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Guess the deficiency

Light is too much in my opinion ,but if you run it at 50 % i have no idea what that is meaning.

The dosage is less than you are saying , and you need to dose more KNO3 .

PO4 you need to increase till you get rig of GSA . The point about GSA is that you need to trim plants and if you see the new growth has no GSA than you are ok , if new growth still has GSA you need to add more PO4

According to http://www.theaquatools.com/fertilization-calculator you are dosing the following :


6.5 KNO3 , 2.3 PO4 and 1.9 Mg

4tsp Potassium Nitrate
1tsp Potassium Phosphate
6tsp Magnesium Sulphate
500lm water.

I dose 40ml 3 times a week



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Also just had a quick look at your journal, imo distribution of flow may possibly be your issue, the flow at the front of the tank (blyxa) may be too fierce not allowing enough contact between plant and co2 nutrients etc then the flow will be disrupted by the hardscape imho causing issues for the plants on and behind the hardscape, have you tried just the inflow/ outflow pipe in one corner to create a circular flow around the tank ?
 
I would like to throw in a hypothesis, your PO4 is precipitated by iron, rendering both nutrients unavailable.

Frankly, I've not seen a severe (from the pic it's severe to me) case here or barrreport.com or plantedtank.net can be solved by just upping or lowering ferts, CO2, or flow. Not one.
 
tim said:
Possibly, easy way to find out is add an extra teaspoon to your macro bottle and wait a couple of weeks
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I should point that I only have GSA on those leafs and a very tiny amount on the anubas. Everywhere else is clean, including the glass. In fact I can't remember the last time i cleaned the glass!

AndreiD said:
Light is too much in my opinion ,but if you run it at 50 % i have no idea what that is meaning.
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I have the lights on a dimmer so only run them at 50% of the maximum power. I have no idea what that translates to for PAR though.
tim said:
Also just had a quick look at your journal, imo distribution of flow may possibly be your issue, the flow at the front of the tank (blyxa) may be too fierce not allowing enough contact between plant and co2 nutrients etc then the flow will be disrupted by the hardscape imho causing issues for the plants on and behind the hardscape, have you tried just the inflow/ outflow pipe in one corner to create a circular flow around the tank ?
Click to expand...

xim said:
I would like to throw in a hypothesis, your PO4 is precipitated by iron, rendering both nutrients unavailable.
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Isn't that the point of dosing micros on alternate days? Or are you saying the remaining PO4 from the previous day is causing the Iron to become unavailable? I also thought it was only Iron affected by PO4 and not both?

This is how I have the tank set up as of today from a hardware perspective. The plants have totally changed compared to this pic. I did a DIY spraybar which distributes the flow more evenly so no one type of plant is getting a servere blast. I'll do a video of it shortly.
28788459262_acc6ff1c4f_k.jpgDSC_0336.jpg
 
tim said:
The affected leaves on your ludwigia look to be below the place you last trimmed them, you could uproot and replant the new stems or trim off those leaves,
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That is what I have been doing although I was expecting everything below the cut to remain healthy so i could achieve a bushy appearance. Is that normal behaviour?
 
xim said:
Frankly, I've not seen a severe (from the pic it's severe to me) case here or barrreport.com or plantedtank.net can be solved by just upping or lowering ferts, CO2, or flow. Not one.
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I agree. Its now trying to find what fert I need to increase 🙂
 
Aeropars said:
Or are you saying the remaining PO4 from the previous day is causing the Iron to become unavailable? I also thought it was only Iron affected by PO4 and not both?
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Yes, that's my speculation. Now the fact is when PO4 binds with iron, both nutrients are unavailable because they become iron phosphate (FePO4). Other minerals also precipitate iron. Iron is very attractive.
 
Aeropars said:
I agree. Its now trying to find what fert I need to increase 🙂
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I would try changing micros to a branded one, such as Tropica's. Just to test. Then if it works but the cost is prohibitive, I would try to find alternatives later.
 
xim said:
Iron is very attractive.
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Oh how i wish I was Iron..... 😀
xim said:
I would try changing micros to a branded one, such as Tropica's. Just to test. Then if it works but the cost is prohibitive, I would try to find alternatives later.
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I was reading on here yesterday that might be needed. EDTA vs another chelator (cant remember the name) in hard water. I have hard water and have always struggled to get the kind of growth that others get. I considered getting an RO unit but then changed my mind. I'm not going to be beaten 😀
 
Aeropars said:
That is what I have been doing although I was expecting everything below the cut to remain healthy so i could achieve a bushy appearance. Is that normal behaviour?
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Happens with my stems, I think the plant puts its energy into the new growth which leads to the old leaves deteriorating and becoming susceptible to algae, I hide my cuts behind other plants and hardscape.
 
Yes, I do have a touch of that below the level of the plants. I though that was down to a lack of flow below the plants.

I have started adding Easy Life Ferro to supplement iron as well so I can at least rule that out.

It looks like I should change my EI recipe as well then.
 
Aeropars said:
I have started adding Easy Life Ferro to supplement iron as well so I can at least rule that out.

It looks like I should change my EI recipe as well then.
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Easy Life Ferro only contains iron (I heard that it uses DTPA and EDDHA which is good if that's true). So you still need to dose the micro-mix. And if the one you're using contains Fe-EDTA or weaker, it will still precipitate PO4 you have in the tank, according to my "speculation". That's why I mentioned about Tropica's fert because it is a micro-mix without Fe-EDTA. If you like Easy-Life's line, that would be the ProFito but I don't know what chelators used in that product.
 
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Yes, that's one of the primary reasons I selected it. Quote reasonable in price for DTPA chelated iron. I read another members posts about their struggles with standard EI iron chelators in hard water so thought I would give this a go and see if there is any difference in the results.

I must admit, I've use EI for years and around 7 years ago when I started in the hobby pre-mixed ferts were very expensive and uneconomical for my size tank. Looking at the Easy Life range, amongst others, the prices are much more affordable compared to back then.
 
Thanks to all who replied on this thread. I am today going to change my recipe for the MACRO EI mix. I've been doing a lot of reading about the PPM's needed however I have one question.

I see the target PPMs are as follows:

Nitrate 20–30 ppm
Phosphate 1-3 ppm
Potassium 20-30ppm
Magnesium 2-5ppm

Are these values per dose or to be achieved over the course of the week? By week I mean that on day 1 of the weekly routine you hit these levels and then maintain them throughout the week by supplemental dosing?
 
Increase PO4 by x2 and reduce light by 15%.
 
These are your weekly targets.
To be achieved over the course of the week.
I E if you dose 3 times a week your po4 target is 3ppm you would dose 1 ppm per dose over the week =3ppm.
 
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