Edges of Anubias leaves turning brown and yellow?

[rosinx]

Hi all,

The tank has been set up for some time now, and the fish are doing great. 20 gallon topfin with stock filter plus aqueon 20. I'm using the stock LED lighting on the hood.

The Anubias are growing into a piece of Malaysian driftwood for a couple months now. The tips of the leaves are turning brown and yellow as well as brown patches all over the top of the leaves. The leaves are also curling, and dont look good at all. I'm dosing a third a capful of seachem flourish twice a month.

The light is kept on for 16 hours a day usually. Since its LED lighting, I assume that it is sufficient for Anubias, as they are low light plants?

I'm stocked pretty heavily, so I think I'm fine on the nitrates. Could I possibly be making potassium and/or nitrogen trace elements?

Thanks in advance guys!
(Attached are a few pictures of the plants)

 

[Mogurako]

It could be an Iron deficiency? Any tanks that I have Anubias in I always dose Seachem Flourish: Iron about twice a month.


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[rosinx]

Yeah, maybe. Im dosing seachem comprehensive, to be specific. The guy at Pisces said that this was needed for all aquarium plants.

 

[Mogurako]

That's about half true, some plants require extra fertilization.


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[rosinx]

I thought anubias don't require additional fertilisers, or even any at all

 

[Patty1980]

16 hours is too much. I'm low light too and never go over 8.

 

[Mogurako]

The can suffer from iron deficiency, which would be one of the reason to provide extra ferts.


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[Mogurako]

16 hours is too much. I'm low light too and never go over 8.

Not necessarily, I have all low light plants and I average 10-12 with little to no issues.


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[Patty1980]

I was running that long and had to cut back for similar issues and I've always dosed ferts. Cutting back helped me. Take it or leave it

 

[rosinx]

Thanks, I will try 8 hours a day and see how it works. Will the leaves with the browning edges fall off, or can they still live?

 

[Mogurako]

Clip off the leafs with brown edging.


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[rosinx]

That's pretty much all of them except 2 or 3

 

[Spencer1044]

I'd say just keep them on until if gets to the point where they are just an eye sore (half of the leaf is brown) then clip them. I mean in my first tank (low light) I have A Java fern the size of a basketball that will get black spots on them every now and then but I just leave them till the leaves get really bad. I keep my lights on around 11 hours a day. I dose with flourish excel once a week and flourish iron once every two weeks. I also have an anubias barteri in it and once I started adding iron the yellow went away on its leaves. So it could be a range of things maybe the plant is just mad at you but most likely the iron deficiency. Give it time nobody's perfect.
http://s36.photobucket.com/user/spl1999spencer1044/media/imagejpg1_zps5b21a961.jpg.html

 

[Caliban07]

Everyone's set up is different do there is no one size fits all guide for lighting.

Deficiencies are caused by imbalances in the system with respect to what the plants need. Anubis is a low light very slow growing plant.

The amount of light the plant is exposed to dictates how much nutrients and co2 the plant will need. More light, the plant wants to grow faster so requires more energy and more nutrients to put towards building new cell and repairing cells etc.

16 hours is a very long amount of time and if you have a high PAR rating on those LEDs then you are probably demanding to much from the Anubis. They say Anubis doesn't require ferts because it's more geared towards a low light tank, the lighting matches the growth rate of the Anubis and so it doesn't require as much co2 or nutrients. In a case where Anubis or plants in general grow under low light with no need for ferts, you will probably find that the source water is providing a healthy amount of nutrients post water change.

Cut the lighting back defo. I would snip the dying leaves off. This way the plant can focus the nutrients towards new growth rather than spending them on trying to repair the yellowing leaves. I've never had a plant recover a leaf from this situation.

The Anubis should confine to grow new leaves.


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[Caliban07]

Confine should have been continue.


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[rosinx]

Thanks for the replies. Really appreciate it. I did realize that my LED's are quite bright, and that my plants were rapidly growing, so I did lower the light to 8 hours a day. I'm still dosing twice a month comprehensive. I did clip of 4 leaves that were the worst affected. The other leaves are just so sightly brown at the tips. If I don't see any improvements in the next month or so, I guess I'll try the fertilisers. Thanks again!

 

[Caliban07]

Thanks for the replies. Really appreciate it. I did realize that my LED's are quite bright, and that my plants were rapidly growing, so I did lower the light to 8 hours a day. I'm still dosing twice a month comprehensive. I did clip of 4 leaves that were the worst affected. The other leaves are just so sightly brown at the tips. If I don't see any improvements in the next month or so, I guess I'll try the fertilisers. Thanks again!

No probs. You should see an improvement. Even if the old leaves don't recover you should get new leaves.

I would definitely start adding co2 (liquid) and micro fertilisers ( liquid) though. This won't harm anything and will help speed up growth.


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[rosinx]

Can I get away with 10 hours of lighting? Thanks