H. Pinnatifada with black spots

[Vinkenoog1977]

Hey guys,

After some initial amazing growth and colouring, my H. Pinnatifada is having some issues. It is still growing pretty darn good, but the older leaves are starting to show black spots on the leaves, almost like algae, but not quite. And the colouring has pretty much stopped; they remain greenish, with some brownish tones, no reds whatsoever anymore. I've pretty much ruled out CO2 and flow (since they are slap bang in front of the filter outlet), but am not sure what else could be the problem. I did a quick Google, and read somewhere that they require higher amounts of potassium. I have no problem upping that, but would like to be sure this is the issue, and if this will not have a negative effect on my other plants.

Thanks!

Paul.

P.S.: this is in my Lido 120.

 

[ceg4048]

I've pretty much ruled out CO2 and flow

Mistake #1.

Cheers,

 

[Vinkenoog1977]

Mistake #1.

Cheers,

I was waiting for that one, hence the "pretty much". The thing is, this is the only plant suffering; the Ludwigia and the Cyperus, which occupy roughly the same spot in the tank, have no issues and are doing great. This is the only plant that's showing signs of problems/ defficiencies. These plants are full in the path of flow from the internal filter, and the powerhead makes sure flow reaches all the potential dead spots. I see leaf movement all over the place, from corner to corner, from the substrate to the surface, and CO2-bubbles all over the place. As said, no problems the first couple of months, and the only change I made was UP the CO2, due to the growing plant mass.

 

[ian_m]

1. CO2.
2. You haven't stated how you are fertilising, so could be an issue. If dosing EI, dose 1.5 times for a while and see if improves. Try root tab under the plant having an issue.

 

[Vinkenoog1977]

Ow, sorry, am dosing full EI; will increase to 1,5 x dose to see if that helps. Root tabs won't do much, since they are almost all attached to wood.

 

[pepedopolous]

Why do you expect every leaf to be perfect? These are semi-aquatic plants after all so they do better growing out of water, physically change and often suffer during the transition from emersed to submersed.

I think the plant you mentioned (HP) is pretty hard to grow and maintain a nice appearance with. It often loses it's lower leaves, even with good CO2 and flow. Few people manage to recreate the look that Amano and others have achieved with it.

P

 

[ceg4048]

I was waiting for that one, hence the "pretty much". The thing is, this is the only plant suffering; the Ludwigia and the Cyperus, which occupy roughly the same spot in the tank, have no issues and are doing great.

You cannot judge how a specific plant will do based on the response of other plants. Each plant species and each specimen itself have varying abilities and talent for nutrient uptake and for gas handling. A plant doing well, sitting right next to a suffering plant tells you nothing about the suffering plant. It could easily be, for example that the flow hitting the leaf is disruptive to that leaf. Generally, it's not good to have leaves being pummeled by water in the direct path of a pump output. That is not how the benefits of flow work. You could try moving the plant to another location or change the effluent geometry.

Cheers,

 

[Vinkenoog1977]

You cannot judge how a specific plant will do based on the response of other plants. Each plant species and each specimen itself have varying abilities and talent for nutrient uptake and for gas handling. A plant doing well, sitting right next to a suffering plant tells you nothing about the suffering plant. It could easily be, for example that the flow hitting the leaf is disruptive to that leaf. Generally, it's not good to have leaves being pummeled by water in the direct path of a pump output. That is not how the benefits of flow work. You could try moving the plant to another location or change the effluent geometry.

Cheers,

That was one thing that had occured to me, I will check tonight how some of the other shoots are doing which are outside of the direct path of flow.

 

[Vinkenoog1977]

Well, upon closer inspection, this is a case of BBA. 🙁 I did maintenance on Saturday, and only saw a few of the black spots, but now I see quite a few of the plants are affected as well, ferns as well as some of the crypts. So I made some alterations to the flow situation, moved the powerhead around, and changed the flow from the internal filter as much as I could (think of). I also upped the CO2 some more, and started dosing EasyCarbo. I also dropped the photoperiod back to 6 hours, even though from what I understand, this doesn't do much against BBA, and will be getting some SAE this afternoon, to see if that will help.