Sword deficiency - at my wits end

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zenkatydid

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jul 30, 2005
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I have a deficiency in one of my tanks.

The ozelot sword displays very mild signs - some yellowing along the veins of old leaves, and some brown spots/patches. The spiral val just seems to be losing old leaves faster than new leaves are formed. They go yellow, then brown, then transparent, from tips to base. The amazon sword is the worst, and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to save it. Old growth displays similar symptoms to the ozelot, and - the worst - new growth is very pale in colour, brittle, and rotting away.

From various websites I've seen, my self-diagnosis is a mild potassium deficiency (in the old leaves) and a severe calcium OR iron deficiency (new leaves). Can someone sanity check me? And what do you think - calcium or iron?

My GH is 4 degrees, if that helps - is this too low? I am thinking of adding some marble chips to my filter, is this a good idea?

Here's a pic of the amazon sword (as I was transferring it to my other tank, in the hopes of perking it up):
img_822064_0_e93a60e595ca49789f457b77a795458f.jpg


I dose macros (dry) and micros (seachem), and have been through various dosing regimes trying to get this thing to perk up. Please help!
 
my first guess is K/Fe (can you tell me the size of your tank, and how much of each nutrient your are dosing)

could be Ca, can you measure your KH?

could Possible be some micro nutrient...if you are dosing dry macros, is there any reason you are not dosing dry micros (CSM+B)?
 
Swords, and the vals too if memory serves me right, are heavy root feeders. Try getting some of seachems plant tabs and placing one under each of them and see if that helps.
 
I second neilanh, at least with swords, root tabs tend to make a big difference IME...especially if they're the plants primarily affected.
 
Actually it's calcium and magnesium that makeup the GH. Just the measurement of GH is not enough to determine whether or not there's a CA deficiency, as the GH could be made up of entirely one or the other. You would need to get ahold of a copy of your water report to get an idea of whether or not the GH is balanced correctly. You could alway dose a GH booster and see if you see some improvement after a few weeks.

What you're describing doesn't sound like an iron deficiency. With iron the leaves are yellow but still have green veins.
 
ok, so not iron. good.

i use seachem root tabs - the last one i put under this sword was about a month ago. it's been going downhill for longer than that, and didn't respond to the tab at all. seems odd, doesn't it? maybe i should stick another one under it.

i don't know what role KH would play - but in this it's almost bottomed out. very low. i should probably do something about that, but wasn't sure what was the best method of upping it in a stable fashion.

i'm in australia, so don't have access to plantex. i found a hydroponics place that i could get the macros from, but they don't have a suitable micro mix, so i'm stuck with the seachem.

i just looked up the sydney water analysis, and it says:

magnesium: 4.9-5.5
calcium: 12-14
potassium: 1.5-1.9
phosphorus: 0.007-0.01
iron: 0.01-0.03
total hardness: 50-68
calcium hardness: 32-38

they look like all the relevant ones. how does that look?
 
I'm actually suspecting that you've got a macro deficiency and not necessarily the Potassium. Potassium tends to start more as pinholes that expand. The the changing color and going yellow and then finally transparent, I tend to think that it's either Nitrates and/or Phophates that are in low supply.
 
How old is the sword?. in the picture it seems to be held in your hand. One thing that happens with swords is that they develop a bulb at their base. When this happens, growth will slow down or stop. removing the bulb (twist it off) and trimming the roots and replanting will often start a new growth spurt. The bulb can be planted and will produce one or more plants.
 
the sword is quite young - we got it when it was small, and it's been in the tank for about 8 months. at least, i imagine that's young for a sword. how long do they live anyway?

i would be very surprised if it was nitrates, however i do have trouble maintaining the correct level of phosphates. i get green spot a lot in this tank. i have just upped my phosphate dosing to have a go at the algae, so we'll see if that helps the sword at all.

so, magnesium is low? how do i raise the level of magnesium, then? will marble chips add that? or is there something i should include in my dry dosing?
 
zenkatydid said:
so, magnesium is low? how do i raise the level of magnesium, then? will marble chips add that? or is there something i should include in my dry dosing?

Magnesium chloride or magnesium sulfate work great for dry dosing. You know the latter as Epsom salt. Very cheap and dissolves pretty well in water. Dosing is up to you but I wouldn't skimp on it since its a macronutrient and its so cheap. I'd dose 1/4tsp per 10-20 gallons every other day and see how the plants (and algae) do.

Caution: I've never purchased epsom salt from the store and so do not know if they sell some with additives in it (say moisturizer or something), as with ammonia and fishless cycling you want pure magnesium sulfate. It's probably the cheapest store brand available...

HTH
 
1/4tsp per 10-20 gallons every other day

that's huge! twice what i dose in N and K (which is a low-light EI equivalent). is that right? magnesium is a macro? i thought NPK were the macros and all the others were micros...

also, an update: since moving this sword into my other tank, it has started to put out new leaves - healthy new leaves! so that tank obviously has what it needs, for now. i'd still like to dose some magnesium, though, since it's obviously lacking.

the next problem is that my other sword in this tank (that the amazon's in now), a big leopard sword, is showing a different deficiency. the new leaves are dying away along the leaf margins. no yellowing that i can see, just rotting away along the edges. ideas?
 
zenkatydid said:
1/4tsp per 10-20 gallons every other day

that's huge! twice what i dose in N and K (which is a low-light EI equivalent). is that right? magnesium is a macro? i thought NPK were the macros and all the others were micros...

Then do 1/8th tsp, it really doesn't matter. Yes magnesium is a macro. Phosphate (the P in NPK) is not a macro, or at least not in the same league of macro's as the others.

Mg, Ca, N, K, CO2 those are the primary macro's (I just got up so I might have missed one).

Fe, P, Mn, Zn, B, and a whole slew of others are micro's.

Most people's tap water takes care of the calcium and magnesium, but some of us need to supplement if extremely low, or using higher light/CO2. What makes this so difficult is after a water change for a day or two your tank will be fine. But once the small amount of nutrient is used up you then go deficient for the next couple of days. And this is in a 50% PWC per week. Smaller changes per week only make this problem worse.
 
While Nitrate, Phosphate, and Potassium are the most commonly talked about Macronutrients, they are not the only ones. The reason you don't hear about the others is that most people's tapwater supply the rest of the macro nutrients, so they generally don't have to be dosed. Basically a Macronutrient is any nutrient that plants need in larger quantities, while a micronutrient is only needed in trace amounts.
 
ah, thanks for clearing that up. i feel like i'll be learning about this stuff forever! :D i will pick up some epsom salts and add it to my mon/wed/fri dry dose. if i can't find it pure, i'll contact my hydroponics place for fertiliser.

any ideas for the second sword with the new leaves dying along the sides of the leaf?
 
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