Deficiencies and toxicities of plant nutrients.

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Caliban07

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Aug 18, 2013
Messages
6,271
Location
Manchester UK
Very quick background some of us here believe we may have been running in to micronutrient toxicities whilst targeting a specific iron (Fe) level with certain trace mixes.

For the main literature please see these threads.

Toxicity of CSM+B - The Planted Tank Forum

CSM+B Toxicity Experiment - The Planted Tank Forum

The symptoms speculated by the causal of micro nutrient toxicities are

Twisting of leaves
Stunting (no or slow growth)
Undulated leaf tips
Small deformed growth
Chlorosis
Shrivelling
Melting/necrosis
Algae

I took these from the links above for a quick breakdown. **Accuracy not validated by me**

IMG_2504.jpg

IMG_2505.jpg

We also want to talk about deficiencies too and so this thread is for reporting issues that are believed to be from nutrient toxicity AND deficiencies.

You can start hopefully by putting a small breakdown of your dosing and your observations.

There are at least four people here now that are experiencing issues with plant nutrition and so documented experiences should help us work things out together.

Please add to this thread your findings and observations.
 
I'll be dosing:

2.1g kno3 - 6ppm

O.5g kh2po4 - 1ppm

(4 times per week)



0.2g of micro's

10ml of flourish iron - 0.2ppm

(3 times per week)

Is my current dosage in a 60g aquarium. Still experiencing stunting,curling, few bleaching spots.

Please note the curling etc is only in my slower growing plants. My fast growing stems are fine.
 
I was dosing EI target levels for macros and micros from aquarium plant food chelated trace mix.

http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/fertilisers/dry-chemicals/dry-salts/chelated-trace-180.html

First I noticed algae creeping in. Played around with light and co2 as you do. No change. Confirmed high amounts of co2. No change. By this time, carpet covered in BBA. Shrimp died, cardinal with tetra swollen gills died. Slimey orange substance growing on spray bar and filter intakes. Oil slick surface.

No growth from stems pogo stellatus and rotala wallichii.

Chlorosis in S.repens.
Small inconsistent leaves on Monte Carlo
No growth from hair grass or lilaeopsis
Shrivelled leaves on alternanthera
Crooked blades on Blyxa Japonica
Browning on pap.Helferi.

Now initial water changes helped somewhat. Stems began growing again and Monte Carlo leaves grow larger. Helferi turned green again and blyxa started to fill in.

Now after the detox I'm trying to eliminate possible deficiencies as growth has slowed down. Only plant looking well at moment P.helferi.

IMG_2515.jpg

That has greened up since a 90% water change. Added iron from tap help or removal of heavy metals? I think addition at this point 13micro grams of iron per litre in tap at 90 litres roughly equals 0.1ppm iron.
 
Just recently in the past ?? months I've gradually re-introduced micros after going a very very long time without adding any. This week I increased dosage again by a third, which finally reproduce some of the symptoms I was seeing that made me quit dosing micros over a year ago. Yes, I was actually trying to overdose and screw things up on purpose this time hahaha. Now I can go back to what I was dosing before and getting great results, knowing it will be sufficient. There is also a chance micros are built up in the substrate, though, so I may still have to decrease dosage further or even attempt another hiatus on dosing micros.

Unfortunately many deficiencies and toxicities seem to have similar symptoms, including carbon deficiency, so it has taken me 2 years of observation with this tank to sort it out.

My philosophy on macros is dose away, it matters very little since there is a large enough respective acceptable range for N, P, and K concentrations, and ratios don't matter as long as each nutrient is within range.

As far as micros AND co2, they both must be eyeballed over time to get it right. Uptake requirements increase over time as plant mass increases. For co2, a drop checker doesn't quite cut it in my opinion. Get a digital pH pen and experiment with it, it's essential for knowing how much your co2 concentration is affected by uptake throughout the photoperiod. I have a lot of plant mass currently, therefore a lot of uptake, so I'm knocking pH down by 1.3 units at the beginning because it sure doesn't stay at that concentration for the whole duration. Near the end it's usually closer to a 1.0 drop.
 
Just recently in the past ?? months I've gradually re-introduced micros after going a very very long time without adding any. This week I increased dosage again by a third, which finally reproduce some of the symptoms I was seeing that made me quit dosing micros over a year ago. Yes, I was actually trying to overdose and screw things up on purpose this time hahaha. Now I can go back to what I was dosing before and getting great results, knowing it will be sufficient. There is also a chance micros are built up in the substrate, though, so I may still have to decrease dosage further or even attempt another hiatus on dosing micros.

Unfortunately many deficiencies and toxicities seem to have similar symptoms, including carbon deficiency, so it has taken me 2 years of observation with this tank to sort it out.

My philosophy on macros is dose away, it matters very little since there is a large enough respective acceptable range for N, P, and K concentrations, and ratios don't matter as long as each nutrient is within range.

As far as micros AND co2, they both must be eyeballed over time to get it right. Uptake requirements increase over time as plant mass increases. For co2, a drop checker doesn't quite cut it in my opinion. Get a digital pH pen and experiment with it, it's essential for knowing how much your co2 concentration is affected by uptake throughout the photoperiod. I have a lot of plant mass currently, therefore a lot of uptake, so I'm knocking pH down by 1.3 units at the beginning because it sure doesn't stay at that concentration for the whole duration. Near the end it's usually closer to a 1.0 drop.



Great info here, can you please give me a break down of your micro dosage levels in ppm? And also what product you are using to dose? I'm very interested!
Do you still dose iron?

Also do you use Eco complete substrate?
 
Just recently in the past ?? months I've gradually re-introduced micros after going a very very long time without adding any. This week I increased dosage again by a third, which finally reproduce some of the symptoms I was seeing that made me quit dosing micros over a year ago. Yes, I was actually trying to overdose and screw things up on purpose this time hahaha. Now I can go back to what I was dosing before and getting great results, knowing it will be sufficient. There is also a chance micros are built up in the substrate, though, so I may still have to decrease dosage further or even attempt another hiatus on dosing micros.

Unfortunately many deficiencies and toxicities seem to have similar symptoms, including carbon deficiency, so it has taken me 2 years of observation with this tank to sort it out.

My philosophy on macros is dose away, it matters very little since there is a large enough respective acceptable range for N, P, and K concentrations, and ratios don't matter as long as each nutrient is within range.

As far as micros AND co2, they both must be eyeballed over time to get it right. Uptake requirements increase over time as plant mass increases. For co2, a drop checker doesn't quite cut it in my opinion. Get a digital pH pen and experiment with it, it's essential for knowing how much your co2 concentration is affected by uptake throughout the photoperiod. I have a lot of plant mass currently, therefore a lot of uptake, so I'm knocking pH down by 1.3 units at the beginning because it sure doesn't stay at that concentration for the whole duration. Near the end it's usually closer to a 1.0 drop.


My water change was done the night before I took this photograph which was around 7pm the next night.

Thanks for the info. I know you were involved in some of these threads on TPT too. What symptoms did you see?

I think I may reduce my lighting (berts going to kill me haha). Only because if it is deficiency I can add a small amount of trace and macros and reduce uptake somewhat. My co2 is lower than it was. Definitely not 30ppm. I haven't seen any dropping of leaves or tissue melt/loss they literally (mostly just look yellow and static in terms of growth) but for the sake of this experiment stage I should keep it higher to remove it from the equation.

I'm going to add EI macros for the day and I'm going to follow the instructions on the easylife bottles for both trace and iron and reduce my light a little bit. If this doesn't work then I still have toxicity issues.
 
Last edited:
I'm at 100% lighting, 160 par at substrate. (I'm not scared of light like caliban07 [emoji23])

I'm almost 100% sure I'm into
toxicity again. My hygro has gone back to the way it was before I water changed and didn't dose for 3 days. Start of the week it had very fast growth and was a vibrant green. Now it has gone pale and is curling the new growth. The new growth also has patchs of red I between the veins.

Milfoils growth has stopped dead. Hasn't grown at all for 3 days now. This plant normally hits the surface 1-2 times per week.

AR mini is looking worse than ever. Curling every leaf, a little dull in colour.

I've ruled out co2. I'm at 30-35ppm
I've ruled out nitrate. I'm at 40+ due to no nutrient uptake from plants.
Phosphate level is 3ppm (EI level)
GH is at 7
Kh is at 4

At this point I think my substrate has absorbed a heap of micro's from when I was dosing full EI. I really don't feel the need to dose micro's at all untill I start to see deficiency. I will still dose iron to recommended EI as I want to eliminate everything 1 by 1 and find out exactly what is causing this issue.

Something is blocking my plants uptake. TDS hasn't changed at all from start to finish of photo period. Surely I should be seeing atleast a 6-10 ppm shift from plant uptake? Especially since my lighting is so strong.
 
I've just dosed easylife iron and macros and I'm getting the cloudy iron phosphate precipitation (cloudy water)

Loving this dosing game.....not
 
Also for those interested and have Eco complete. I spoke to bcarl directly about this before Xmas. These were his words.

'Exactly which trace mix are you using? Millers Microplex? I was never able to get the ecocomplete to detox. I took it out washed it and nothing, started a small tank with brightwell and everything was fine, never any melting. Now I dosed A LOT more than you over a longer period of time. You might be able to save it. Have you added any additional iron sources to that micro mix?'

It took me months to stabilise the my 46 gallon and the only reason I think it actually stabilised was down to organic matter. [emoji848]
 
Great info here, can you please give me a break down of your micro dosage levels in ppm? And also what product you are using to dose? I'm very interested!
Do you still dose iron?

Also do you use Eco complete substrate?
Previously (20 gallon tank):

1/32 tsp Plantex CSM+B (0.12 ppm Fe)
3X per week

I'm not sure I would have had issues with this dosage if not for the extra micros present due to the addition of osmocote+ to the substrate. It's hard to say. It sure seems like the metal toxicities were probably the result of adsorbtion into a high-cec substrate, and no so much the concentration in the water column. I think it was sometime in Oct or Nov of 2015 when I ceased dosing micros, which means I was able to go almost a full year, even with weekly 50% to 75% water changes. I did continue to dose iron the whole time.

Currently:

4 mL Flourish comprehensive (0.17 ppm Fe)
2X per week, and increased to 3X this week which is apparently a bit too much

I add 2 mL of Flourish Iron every day except the 3 macro days, so 4x per week. According to the calculator this is 0.26 ppm Fe, but according to seachem it is only 0.1 mg/L.
No idea why there is such a discrepency. I also add 4 mL Flourish Excel every day except water change day, 6x per week. Excel claims to promote the ferrous state of iron, so my thinking is that hopefully it assists iron availability especially on macro days when no iron is dosed.

Substrate is floramax midnight, which is almost identical to eco-complete as far as I can tell. It is also made by caribsea and looks the same, but doesn't have the starter bacteria.

Bert, in your case I would definitely ease off the super-intense lighting for now. I will just warn you now that the current amount of plant mass in your tank simply won't be sufficient to keep things balanced at 160 PAR (wow!). It's overkill at this point. You'll have better results if you can get everything smoothed out at a lower intensity, let's say around 60 PAR. Once you can achieve good growth and the tank fills in more, then think about starting to slowly ramp up lighting if you want faster and more colorful growth, while also watching closely to see if you'll need more co2 output to compensate for the increase in demand. (y)
 
My water change was done the night before I took this photograph which was around 7pm the next night.

Thanks for the info. I know you were involved in some of these threads on TPT too. What symptoms did you see?

I think I may reduce my lighting (berts going to kill me haha). Only because if it is deficiency I can add a small amount of trace and macros and reduce uptake somewhat. My co2 is lower than it was. Definitely not 30ppm. I haven't seen any dropping of leaves or tissue melt/loss they literally (mostly just look yellow and static in terms of growth) but for the sake of this experiment stage I should keep it higher to remove it from the equation.

I'm going to add EI macros for the day and I'm going to follow the instructions on the easylife bottles for both trace and iron and reduce my light a little bit. If this doesn't work then I still have toxicity issues.
Some plants struggled much more than others. The most affected plants that also showed the earliest symptoms were AR and staurogyne repens. AR slowed to a crawl, and new growth was a darker maroon color and was twisted and stunted. This is also what I started seeing two days ago following the third dose of flourish. S. repens showed similar symptoms but also eventually shed all of the lower leaves leaving bare stems with just the stunted newer growth. Both of these species also became very brittle, with stems that snap easily when bent. I also noticed when uprooting s. repens it also had huge white roots that looked enlarged and were also very brittle. Other plants mostly just slowed down and were somewhat stunted. Bacopa caroliniana also started branching into two growth tips as if it had been pruned, and ludwigia also had dark discolored spots on some of the older leaves.
 
Previously (20 gallon tank):

1/32 tsp Plantex CSM+B (0.12 ppm Fe)
3X per week

I'm not sure I would have had issues with this dosage if not for the extra micros present due to the addition of osmocote+ to the substrate. It's hard to say. It sure seems like the metal toxicities were probably the result of adsorbtion into a high-cec substrate, and no so much the concentration in the water column. I think it was sometime in Oct or Nov of 2015 when I ceased dosing micros, which means I was able to go almost a full year, even with weekly 50% to 75% water changes. I did continue to dose iron the whole time.

Currently:

4 mL Flourish comprehensive (0.17 ppm Fe)
2X per week, and increased to 3X this week which is apparently a bit too much

I add 2 mL of Flourish Iron every day except the 3 macro days, so 4x per week. According to the calculator this is 0.26 ppm Fe, but according to seachem it is only 0.1 mg/L.
No idea why there is such a discrepency. I also add 4 mL Flourish Excel every day except water change day, 6x per week. Excel claims to promote the ferrous state of iron, so my thinking is that hopefully it assists iron availability especially on macro days when no iron is dosed.

Substrate is floramax midnight, which is almost identical to eco-complete as far as I can tell. It is also made by caribsea and looks the same, but doesn't have the starter bacteria.

Bert, in your case I would definitely ease off the super-intense lighting for now. I will just warn you now that the current amount of plant mass in your tank simply won't be sufficient to keep things balanced at 160 PAR (wow!). It's overkill at this point. You'll have better results if you can get everything smoothed out at a lower intensity, let's say around 60 PAR. Once you can achieve good growth and the tank fills in more, then think about starting to slowly ramp up lighting if you want faster and more colorful growth, while also watching closely to see if you'll need more co2 output to compensate for the increase in demand. (y)


This is fantastic advice. Couldn't agree more with the lighting advice I've just done the same today. My dosing today is almost identical. I'm targeting 0.2ppm from easy life ferro just for today. I didn't dose micros but I made the mistake of dosing macros with the ferro which caused some cloudiness. I may reduce to 0.1ppm ferro from now on.

What do you do macro wise? Full EI levels or a toned down version? I'm dosing full EI levels but daily.

Today I have noticed a change (although at this stage I could be forgiven for my eyes playing tricks). The plants appear greener. So does he BBA though. I stopped dosing Easycarbo for a few days and the algae has come back. Dosed 2ml today but will probably need to up it.

The plants are pearling more than they have been the past few days even with half the light. The ottos are behaving as ottos should do and shrimp are visible and active. Perhaps an increase in oxygen facilitating microfauna and bacterial activity. I have bubbles coming up from the substrate so something is happening down there. I think I had detoxed to the point of deficiency (maybe). I won't dose the liquid traces now as I also have a high CEC substrate (eco complete)
 
Some plants struggled much more than others. The most affected plants that also showed the earliest symptoms were AR and staurogyne repens. AR slowed to a crawl, and new growth was a darker maroon color and was twisted and stunted. This is also what I started seeing two days ago following the third dose of flourish. S. repens showed similar symptoms but also eventually shed all of the lower leaves leaving bare stems with just the stunted newer growth. Both of these species also became very brittle, with stems that snap easily when bent. I also noticed when uprooting s. repens it also had huge white roots that looked enlarged and were also very brittle. Other plants mostly just slowed down and were somewhat stunted. Bacopa caroliniana also started branching into two growth tips as if it had been pruned, and ludwigia also had dark discolored spots on some of the older leaves.


I can't believe how similar the symptoms are. My AR is stunted and dark Maroon with crincked edges around the leaves. Today I see a root coming from the side of the stem.

Image1486756050.607302.jpg

People including myself likened the damaged S.Repens like tiny palm trees and the roots were as you describe.

I haven't touch the stems but the rotala wallichii looks brittle and one of the stems also branched out despite not being cut. All these things seem irrelevant until they are mentioned.
 
Glad to hear things are improving! It sounds like you're on the right track.

My current macro schedule, 3x per week:
kno3: 3/16 tsp (~7.9 ppm no3)
kh2po4: 1/32 tsp (~1.6 ppm po4) however when I notice GSA is spreading quickly I double this amount
k2so4: 1/32 tsp (~1.2 ppm for a grand total of ~6.9 ppm K)

This is the dosage I've worked up to over time. In the early days of this tank, I was dosing on the lower side of EI (roughly 5ppm/0.8ppm/5ppm - N/P/K), and only once or twice a week instead of 3x.

At certain times of the year no3 concentration in my tap water gets as high as 8 or 9 ppm, so I check the water report periodically. Since a 50% water change adds around 4 ppm when nitrates are high, I adjust the first dose of macros which is added directly after the weekly water change- cutting the amount of kno3 roughly in half, and compensating for the lower potassium dosage by tripling the amount of k2so4.

Keep in mind, I'm not weighing ferts, just using measuring spoons, so the concentrations listed are just a rough estimate, which is fine. No need to be exact, it is called the "estimative" index for a reason. :p
 
Glad to hear things are improving! It sounds like you're on the right track.

My current macro schedule, 3x per week:
kno3: 3/16 tsp (~7.9 ppm no3)
kh2po4: 1/32 tsp (~1.6 ppm po4) however when I notice GSA is spreading quickly I double this amount
k2so4: 1/32 tsp (~1.2 ppm for a grand total of ~6.9 ppm K)

This is the dosage I've worked up to over time. In the early days of this tank, I was dosing on the lower side of EI (roughly 5ppm/0.8ppm/5ppm - N/P/K), and only once or twice a week instead of 3x.

At certain times of the year no3 concentration in my tap water gets as high as 8 or 9 ppm, so I check the water report periodically. Since a 50% water change adds around 4 ppm when nitrates are high, I adjust the first dose of macros which is added directly after the weekly water change- cutting the amount of kno3 roughly in half, and compensating for the lower potassium dosage by tripling the amount of k2so4.

Keep in mind, I'm not weighing ferts, just using measuring spoons, so the concentrations listed are just a rough estimate, which is fine. No need to be exact, it is called the "estimative" index for a reason. :p


That makes sense. Thanks for sharing this. Hopefully things will carry on in this direction. I'll continue to add EI daily.

I notice you didn't mention mgs04? Is your water high in Mg?
 
According to the water report, GH of my tap water is consistently 8 to 9 degrees with plenty of Ca and Mg, so there's no need to add any GH booster or mgso4.
 
I'm taking perfects advice and lowering my lighting. I've gone back to 70%. I've settled on 70% because through the week I actually experienced the best plant response at this level.

I'm doing a 25% change today followed by a 50 tomorrow. Still not going to dose any form of micro mix at all untill I start to see deficiency. 0.6ppm of iron will still be added per week.

Hopefully I see some interesting results. If my nitrates keep spiking over 40 I'll be reducing my kno3 dosage to keep it below 40. I'm thinking once the plants start taking up nitrate again it will stay below 40 :)

I thank you all for the great advice and I'm glad that we are all in the same boat. Hopefully we can figure this out together!
 
Back
Top Bottom