# Does anyone know what makes a plants leaves curl?



## Cat (8 Nov 2019)

An unpopular question its seems but does anyone know what might make my Echinodorus leaves curl?

My tank is thoroughly stricken and there is more wrong with it than right with it. I'm trying to work out what has gone wrong so I bought a couple of easy plants to see what would happen to them now that I have upped the CO2 and lowered the water temperature ( I have Discus fish so temp was quite high ) ANYWAY I put them in and they are sort of coping, one has sprouted some sort of flower thing and the other has long narrow rolled up leaves? 

Trying to find out what this suggests but when I use the search on this forum I can't seem to find an answer, other than a possible lack of CO2, my drop checker is yellow I can't have it higher I'm surprised the fish are coping to be honest. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!


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## AndyMcD (8 Nov 2019)

Embarrassing situations?


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## AndyMcD (9 Nov 2019)

Could it be:
- strong water flow?
- growing towards the light?
- CO2 and light hitting one side more than another?


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## zozo (9 Nov 2019)

Many plants can show this symptom and i believe it yet isn't fully understand why. I had this issue a while back with the majority of Cryptocoryne sp. in my tank. Suddenly curling the leaves down. And it all turned back to normal after a while without me changing a thing. I have no clue what caused it or cured it.

it likely is a kind of stress symptom and the cause could be a number of situations that are extremely difficult to diagnose. Theoretically, i believe it likely be related to osmotic pressure in the plant and a lack or excess of a certain chemical element or other external parameters can trigger it. Such as light, temperature, flow and or combinations. In aquatic plants, it's particularly difficult since it's influenced by water column and substrate parameters. Creating more possible combination stressing the plant.

Everything it needs simply might be available sufficiently enough in the possibilities we have to determine this. But still, there is something going on making the plant not able to coop with it and show this symptom. For example, an excess or lack of certain elements or a number of other invironmental parameters can inhibit the plant to uptake and or transport other elements.


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## Cat (9 Nov 2019)

zozo said:


> Many plants can show this symptom and i believe it yet isn't fully understand why. I had this issue a while back with the majority of Cryptocoryne sp. in my tank. Suddenly curling the leaves down. And it all turned back to normal after a while without me changing a thing. I have no clue what caused it or cured it.
> .



A lot of people talk about the plants being grown in the air and then having problems acclimatising to being underwater and these are very new plants so I wondered if it might be that because if so presumably they would resolve themselves in time without intervention. But the leaves are so thin as well and slightly yellow. I've been adding extra Iron after learning more about things from Darrel and the vallis has never looked so green although the whole aquarium is now permanently tea coloured, so swings and roundabouts I guess!


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## Cat (9 Nov 2019)

AndyMcD said:


> Embarrassing situations?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Yes well if my tank was Japanese it would have committed hara-kiri by now......


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## zozo (10 Nov 2019)

Cat said:


> A lot of people talk about the plants being grown in the air and then having problems acclimatising to being underwater and these are very new plants so I wondered



The vast majority of plants we buy in the lfs are Bog plants.  And these plants can all grow in 2 different forms, preferably and natural in terrestrial form and forcefully also in a permanent aquatic form.

Both forms are for most sp. completely different from each other anatomically and morphologically.

The nurseries providing the lfs with plants grow all these plants in their terrestrial form. Because this is commercially much more attractive. In the atmosphere, there is abundant CO² available and don't have to worry about algae.

Because of the anatomical and morphological difference in both forms, the plant needs to transition from its terrestrial form to its aquatic form. And to do this it will shed all its terrestrial leaves grown in the nursery and grow back aquatic leaves in your aquarium. Depending on X factors it can take weeks for a plant to complete this transitional cycle.

What is particularly confusing for newcomers is the way the lfs present the aquarium plants. They get terrestrial grown plants from the nursery and immediately put these plants underwater in the shops' display tank. It's actually a very stupid and even less educational practise what the lfs owners keep up with. You as a customer are thinking you are buying aquatic plants and do not expect them to die first before it transitions back into aquatic form.

Makes people wonder what they are doing wrong? Actually looking at something natural.


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## dw1305 (10 Nov 2019)

Hi all, 





freewolny said:


> and these chemical elements are K and Ca.


Calcium would be my first thought as well, and I think it must be a nutritional deficiency, but I don't think it is either of these.





Cat said:


> It would seem unlikely to be Calcium as we live in a very hard water area so I always assumed the water would have quite a lot of calcium in it already?


Definitely will have. If you have water from a chalk aquifer (and you will) it is fully saturated with Ca++ and HCO3- ions, and at least 18dKH/18dGH. 





Cat said:


> Do you think maybe this is the wrong kind of potassium?


That definitely isn't the issue, <"every K+ ion is the same as every other K+ ion"> and ~all potassium compounds are soluble, so all the potassium ions you have added are available to the plant. 





Cat said:


> and the vallis has never looked so green


That is useful to know. _Vallisneria_ is a plant that grows better in harder water, and will have adaptations to allow it to take up ions in harder water.

An option would be to replace the _Echinodorus_ with <"_Cryptocoryne crispatula "Balansae"_>? 





Cat said:


> I use Epsom salts for Mg.


 So it looks likely to <"be a micro-nutrient">, and one that is <"less available in hard water">.

I'll be honest <"after that I'm struggling">. Could we have a picture of the tank?

cheers Darrel


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## Cat (12 Nov 2019)

dw1305 said:


> Could we have a picture of the tank?
> 
> cheers Darrel



This is the progression.......pictures taken from my previous thread
*Could it be the substrate? Tank in terminal decline...*

It was - 

 

Then it become - 

 
Now it is -

 

And the Vallis - 


 

When the Discus were young the tank was fine, I haven't been able to work out why everything has being dying. I am starting to suspect it was the temperature because I put it up for the Discus and up til that point it was the only change I did to the whole system, it's been down from 30 for a couple of weeks now and the two plants I just put in haven't died. I have also rammed masses of CO2 in there and got it to go in much earlier than before the lights come on, The drop checker is permanently yellow now but the fish aren't struggling so thats how I've left it. It is 420 ltrs so a couple of hours before probably wasn't enough for so much water. It was always a pretty ropey tank but it was good enough for me. I would like to change the substrate because it really has degraded a lot it's been over 5 years ( can't remember when I put it in to be honest ) but I can't do anything with the fish in there sadly.


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## Cat (12 Nov 2019)

zozo said:


> Makes people wonder what they are doing wrong? Actually looking at something natural.



It's so complex and there are so many variables, if it hadn't been so expensive and time consuming to set up my tank and convert to keeping plants I would have given up ages ago. Also its over 2 metres long and in my living room so its hard to ignore. I bought the plants from a local fish store and they had obviously just got the plants in because normally everything looks half dead. I wonder if I had purchased the plants from an aquatic plant specialist whether the plants would be grown submersed?


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## Cat (12 Nov 2019)

The rocks are plum slate so they shouldn't effect the alkalinity?


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## dw1305 (15 Nov 2019)

Hi all, 





Cat said:


> I didn't know RO water could give you cardiovascular disease? Is that something to do with electrolytes?


Calcium rich water is <"better for you to drink">. I actually prefer the flavour of it as well, but that is a personal thing. 





Cat said:


> This is the progression.......pictures taken from my previous thread


Ummm that is definitely the worse its been. It looks like the iron has precipitated on the plants leaves etc. 

I'm not really sure what to suggest. 

cheers Darrel


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## Cat (15 Nov 2019)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all, Calcium rich water is <"better for you to drink">. I actually prefer the flavour of it as well, but that is a personal thing. Ummm that is definitely the worse its been. It looks like the iron has precipitated on the plants leaves etc.
> 
> I'm not really sure what to suggest.
> 
> cheers Darrel



Well I'm going take a punt on it being something to do with temperature and I'm going to buy some of that hard water tolerant plant you suggested and see what happens. Well at least I feel if I ever sell my fish I've learnt so much from you guys I will a fighting chance of setting up a new tank with some fish that don't hurt themselves on rocks and bogwood. So anyway thank you for your time it is much appreciated!


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## Matt @ ScapeEasy (18 Nov 2019)

Possible the hardness could have crept up over the 5 years due to evaporation?


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## Cat (18 Nov 2019)

Matt @ ScapeEasy said:


> Possible the hardness could have crept up over the 5 years due to evaporation?



I do a 50% water change every week so I would have thought that unlikely, but I wonder about the substrate and maybe it breaking down a lot? It's 7.5 Ph and 445 ppm....


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## MJQMJQ (19 Nov 2019)

Even if substrate broke down, 50% water change should be sufficient to offset it.Im guessing yr tap water has issues.Is the piping old(rusting etc)?7.5 ph is on the high side discus will not exactly like it either.PPM also a bit high.The ph for the tank i suppose?What abt the tap water?


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