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Rotala Rotundifolia - Growth Issues

Thanks for nice explanation Darrel. Just to clarify I was not talking about Potassium deficiencies but excess of it. I decided to cut doses of Potassium as a few members of another forum confirmed that reducing Potassium concentration in their tank resolved their problem with stunted or twisted growth. I've not been dosing Potassium for more than a week now and I have not seen one stunted growth yet. I can't say that it won't happen again but so far I can see some improvement so I will try to keep it that way.

sciencefiction said:
The green dust was probably already there, just not green enough for you to see it due to iron deficiency. I remember when my plants were severely deficient in iron, dosing iron greened up the green spot algae too. It had too suffered iron deficiency along with my plants 🙂
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After 7-10 days between water changes my glass was spotlessly clean and never had to even wipe it off. After dosing some additional Iron (only about 2ml/day) my glass became green after 4 days. After 7 days I had to scrape it off as it looked disgusting. Now stopped dosing it again and my glass is clean again.

As I saw few people having the same problem with stunted growth I will keep the post updated. Let see where the experiment will take me. This week I will also be mixing my tap water with RO to lower my KH, GH and most importantly PH.
 
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Hi all,
Mick.Dk said:
Really loved the "Tomato/Orchid" comparison
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There is a bit more explanation in this thread <"Unlimited nutrients using EI....">.

That thread comes from a period when it was quite difficult to discuss alternative approaches to EI on this forum.
Konrad Michalski said:
After 7-10 days between water changes my glass was spotlessly clean and never had to even wipe it off. After dosing some additional Iron (only about 2ml/day) my glass became green after 4 days. After 7 days I had to scrape it off as it looked disgusting. Now stopped dosing it again and my glass is clean again.
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I think that shows pretty conclusively that your plants are iron (Fe) deficient. All the green algae (those with the same photosynthetic pigments as the mosses, ferns and higher plants) have the same photosynthetic systems and pathways.

cheers Darrel
 
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dw1305 said:
I think that shows pretty conclusively that your plants are iron (Fe) deficient
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Darrel, I don't quite understand why? Not sure if you read my last post from the beginning but it's been a few good days that I haven't seen any stunted growth on the plants and all I changed was - stopped dosing Potassium completely as I know my branded Nitrogen is (more likely) made of KNO3). Apart from that the way of dosing Iron stayed as before and it all looks promising. I'm not saying it won't go back to where it was but as for now Potassium has to take the blame. When (if) the problem returns I will definitely try to increase Iron doses but so far I can only hope everything stays as it is 😉
 
Hi all,
Konrad Michalski said:
before and it all looks promising. I'm not saying it won't go back to where it was but as for now Potassium has to take the blame. When (if) the problem returns I will definitely try to increase Iron doses but so far I can only hope everything stays as it is
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If things look good keep on doing what you are doing.
Konrad Michalski said:
dw1305 said: ↑"I think that shows pretty conclusively that your plants are iron (Fe) deficient"

Darrel, I don't quite understand why?
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OK. All the green plants (those that possess chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b) are identical in terms of their basic photosynthetic physiology. They form a monophyletic clade (<"the Chlorobionta or Viridiplantae">), with a single common ancestor.

The "green plants" are all the plants we want to grow (mosses, ferns and higher plants), plus some we don't, and we call these ones "green algae".

Because the green algae don't have the secondary thickening, vascular tissue etc. they can show a quick response to nutrients.

In nearly al situations plant growth is limited by the level of one of the essential nutrients (C, N, P, K, Mg, Fe, Ca, Mn, Mo, Cu, Bo, Zn, etc), (this is <"Liebig's law of the minimum">).

Some nutrients are mobile within the (higher) plant, and deficiencies effect older leaves. Potassium (K) would be an example, potassium deficiency causes yellow leaves, and adding K produces a rapid greening of all leaves as the plant can move it to any areas of deficiency.

Other nutrients aren't mobile within the plant, such as iron (Fe).

Iron deficiency cause yellowing of the new leaves of higher plants and adding iron won't green these leaves up (the plant can't move it to these leaves), so it is only new leaves that will show a greening growth response..... But for algae it is slightly different, they don't have any vascular tissue and can't move any nutrients about. Nutrients diffuse in through the cell walls to every cell.

When iron is the limiting nutrient an addition of Fe++(+) ions will cause a rapid response from the algae. It will also produce the same response from the green plants, but that response will take much longer to show, because it will only effect new leaves.

cheers Darrel
 
Hi all,
Sorry the last bit of that disappeared......
Konrad Michalski said:
After 7-10 days between water changes my glass was spotlessly clean and never had to even wipe it off. After dosing some additional Iron (only about 2ml/day) my glass became green after 4 days. After 7 days I had to scrape it off as it looked disgusting. Now stopped dosing it again and my glass is clean again.
Click to expand...
Just like "@sciencefiction" says:
sciencefiction said:
The green dust was probably already there, just not green enough for you to see it, due to iron deficiency. I remember when my plants were severely deficient in iron, dosing iron greened up the green spot algae too. It had too suffered iron deficiency along with my plants
Click to expand...
The algae showed a quick response when Fe++(+) ions were available, it is a green plant, just like the plants you want to grow.

The algae was iron limited (in terms of Liebig's law of the minimum), but could show a rapid greening due to the diffusion of Fe ions into every cell. Once you stopped adding the higher dose of iron, Fe ions went out of solution and it became the limiting nutrient again.

Your plants will have taken up iron ions during the period when iron was available, but they won't show a rapid response in greening because they can't move iron ions to the yellow, chlorotic leaves, it is only new leaves that will be greener.

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks a lot Darrel. That is great explanation and makes a lot of sense for less educated people like myself
Now I even started thinking, that because I added more Iron to the water column it doesn't mean it all has been used already and if plants response to it take a lot longer maybe that's why they got better only just after I stopped dosing Fe and K at the same time. I will watch my plants carefully and if I see any stunted growths showing up I will know what to dose in increased amounts
Thanks again Darrel
 
AndreiD said:
I had a similar issue, i switched from chelated traces and EDTA Iron to Easy life fero and profito and i saw improvements . Probably Easy life contains DTPA ? and plants can absorb iron better ? i don't know
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I don't know if it contains DTPA but the easy life fero worked well in my hard water. The dry iron EDTA ferts I got afterwards do very little in comparison. I didn't pay much attention at the time when purchasing it and I am still struggling with it. tI needs overdosing. So EDTA for harder water is a no no.
 
I am following this..!

I have the same issues but only far too worse..!

Absolutely stunted growth and all pants showing severe chlorosis..

Rotala new growth after trims :
4ub60x.jpg
usrd0.jpg
ATTACH]
 
Blyxa jap after 3 days on planting turned pink with leaves melting away..

2a4u5px.jpg

Specs:
1.5ft tank with co2 from reactor and plants pearl like crazy so i am sure co2 is not an issue

Ferts : EI using dry salts ( kh2po4 and kno3) and a hydroponic mix of micros. I completely stopped micro dosing reading this happens with toxicity.

For a week i got some improvement after dosing MgSO4 thinking Ca: Mg ratio was off.. however things have reverted back to being worse..

Need help guys..!
 
sciencefiction said:
Assuming you've ruled ou toxicity, itis time to dose micros looking at your plants. Try iron only first. If thats the issue tha plants will start growing normally within a week or less.
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In my case, dosing MgSO4 has certainly reduced the twisted tips of rotala but the new growth is extremely small in size!

Thanks for the pics science fiction.. and you had Fe deficiency triggered by Ca abundance?
 
AndreiD said:
It's not the toxicity stuff.....its iron deficiency , in some cases rotala can get stunted tips from iron deficiency
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I had severely stunted tips of rotalas, and i have rocks in my scape.. assuming they leach out Ca++ i addedd Mg to 5ppm weekly and that has solved the stunting, certainly iron doesnt cause stunting..
 
Moderate iron deficiency causes lighter colour leaves. Severe iron deficiency causes bleached leaves and stunted, smaller leaf size. Lack of Mg is similar but the leaf veins remain green unlike iron deficiency where the entire leaf is bleached and could even turn slightly pinkish. However, other micro ferts could also be affected by too much Ca++
 
sciencefiction said:
Moderate iron deficiency causes lighter colour leaves. Severe iron deficiency causes bleached leaves and stunted, smaller leaf size. Lack of Mg is similar but the leaf veins remain green unlike iron deficiency where the entire leaf is bleached and could even turn slightly pinkish. However, other micro ferts could also be affected by too much Ca++
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Does increasing Mg ppm help in cases where rocks leach out Ca++ or the water is hard due to excess Ca?
 
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