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Plants looking sorry for themselves in the last 2 weeks

jonnyuk

Member
Joined
6 Oct 2010
Messages
28
hi all, over the last 2 weeks my plants have started to look very leggy, leaves going yellow with holes in them, green spots on the leaves.
Setup for about 6 months
Dennerle 55l scaper
fluval 307 filter
CO2 - about 2bps - comes on for 5 hours (1 hour before lights on, off 2 before lights off)
Lighting Twinstar 450e - 2.30>8.30 with a 1 ramp up and down in that time as well, set at 35% at the peaks.
Dosing 5ml a day of TNC complete
2.5ml of Seachem Excel
weekly 30% water change
i would say heavily stocked fish wise

I changed my dosing 2 weeks ago from tnc lite to tnc complete because i thought i lacked nitrate and phosphates. I do test weekly for nitrates and have always recorded 0 pm, hence my move to nitrate along with my floating plants showing signs of lack of nitrate etc. the irony is my floating plants look good at the min, maybe too much shading?

i still suspect a lack of nitrate and phosphate, i'm also suspecting a lack of CO2 or maybe flow of CO2

hope someone can point out my errors and offer advice before any algae gets out of control
thanks
 

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Hi all,
the irony is my floating plants look good at the min
They look good. Plant health looks OK all around.
i'm also suspecting a lack of CO2
Could be, your floating plants aren't CO2 limited.
maybe too much shading?
Turn the light intensity up.
i still suspect a lack of nitrate and phosphate
Can you get a shot of the floating plants from above?

cheers Darrel
 
just took some quick pics of the floating plants. in comparison to how the plants looked 2 weeks ago they look a right mess (not all of them it has to be said)
 

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Hi all,
in comparison to how the plants looked 2 weeks ago they look a right mess (not all of them it has to be said)
Perfect, they still look pretty good, but I think the Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) is just beginning to show the signs of <"iron (Fe) and/or magnesium (Mg) deficiency">, you can see the paling and net pattern chlorosis on the leaves. Iron deficiencies show in new leaves and it takes a while for the plant to perk up after iron becomes non-limiting.

Have a look through the linked threads in <"Brown, fuzzy........"> and <"pink tint...">

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks Darrel, i'll have a read, so the plants in the second in my first post are ok? they don't look great, full of holes, disintegrating?
i watched my doser yesterday at the time it was suppose to run and nothing happened, so i suspect my doser is playing up, i've marked the tub so will see today if it runs and volume of ferts reduces
 
Hi all,
so the plants in the second in my first post are ok? they don't look great, full of holes, disintegrating?
No, they don't look great. The problems, in diagnosing what may be wrong with them, are:
  • These are old leaves, so it is possible they are still present from the time when the plants were produced emersed. You would really need to know what the new shoots, (that grow now), or the replanted tops, look like.
  • Deficiencies in old leaves are caused by lack of a mobile nutrient (the plants can move that nutrient to the new leaves). Most plant nutrients are mobile, so that gives quite a few possibilities. The most likely are nitrogen (N), potassium (K), phosphorus (P) and magnesium (Mg) just because they are the mobile nutrients that plants need the most of.
  • CO2 limitation is always a possibility in plants which are underwater.
That is why I choose a floating plant for the <"Duckweed Index">, they aren't CO2, or light, limited, so you've instantly removed two variables from the equation.

Originally I used <"Lemna minor (Lesser Duckweed)">, which has the advantage of very quick growth, meaning that it a very short response time when a nutrient becomes non-limiting, <"even a non-mobile one like iron (Fe)">. The disadvantages it has are:
  • It is always <"yellow green in very soft water">, even with nutrients present.
  • Aquarists are, understandably, very wary about introducing it to their tanks, because it is a P.I.T.A to harvest and potentially gets everywhere.
  • It doesn't persist at all in soft, low nutrient water, meaning that you can't use it in tanks for Apistogramma etc.
cheers Darrel
 
think i found the source of the issue, my doser was not running, i have a jebao 2.4 (single channel wifi version) and the interval was set to 1 which i belive is wrong.
i did some maintenance over the weekend, removed all the dead leaves and replanted the stems, so far so good.
 
after some more help please. things have been going well but over the last 2 weeks or so i've started to see issues with my plants.
the stems are starting to get holes in the leaves, a little bit more green spot algae and leaves starting to drop off. I suspect maybe c02, nitrogen and potassium are my issues but not 100%.
my nitrates stay at 10ppm now, drop checker is lime green all the time (day and night). i have tried to profile my ph, at 10am its about 6, by 6pm its 6.5, kh stays at 6. I;ve done this over random days for 2 weeks.
still dosing the same as above, i really don't want to get into EI dosing, i really want a 1 shot deal, is it worth changing to another liquid fert that has macro and micro elements in it?
thanks
 

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Hi all,
is it worth changing to another liquid fert that has macro and micro elements in it?
Yes, it is. Your plants can only make use of the added CO2 if their growth isn't limited by another nutrient deficiency. You can buy an <"all in one"> mix from Tropica, <"TNC">, etc.
i really don't want to get into EI dosing,
I see you have Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum), have a look at the <"Duckweed Index">.

cheers Darrel
 
over the last 2 weeks or so i've started to see issues with my plants.
the stems are starting to get holes in the leaves, a little bit more green spot algae and leaves starting to drop off.
Hello,
1. Holes in leaves or in stems are a result of poor CO2.
2. Leaves dropping off are a result of poor CO2.
3. GSA is caused by any combination of poor PO4 and poor CO2.

Based on the symptoms #1 and #2 it can be reasoned that symptom #3 is a result of poor CO2 and has a low probability of being PO4 related.

Poor CO2 can be as a result of poor injection rate and/or poor flow/distribution.

Cheers,
 
thanks both, i suspected CO2 as one of the reasons, i currently run an inline CO2 Art diffuser connected to my fluval 307, given the drop checker is always green and ph hardly changes can we assume its poor flow rather than quantity? Or should my ph be dropping x amount from the starting point when lights are off. So at lights off in the morning my ph is about 6>6.5, by mid way through the light cycle is about about 6.0 (i don't have an ultra sensitive ph test kit so maybe i should invest in one of those), my kh is stable at 6.
i took a look at the duckweed thread linked above, my floating plants look good, nice green leaves, very, very few yellowing or falling off etc, so this would indicate water column nutrients are good, again pointing to poor CO2
 
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