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Rotala Rotundifolia Stunted Growth
- Thread starter paranoidandroid
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Sammy I
Member
It's not that either, i have GH21 and KH13 tapwater PH 7.9 degassed.
The other plants may not be effected as much because rotala is a fast grower and will show CO2 deficiency first. I would say my rotala grows more than 1cm a day, and that's only now i've improved my CO2 which i already thought was decent.
You need to do a PH profile if you want a better understanding of the CO2 in the tank. You want to aim for a 1pH drop and achieve that by lights on.
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John q
Member
Just trying to give you suggestions, so if I'm incorrect play nice.
I can't quite work out if you're dosing 6x specialized and premium, or 3x specialised and 3x premium.
Regardless assuming you're adding 180ml of each per week that would still be a long way off ei dosing.
No, it cannot be. R. rotundifolia does not really care about water hardness. Very few plants do.
R. macandra is possibly one of the few.
Stunted growth, as noted by Sammy is cause by CO2 deficiency. The reason we use CO2 in the first place is to defeat the stunted and slow growth seen ubiquitously in non-injected tanks, so when we see stunting we must immediately assume that our CO2 scheme is ineffective. Injection rate, timing of the injection and flow/distribution technique are all elements related to CO2 effectiveness.
This corroborates that CO2 is an issue. Hair is a CO2 related algae while GSA is cause by some combination of poor CO2 and poor PO4.
Perhaps we can look at photos of your filter/pump output and if we have data regarding your pump/filter specs it might aid in troubleshooting. Also need to know when does the DC get lime green relative to when the lights go on. It also always helps to perform a pH profile from gas on to lights OFF at 1/2 hour or 1 hour intervals to determine the gas behavior.
Cheers,
Hey Clive,
Would you mind elaborating a bit on what you mean by hair algae being CO2 related? Is it that the presence of higher CO2 levels in the water inhibits the growth of hair algae or is it something else? I guess what I'm interested in is the mechanism by which CO2 problems lead to hair algae.
Sorry, I know I've been picking your brain a lot lately but I'm really interested in what you have to say on these topics.
paranoidandroid
Member
Thank you all for your feedback.
One thing confuses me. The R. Rotundifolia is supposed to be a plant that is relatively easy to grow without CO2 (even if the growth rate is slower). So, if I have CO2, even supposing that the CO2 level is not very high, shouldn't I expect to be able to grow it healthy? The issue is that my stunting is not an absence of growth or a slow growth. In fact, it is an unhealthy growth with tinny leaves that suddenly is followed by a few days of normal growth and then comes back to the tinny growth, all without a reasonable explanation. I am very disciplined with the routines of the tank, therefore everything should be stable and I cannot find variations that may justify this growth pattern. All the remain plants are very healthy.
The flow in the tank seems really good now as I have place the lily pipes in one corner and the surface skimmer in the opposite corner, creating a noticeable circular flow.
The filter is an oase biomaster 600 and the skimmer the enheim 350.
The CO2 is on 2h30 before lights on and the DC is lime green when the lights go on.
I have not been able to do the ph profile yet.
Clive, yes I had a problem with GSA and minor hair algae but since I changed to an inline diffuser I solved it. I no longer have GSA and I spot treated the hair algae with Seachem Excel and it did not show up again.
One thing confuses me. The R. Rotundifolia is supposed to be a plant that is relatively easy to grow without CO2 (even if the growth rate is slower). So, if I have CO2, even supposing that the CO2 level is not very high, shouldn't I expect to be able to grow it healthy? The issue is that my stunting is not an absence of growth or a slow growth. In fact, it is an unhealthy growth with tinny leaves that suddenly is followed by a few days of normal growth and then comes back to the tinny growth, all without a reasonable explanation. I am very disciplined with the routines of the tank, therefore everything should be stable and I cannot find variations that may justify this growth pattern. All the remain plants are very healthy.
The flow in the tank seems really good now as I have place the lily pipes in one corner and the surface skimmer in the opposite corner, creating a noticeable circular flow.
The filter is an oase biomaster 600 and the skimmer the enheim 350.
The CO2 is on 2h30 before lights on and the DC is lime green when the lights go on.
I have not been able to do the ph profile yet.
Wait a second. Before we continue speculating further why the plant has gotten stunt, let‘s look at the pics if the plant is really stunt. No, it looks normal to me. Is this the first stem plant you grow. Many stems go through transformation from immersed growth in nursery to submerged, and the leaf shape, size and color can be substantially different as if they belong to a different species.
Rotala rotundifolia is one stem that goes through drastic transformation. There are many locality variants of rotundifolia, but generally the immersed leaves are larger and rounder, and the submerged leaves are smaller and more elongated. If the submerged leaf size is only a fraction of the immersed size, it is normal and not stunt.
Rotala rotundifolia is one stem that goes through drastic transformation. There are many locality variants of rotundifolia, but generally the immersed leaves are larger and rounder, and the submerged leaves are smaller and more elongated. If the submerged leaf size is only a fraction of the immersed size, it is normal and not stunt.
There is definitely stunted growth in the first images!
paranoidandroid
Member
I agree. And the current situation is similar.
Hi paranoid,
This rationale seems reasonable, doesn't it? Unfortunately the CO2 mechanism doesn't always operate that way. When you add CO2 to the tank it affects the way plants use CO2. This is due to the CO2 gathering protein called Rubisco. In a non-injected tank the production of Rubisco is not only steady, but the production rate is high, so that the leaf has a very high concentration of Rubisco in order to gather as much CO2 possible. In an injected tank the exact opposite occurs. Rubisco is a very expensive protein and is very inefficient. Rubisco is so inefficient that even though it's job is to collect CO2, it has a difficult time distinguishing CO2 from O2, so many of the collection sites have O2 which the plant cannot use. Additionally, higher CO2 in the water triggers the plant to actually reduce the Rubisco production. This transition takes about 3 weeks, so if the CO2 is not steady in the water the plant becomes confused, reduces the production and then cannot uptake enough CO2 as a result of the reduction in Rubisco.
It could easily be therefore, that the problem started when you had the hair algae and that the plant has simply not caught up yet.
It might recover in a few weeks, depending on how stable your CO2 is. That's why I asked to see photos of the filter output to determine if there might still be an issue with flow/distribution.
CO2 is very complicated and there are as many ways to cock it up as there are hobbyist - and none of the symptoms seem rational.
Cheers,
Hi Libba, no worries, that's why we're here.
When I say Algae "xyz" is CO2 related, or is NO3 related, this is simply a way of saying that the particular algae occurs as a result of a deficiency in the plant of CO2 or of NO3. I sometimes use the the syntax "poor CO2" or "poor NO3".
Now, because of the complexities of plant nutrition it doesn't necessarily mean that the level of CO2 or NO3 in the tank is low - but that could very well be the case. Instead, it means that that for some reason which we need to discover, the plant is having difficulty accessing the CO2, or NO3, or whatever.
Plant health is tightly linked to the four most important elements Carbon (C), Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K) in that order. About half of the plants dry weight is Carbon, which not only builds structure, but is how the plant eats by making it's own food by using the Carbon to make Carbohydrates, for example. So when Carbon is in short supply the plant uses it's Carbon reserves stored away and when that is exhausted it starts to sacrifice portions of itself to attempt to survive. Acute Carbon deficiency results in rapid degeneration of tissue as we see as translucency, browning and decaying, black spots, disfigurement and so on. When the tissues degenerate, internal products such as proteins and any remaining carbohydrates as well as any remaining nutrients bleed out into the water which are sensed by these particular algal spores. In fact, the bleeding occurs even before the Carbon deficiency becomes acute. So algae such as GDA, Hair or any green filamentous type such as Clado/blanket weed Rhizo, Oedo, Spirogyra, red algae such as BBA and various types of GSA are all essentially CO2 related algae as their spores will bloom, depending on which are in the water at the time, based on the chemical concoction being leached from the plant tissues. We don't know exactly what the makeup or the exact combination of leachates are, but in general different combinations are leached depending on what the deficiency is. Ruptured tissues can also leach oils and lipids into the water, which then float and foul the surface. Surface scum is used to describe this particular fault. Many do not recognize it as a deficiency and sweep it under the carpet using skimmers and so forth, but the scum is an important signal telling you that you have a problem with CO2.
There's still a lot to learn, but this is the basic mechanism.
Cheers,
The stunt growth is not obvious to me as it is still transforming. I have a 3 week old Rotala rotundifolia Vietnam that has just shed off coin size old growth and replaced with smaller new growth. The new growth is not uniform with newest leaves a third the size of the less new leaves as shown in the pic. Time will tell if all leaves will attain uniform size. I have the pink variety Rotala rotundifolia that stands out against the green Hygrophila in the pic.
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That's all normal for new purchased emersed Rotala sp!
This Rotala has been in the aquarium since December 2020.
There is definitely a growth issue going on!
hoggie
Sammy I
Member
Also on a side note, the more you trim and replant rotala the better it grows, not as in size but in form. My rotala use to have thicker leaves, only after repeated trimming over a couple of months they now grow much slimmer and needle like.
That's normally the case! 😉
Sammy I
Member
I know you know that 🤣 was mentioning to the OP.
I think he also knows that! 🤪
Sammy I
Member
That bent rotala needs a trim 😉
Thanks for the detailed response Clive.
