disintegrating water sprite

[shayfish]

I was a little stunned today when I finally noticed that my water sprite is disintegrating. A couple of the leaves are developing holes and look really awful. I recently stirred up the flourite a little, so it looked like it was just dusty crud from that, but its not. There's holes in it!!

The info is:
55 gal, 1.5 wpg, no c02, dosing Flourish Seachem once a week with my pwc, have been using slightly less than recommended because I have Flourish tabs in the substrate too. Fish load is fairly light: 2 sailfin mollies, 1 BN plec, 6 zebra danios, 4 rummynose tetras, 1 amano shrimo, 2 mystery snails (I'm sure the snails are not to blame for this plant too). GH is 200, nitrate is just under 20, KH is 100mg/L, and I don't know the phosphate levels.

It is still sprouting out the occasional new healthy looking leaf and as you can see in the second pic, it is only a couple of the leaves that look like that. But I have 2 of the same plant and they both look the same.

Any advice out there?

 

[rkilling1]

?? the other leaves next to it look nice and heathy, in the top picture, only leads me to believe that something is eating it.

 

[Esra]

Or maybe the leaves get like that after a certain amount of growth?
The new stuff looks fine though.

 

[rich311k]

Try adding some potassium and see what happens. Looks like a K problem to me.

 

[rkilling1]

Try adding some potassium and see what happens. Looks like a K problem to me.

Thought of that also, but with a K deficiency the leaf edges and tips are the first sign of a problem. When snails eat plants they usally attack at the center, as seen here. but I guess it doesn't hurt to add K just to be safe.

can I get a picture of the snail you have?

 

[shayfish]

I'm not sure what would be eating it. My mystery snails seem to leave the plants alone and I have never noticed them chowing down on any of the plants at all. I know I got some hitchiker snails (pond snails I think) a while back, but they seem pretty under control. I very rarely see any and when I do I...um... extinguish them.

Maybe I will pick up some K and a K test kit too.

One of my snails is here in this thread: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=89324
And here is the other one:

The pic is dark but he doesn't seem to feel like moving right now. Love how you can see the floating water sprite debris lol!

 

[Purrbox]

Definately pickup and start dosing the Potassium, but don't bother looking for a test kit. They don't make hobbiest grade test kits for Potassium and it's nearly impossible to overdose. You'll want to dose 10-20ppm after each water change, possibly more often if you plants are still showing a deficiency after a couple weeks.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

You sure it's water sprite? Mine didn't even look close to that.

 

[rkilling1]

You sure it's water sprite? Mine didn't even look close to that.

good catch LWB.

IT's Indian fern. (AKA Oak leaf WATER SPRITE)

http://www.plantgeek.net/images/plantpics/ccornuta.jpg

 

[shayfish]

The one in that pic is doing the same thing mine is! At least its not just me...

 

[rkilling1]

The one in that pic is doing the same thing mine is! At least its not just me...

I thought the same thing. when I posted that.

 

[shayfish]

Definately pickup and start dosing the Potassium, but don't bother looking for a test kit. They don't make hobbiest grade test kits for Potassium and it's nearly impossible to overdose.

I have seen test kits from Nutrafin... are they no good?

 

[Purrbox]

Must be new. I've never seen or heard about them before. May or may not be accurate, but you really don't need it reguardless.

 

[shayfish]

http://www.shallowsea.com/product.html?select-resource=43&resource-name=product

But I probably won't bother...

Thanks

 

[Purrbox]

The link you gave was for a Phosphate Test Kit. These are beneficial to have on hand. Hagen is reasonably accurate, but you'd be better off with one from Seachem.

 

[shayfish]

Krap. Details were never my specialty... :?