Hi all,
I have been having a long standing problem with brown edges/BBA on only OLD leaves in my tank. I have read a huge number of posts regarding the subject, but still cant seem to get to the root of the problem.
Tank Specs:
1) 128L tank (capacity without substrate etc)
2) 2 x 54W arcadia luminaire
3) ADA Powersand special + Amazonia 2.
4) Lighting period 6hrs.
5) C02 injection, FE method, UP atomizer 3 hours before lights on, 2 hours before lights off. Drop checker is emerald at lights on, very light green 2 hrs into lighting period.
6) Filter turnover >10x
7) Spraybar configuration, bubbles can clearly be seen in all areas
8) Dosing EI (currently at 1.5x) using Calculator on James planted tank.
Before going into the details of the problem, I want to be clear as to my approach, over the past 4-months, I have tried a number of different things, all done in isolation (1 variable at a time) and leaving for 3-4 weeks before re-assesing.
Symptoms:
1) New growth is healthy and quick
2) Older growth begins to get brown edges
3) If left brown edges form BBA, leaving me with bare stems and a healthy tip.
4) Old leaf tips also tend to have damage after a while, across multiple plant types (mainly reneickii pink, and zostefolia)
5) Reneickii Pink does not get brown edges (that i can see) but does have BBA form on the older leaves
6) Bacopa australis in central location with good flow around it has curled up leaves on all growth( may be same root cause?)
That is the main symptoms, now the things I have tried:
1) Increased dosing from Standard EI, now at 1.5X EI
2) Single and Multiple Powerheads, in many orientations, the result of which was BBA in high flow areas. ( The distance from the back to the front of the tank is quite short, which meant the flow was extremely quick, and also caused a horizontal motion when contacting the glass causing disruptions in the flow...)Currently just the spraybar, which gives me a good flow around almost all areas of the tank, when viewed from the side there is flow front to back across the bottom of the rear stem plants
3)Reducing lighting period from 8hrs to 6hrs.
4) Adjusting the c02 injection rate, to max (for fish), also attempted lime green throughout (emerald at lights on).
5) Addition of magnesium to macro dosing.
6) Addition of Iron to Micro dosing.
7) confirmed even distribution of flow with drop checker moved to multiple locations and monitored for a few days at each point.
At this point I am now stuck. After reviewing many, many posts on algae, C02 and dosing, I have found only one other post with the same symptoms, (looking at the photos) unfortunately this never really got answered completely, and the final point suggested it was diatoms of some kind. I am not sure if diatoms would trigger BBA at the same location?
So in summary, I have reduced my lighting, increased my C02, achieved what I am pretty confident is good flow, (this is where I have spent the majority of my time, leading to severe cross eyes trying to follow the damn bubbles around. and am now dosing 1.5x EI with Additional magnesium, and a very small amount of extra iron. With no improvement. Now I am sure it has something to with one of those three, but what am I missing here?!
Apologies for the long post, I just wanted to give as clear a picture as possible, and pre-empt the more obvious things to try, (I have tried sooo many different things).
Hope someone can shed some light on this...
Chris
I have been having a long standing problem with brown edges/BBA on only OLD leaves in my tank. I have read a huge number of posts regarding the subject, but still cant seem to get to the root of the problem.
Tank Specs:
1) 128L tank (capacity without substrate etc)
2) 2 x 54W arcadia luminaire
3) ADA Powersand special + Amazonia 2.
4) Lighting period 6hrs.
5) C02 injection, FE method, UP atomizer 3 hours before lights on, 2 hours before lights off. Drop checker is emerald at lights on, very light green 2 hrs into lighting period.
6) Filter turnover >10x
7) Spraybar configuration, bubbles can clearly be seen in all areas
8) Dosing EI (currently at 1.5x) using Calculator on James planted tank.
Before going into the details of the problem, I want to be clear as to my approach, over the past 4-months, I have tried a number of different things, all done in isolation (1 variable at a time) and leaving for 3-4 weeks before re-assesing.
Symptoms:
1) New growth is healthy and quick
2) Older growth begins to get brown edges
3) If left brown edges form BBA, leaving me with bare stems and a healthy tip.
4) Old leaf tips also tend to have damage after a while, across multiple plant types (mainly reneickii pink, and zostefolia)
5) Reneickii Pink does not get brown edges (that i can see) but does have BBA form on the older leaves
6) Bacopa australis in central location with good flow around it has curled up leaves on all growth( may be same root cause?)
That is the main symptoms, now the things I have tried:
1) Increased dosing from Standard EI, now at 1.5X EI
2) Single and Multiple Powerheads, in many orientations, the result of which was BBA in high flow areas. ( The distance from the back to the front of the tank is quite short, which meant the flow was extremely quick, and also caused a horizontal motion when contacting the glass causing disruptions in the flow...)Currently just the spraybar, which gives me a good flow around almost all areas of the tank, when viewed from the side there is flow front to back across the bottom of the rear stem plants
3)Reducing lighting period from 8hrs to 6hrs.
4) Adjusting the c02 injection rate, to max (for fish), also attempted lime green throughout (emerald at lights on).
5) Addition of magnesium to macro dosing.
6) Addition of Iron to Micro dosing.
7) confirmed even distribution of flow with drop checker moved to multiple locations and monitored for a few days at each point.
At this point I am now stuck. After reviewing many, many posts on algae, C02 and dosing, I have found only one other post with the same symptoms, (looking at the photos) unfortunately this never really got answered completely, and the final point suggested it was diatoms of some kind. I am not sure if diatoms would trigger BBA at the same location?
So in summary, I have reduced my lighting, increased my C02, achieved what I am pretty confident is good flow, (this is where I have spent the majority of my time, leading to severe cross eyes trying to follow the damn bubbles around. and am now dosing 1.5x EI with Additional magnesium, and a very small amount of extra iron. With no improvement. Now I am sure it has something to with one of those three, but what am I missing here?!
Apologies for the long post, I just wanted to give as clear a picture as possible, and pre-empt the more obvious things to try, (I have tried sooo many different things).
Hope someone can shed some light on this...
Chris