (4 May 2011)

HI there,

I've been running my tank with great success over the past few weeks. Although about a week after trimming the leaves on mainly the trimmed plants are turning black and becoming very brittle.

After searching on the internet some sites are saying lack of ferts, others are saying too much.

Can white spot treatment cause any issues? A couple of weeks ago a few glass fish were introcduced, only the newer fish have signs of whitespot. Used Tetra Contraspot after last water change.

125L Tank, C02 injection, half cap of Flourish Excel every other day, 3-5ml of Tropica Plant Nuitrion+ daily. 50-60% water change weekly. Lights 2 18w T8s. Water normally replaced by storing tap water in jerry cans for 24-48 hours with water conditioner added.

The only thing different to the norm is that I'm 2days overdue for the water change and the whitespot treatment was added. Litereally this problem seemed to have occured overnight a couple of days ago.


----------



## ceg4048 (4 May 2011)

Hi,
    Generally, structural flaws and discoloration can be attributed to poor CO2, so this is the first place I would examine. Try adding your Excel every day and check your injection rate and flow distribution.

Cheers,


----------



## W1368 (16 May 2011)

Thanks for the recommendation.

I have increased all dosing, C02, Tropica now 10ml daily, with 1 cap of Excell daily and this has not caused any issues with the Fish or brought on any signs of algae.

Yet, I've always had an issue when trimming the plants, the part of the stem that has been trimmed (just above a node) turns completely black and the growth seems to stop. Although two new side shoots are normally formed that grow extremely well and show no signs of deficiency. Is this normal?

Would upgrading to T5 lighting help, or could this casue more issues? I think right now I have acout 1 wpg, upgrading would give about 2wpg (the tank is an old Juvel Rio 125).

For the plant growth in general its been fine, theres hardly any space left in the tank for new plants.


----------



## Johno2090 (16 May 2011)

W1368 said:
			
		

> Thanks for the recommendation.
> 
> I have increased all dosing, C02, Tropica now 10ml daily, with 1 cap of Excell daily and this has not caused any issues with the Fish or brought on any signs of algae.
> 
> ...


 
It's completely normal for this to happen as your removing what is called the "apical meristem" which is the part of the stem that elongated and grows. Without this the stem does not grow, hence why we trim at the nodes. 

Just above or below the leaves on the node the plant leave two new dormant apical meristems which become active when the main stem stops growing or is trimmed (usually browsed by herbivores in the wild).

We abuse this mechanism to make the stems "bushy" as the next trim done we trim the new stems and therefore have 4 stems instead of 1.

Hope this helps.


----------

