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Alternanthera deficiency help

Bridgo

Bridgo

Member
Joined
4 Feb 2015
Messages
28
20150331_192741_zps8ywa36rt.jpg

Hi guys,
I'm slowly learning the ropes with my planted tank. I have experimented with lots of different configurations and now feel that I'm finally winning. I'm clearly doing something wrong though as my Alternanthera reineckii purple is growing severely deformed leaves and I don't know why.

I feel that it's safe to rule out a CO2 issue as cause of this deficiency.

Any ideas?
 
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Thanks for the reply Martin. I don't believe CO2 is an issue because I have really good flow around my tank with at least 10x tank turnover. My drop checker is yellow and the PH / KH chart says that I have around 50 ppm CO2.

I don't know how else to measure CO2.

My Alternanthera is one of the first plants to receive CO2 saturated water with all the plants after pearling nicely. My tank becomes a bit of a Jacuzzi about half way through the photo period.

Regards,
 
Im just looking for some info for myself really. I want to know if co2? defficiencies are more common in hard water.
 
I do dose dry salts, I don't dose nitrate as my tank is around 40ppm from a combination of tap and bio load. I dose enough potassium phosphate to get my water to around 5ppm and my Iron sits around 0.8ppm from the micro mix that I have.

I believe that I will have enough micro nutrients if I have enough iron but please correct me if Im wrong.

I did dose extra potassium until recently but stopped as I read that potassium can inhibit calcium?

I'm not 100% what's considered hard water but my KH is around 5 and my GH is around 9 from my dabble with the test kit.

Regards,
 
20150329_172124_zps95in8sjn.jpg

A little post to show my flow on my 350 litre Juwel tank.
Above is what I see from my couch
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I have an aqua medic 1000 CO2 reactor plumbed into the output of a 1250 lph eheim professional 3 that is half filled with pot scrubbies. This is twinned with a 1600 lph circulation pump which work together to push CO2 saturated water along the lenght of my tank from top right to bottom left. The current then swings round the left end of my tank which then hits the alternanthera in question.
20150329_171943_zpshptsvcfu.jpg

after the the alternanthera reineckii purple, my flow then hits hygrophila guanensis followed by alternanthera reineckii pink and then my echinodorus amazonicus. As the flow begins to slow down going through these plants, It is picked up by another 1250 lph eheim professional 3 also filled with pot scrubbies that's twinned with a 900 lph circulation pump that flows along the back wall causing the current to then swing round the right side of my tank and begin again.

I think that this is the best flow pattern for my tank as a spray bar across the back of my tank left me with dead spots behind my hard scape.

20150401_184451_zpsfexmh1bc.jpg

This is the view when you walk into my front room. My aim is to have a scape that looks like a different aquarium from both viewing angles.

Apologies for my bad camera work.

Please tell me if I'm doing it all wrong.

Regards,
 
Have you touched the leaves? Are they strong or crispy or fragile? I had Alternanthera grow new leaves like this under very high co2 but they turned normal as they aged. The new growth should be supple and strong it may not be a problem at all. What do they feel like?
Also, luvly tank!
 
Thanks Karla. I haven't tried touching them. Didn't think of that. I will try tomorrow evening after work and report back.
Cheers,
 
no advice, just wanted to say your tank is really nice. Gotta love discus!
 
Cheers Rahms,
It's getting there I think.
I have just got to wait for everything to grow in nicely and get better with my trimming.
Oh, and sort out my deficiencies.
Regards,
 
Please dose EI, not some other form you have just invented "cos your nitrate test kit says so".....These type of deformations, assume your carbon level is OK, can be caused by nitrogen (nitrate) issues. You do dose Mg do you ? as this can also cause plant deformation.

This is seen time and time again, my water report says "high nitrate", my test kits lies to me "high nitrate" so I save pennies and not dose nitrate, then wonder why my plants go funny.

If you use any dechlorinator these will influence test kit results (over reading) as well as acids in the water (CO2 ??)....so you may use a test kit, no harm in that but ignore the result :) it will be wrong.
 
I'm not too bothered about the pennies and I already own a very large bag of NO3. I am concerned about my discus though as they are meant to be very sensitive to high nitrate and I consider my bio load to be quite large. Wouldn't this give me plenty of nitrate anyway regardless of what my test kit says?

I'm sure Tom once said that if your tap has high nitrate, just dose less?

I'm fully aware of people's hate for test kits but surely they give you a rough indication as to what is going on in a tank?

I used to dose Mg but stopped as I had twisted leaves on hygrophila guanensis and also heard that this can inhibit calcium which I'm beginning to think could be the cause.

I have never had twisted leaves as bad as this before though. I figured that my dosing was more of a PMDD + P but dosed to the max to be fair.

The micro mix I have is from aquarium plant food. Co.uk and contains Boron.

If a lack of nitrogen is my problem then great.

Regards,
 
Bridgo said:
I'm not too bothered about the pennies and I already own a very large bag of NO3. I am concerned about my discus though as they are meant to be very sensitive to high nitrate and I consider my bio load to be quite large. Wouldn't this give me plenty of nitrate anyway regardless of what my test kit says?
Click to expand...

Fish are affected not by the end product "nitrate" but by the high organic load which leads to high nitrate eventually by which we measure the tank's health as there's no other way to measure how much organics the tank had to deal with. But it's the processes that break down the organics to ammonia to nitrite to nitrate that affect the fish indirectly. The nitrate amount is just a simple way of getting the idea what had happened prior to that. So if you are ending up with high nitrates, providing your test is correct, the issue is your tank is dealing with lots of organics and that can affect the fish.

Dosing inorganic nitrate has totally no effect on the fish, not this way and not that I know of.

Try to find a scientific paper that proves nitrate levels of the type we have in our aquariums and multiply by a magnitude of 100 if you want, that says high nitrates directly affect fish. The only one you can find that claims that, also mentions that at the same time there were "safe" levels of nitrite of 0.50ppm or so and they tested it on new setups with unstable stats.
 
sciencefiction said:
Dosing inorganic nitrate has totally no effect on the fish, not this way and not that I know of.
Click to expand...
I had a dosing pump failure once and ended up dumping 1litre of 1 1/2 strength EI macro mix into my 180l tank giving a NO3 ppm of 210ppm, phosphate 85ppm and Mg 50ppm and noticed absolutely no change in fish behaviour or plant growth or algae infestation in the couple of days these levels were present before I noticed.
 
Cheers guys I had no idea that this was the case and I have clearly been overly cautious on my nitrate dosing. I will look into how much I should dose when I get home and start this evening.

It will be an interesting experiment regardless.

Regards,
 
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