Plant deficiency help please

[_SW19_]

Afternoon all

Had this setup for around 4 weeks, currently going through a fishless cycle.

I have injected co2 with in-line atomiser, Juwel helialux LED 800 28watt, Eheim Pro 3 1000ltrs an hour, with hydro Koralia powerhead on a 125l tank.

Substrate is flourite Black.

I am using flourish tabs, and co2supermarket all in one plant ferts dosing 15ml a day. The ferts have:

Potassium Nitrate
Monopotassium Phosphate
Potassium Sulphate
Magnesium Sulphate Heptahydrate
Chelated Trace Elements

Water reads:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrates 40/80ppm

PH is 7.6 and drops to 6.6 after co2 is turned on.

If I introduce ammonia it’s 0 within 24 hours.

Over the last 2 days I’ve noticed a deterioration in plants, this may be down to a co2 adjustment I did around a week ago, reducing it slightly. I’ve bumped it back up to 3bubbles a second.

I appear to have a good coverage of co2 in the water column all over the tank; I can visible see the bubbles and I have the drop checker in the place where the co2 would be the least - DC is green.

The HC I have is from two different suppliers, one has taken well, the other melted, and has started to grow green shoots, so assume that’s not part of the issue.

I’ve always worried whether the ferts (ml) im doing is sufficient. Any suggestions on what the cause is and how to fix?
Cheers
Simon

 

[Zeus.]

Assuming nothing is eating the leaves, then the most likely cause is to much light with flucuating CO2 levels. BPS only gives an idea of the injection rate not the amount of CO2. But 3BPS does seem a little on the low side IMO.
You could do with doing a pH profile, take pH every 30 mins from before CO2 till CO2 off. Max pH drop should be by lights on and then stable from lights on.
A FTS helps lots also as we can then see the Scape/plants/hardware which will effect the flow in the tank.

 

[Iain Sutherland]

A lot of the brown on the anubias is diatoms, see if it rubs off...

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

 

[_SW19_]

Thanks both. You might be right re diatoms, I’ll see if I can clean it off.

I’ll try and get a profile over the weekend.

I’ve also attached a pic of the tank.

Cheers

 

[_SW19_]

It was diatoms - brushed off easily, and some stowaway snails have been eating it.

The hair algae looks like it’s getting a little worse.

KH is 10dKH
268.5GH

PH profile is:

7.6 @ 5:30am co2 on at 5:45am.
7.6 @ 6am
7.2 @ 7am *lights on*
7.2 @ 8am
7.2 @ 8:30am
7.0 @ 9:00am
7.0 @ 9:30am
6.8 @ 10:00am
6.8 @ 10:30am
6.8 @ 12:00pm
6.8@ 14:30pm
6.8 @ 3:20pm
6.8 @5pm
6.8 @ 6:30pm
6.8 @ 8:40pm co2 off
7.0 @ 9:10pm
7.2@ 10:00pm *lights off 10:20pm*
7.2 @ 11pm
Fell asleep

I guess the light period at 15hrs is quite long, although I have the helialux controller, with the following light profile:

Dawn 7am - 9am white 5% and blue 40%
Sunrise 11am - 3pm white 90% blue 100%
Sunset 4:30pm - 6:30pm white 10% blue 80%
Dusk 10pm - 10:20pm white 0% blue 0%

PH needs to have dropped by 1unit, by the time lights come on. I’m thinking to change co2 so that it starts at 5am. I dont get from PH 7.6 to PH6.6, only 6.8. Is this an issue? Also, because I’m on a controller, the lights on at 7am is not 100% luminosity, it’s very low luminosity so should the PH drop be for 7am or when the lighting gets to near 100%?

I did a 80% water change on Sunday and been dosing ferts in-line with instructions and phosphates are 5ppm today.

Any advice on reducing this algae?

Cheers

 

[Matt @ ScapeEasy]

I have heard that blue light encouraged algae... not sure if this is an urban myth though... one to research!

 

[Edvet]

Why not get the algea under control end start fidling with the light after. Just set the light from 12 -6 first, If everything is healthy and growing you can start adding all that fancy lighting. Start with all white, maybe not even att 100%..

 

[ian_m]

As Edvert says, that is way way too longer light period, especially if your CO2 is not fully sorted, especially not getting a 1pH drop. pH drops tend to under read CO2 levels (handy so as to not gas fish), so CO2 levels likely to be far far lower than expected. A drop checker can help here.

As a start, to keep/reduce/remove algae I would go for

- CO2 on 3pm
- Lights 50% on and white at 5pm. CO2 drop checker need to be green/yellow at 5pm, with pH drop of 1 by 5pm.
- Lights higher than 50% (70% ?) at 5:30pm. pH same as above.
- CO2 off at 10pm. pH same as above.
- Lights 50% at 10:30pm.
- Lights off 11pm.

As for what "white" is, you can play around with spectrum to make the plants look good to your eyes, the plants don't really care.

 

[_SW19_]

Interesting, thanks all.

On the co2 at 30ppm, I would have thought based on parameters above, which I’ve included below, that my co2 ppm is currently at 47ppm.

KH is 10dKH
PH 6.8
33 gallons

All the calculators I’ve used reach around 47ppm. Have I got this wrong? Not sure based on the calculators, if my co2 is too low?

 

[_SW19_]

Just as an update, I’ve reduced the lighting period and now it comes on at 3pm, along with the build up from 50% to around 70%. Also altered co2 time on and time off.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the co2 and being 47ppm based on the water parameters listed above?

 

[ian_m]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the co2 and being 47ppm based on the water parameters listed above?

How are you ascertaining the "clearly incorrect" 47ppm ? (accuracy of 1ppm ??? doubt it).

What pH pen are you using to measure pH ? Can't use a test kit to measure this too many interfering ions/salts/degassing CO2 to get any meaningful reading during CO2 injection.

See here about the fallacy of test kits, and why there are not needed.
https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/what-about-test-kits.52487/

Not falling for the dKH vs pH chart are we ? Thank goodness it always overreads for a real tank, especially if you have fish. These charts are for calcium carbonate in distilled water with CO2, not CO2 in fish poo water and are only a guide to be interpreted with care.

What does drop checker say ? as that is isolated from tank water and will read correct'ish CO2 levels in the tank water.

What is you ferts dosing amounts and regime ? What is the potassium sulphate for ?

As your tank setup is so "new" and I assume you are dosing ferts and I assume your CO2 is reasonably acceptable (but your lighting is way too long and high) I would suggest your plants are just adjusting to the new tank. A lot of aquatic plants are grown out of water (CO2 = 400ppm) and have issues when first placed in the tank (CO2 - 30ppm), leaves dying off etc. New growth should be fine.

 

[Edvet]

1) CO2 is hard to measure
2) 47 ppm is a lot of CO2, quite sure you don't have that much (and the problems are telling you too you havent got that)
3) how did you get to that number

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

my co2 ppm is currently at 47ppm. KH is 10dKH. PH 6.8

Is that from the chart? You can't really use the CO2 ~ dKH ~ pH chart to work out how much CO2 you have.

It only works when you don't have any other source of alkalinity other than HCO3- ions, or any acid other than H2CO3, they are an acid/base pair. You can only really use the chart when you use a drop checker with the bromothymol blue pH indicator and 4dKH solution in it.

You could make up different strengths of KH solution (and use the chart), as long as you make it purely from potassium (or sodium) carbonate (or bicarbonate) dissolved in DI water.

cheers Darrel