Plants all getting holes in the leaves rapidly

[Mikeaq]

having a problem with my plants & can't figure out what it is. I read online lack of potassium but I'm not sure if that's the only problem.

I don't use co2 because I'm poor & wouldn't want a bulking DIY system out in the open. (No place to hide one with this tank). I plan on definitely getting a co2 system in the near future.

This is happening to all my crypts & red wentii. Eco complete substrate, root tabs, & excel daily. Lighting is 36 par, 12 inch tank.

This red wentii in the pic has only been in my tank for 3 days. It was perfectly healthy beforehand.


Can anyone share their knowledge?




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[Cold Canadian]

Do you have snails?

 

[clarkm]

Maybe crypt melt for the wenditi


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[Mikeaq]

No snails. I think I might be overdosing excel


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[Yumar]

Crypt melt when you move them , they should grow healthy once they are establish, if you're dosing excel don't worry about co2 your plants will be great

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[TXaggie]

My crypts get holes in their leaves when I forget to dose root tabs often enough.


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[Mebbid]

There are two reasons you will get crypts melting.

First is when they are just moved. They habitually melt down to nothing and then will recover when they seem to be at the brink of death.

Second is because there's not enough nutrients from not using root tabs.

Overdosing excel doesnt do it, trust me. I dose 10x (yes I really mean 10x) the recommended amount of excel in my tanks and my crypts are doing great.

 

[Mikeaq]

Another friend of mine told me it's definitely potassium deficiency, so I picked up some flora pride and we'll see how it goes


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[Mebbid]

Another friend of mine told me it's definitely potassium deficiency, so I picked up some flora pride and we'll see how it goes


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Thats fine and well but crypts won't utilize that fertilizer at all. Crypts are a root feeding plant and derive almost none of their nutrients from the water column.

 

[Mikeaq]

So then why aren't the root tabs I put in last week helping?


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[Mebbid]

Which root tabs did you give them? Also, see reason 1 that I mentioned earlier. Crypt rot is a very common occurrence.

 

[Mikeaq]

I used API root tabs because they're all the store had. I'm going to order seachem root tabs in the near future.


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[Caliban07]

Thats fine and well but crypts won't utilize that fertilizer at all. Crypts are a root feeding plant and derive almost none of their nutrients from the water column.

Surely plants can adapt to take in nutrients from where they are available? I'm not a plant expert but it would have to be one pretty dumb plant if it didn't.

I'm not saying that they don't prefer root feeding but surely they must be able to utilise ferts from the water column. I thought one of the reasons they melt when submersed is so they can do this?

Do ferts from the water column not seep in to the substrate anyway?

Makes sense to feed both the sub and column to me. Perhaps plants prefer to take certain nutrients in from roots as opposed to leaves and vice versa.

I've heard of people growing these without any substrate ferts.

Like I said I'm no expert but that doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

I know the conventional wisdom is that crypts are heavy root feeders. However, mine are growing into monstrous plants in my 26g bow front. No root tabs. However, I think other factors, in my case, are in play. One, this is a CO2 injected tank. Two, my lights are moderate. Three, the substrate is floramax (same as Eco Complete), which has a high CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity). The CEC characteristic is suppose to absorb nutrients and feed it back to the plant. My water column dosing (via PPS-Pro) and fish waste must be getting absorbed by the substrate and feeding my crypts. I can't figure out any other explanation.

 

[Mebbid]

Surely plants can adapt to take in nutrients from where they are available? I'm not a plant expert but it would have to be one pretty dumb plant if it didn't.

I'm not saying that they don't prefer root feeding but surely they must be able to utilise ferts from the water column. I thought one of the reasons they melt when submersed is so they can do this?

Do ferts from the water column not seep in to the substrate anyway?

Makes sense to feed both the sub and column to me. Perhaps plants prefer to take certain nutrients in from roots as opposed to leaves and vice versa.

I've heard of people growing these without any substrate ferts.

Like I said I'm no expert but that doesn't make sense to me.

My bio professor spent a long time drilling this into our heads but just because something evolved the way it did, doesn't means it's the best way. It's just something that happened by chance which worked and the organism didn't die off. Why the plants don't absorb nutrients through their leaves as well as roots *shrug* I haven't delved that deep into the physiology of plants to figure it out.

I thought that same thing when I was starting on my planted tank. Water wisteria was the big eye opener on that for me. Below is a pic of my water wisteria which is a heavy root feeder while I was dosing EI ferts. With EI you are basically flooding the water column with fertilizers. I didn't use any root tabs for my water wisteria until Rivercats suggested it. Within a week of using my DIY tabs there was a noticable difference. I'm not sure how much fertilizer the root plants take in through their leaves but I know it's not very much and crypts are in this group.

The water wisteria in this picture is approximately 4 months old and was struggling since I got it.

The ferts from the water column aren't very concentrated at all. Think of the surface area of a root system from a root feeding plant versus the surface area of a stem plant that feeds from the water column. The difference is like night and day. Yes, if roots are exposed to the water column they will take in some nutrients but the nutrients in the water column isn't anywhere near as concentrated as we make it when we use root tabs. This means that it's nowhere near as efficient and the plant's growth rate will slow to a crawl.

So then why aren't the root tabs I put in last week helping?


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I had the same exact problem with the sub par API and Seachem root tabs. If you look at their nutrient content then you will see that they are really really crappy for macro nutrients. If you care to take a look at this link I detail my experience with root tabs pretty extensively. I would skip both the API and Seachem root tabs and go with the ones I talked about in the thread below or order some from Peabody's paradise.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f24/mebbids-diy-root-tabs-308735.html

But again, I'd like to re re re iterate that with a crypt you've had for a week theres a 99% chance it's just crypt melt. Something that is almost unavoidable.

 

[Mikeaq]

Awesome information and experiences from everyone. Thank you all for your advice I really enjoyed reading everyone's opinions and I will see what happens!


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[Caliban07]

Who determined that a crypt was a 'root feeding plant'? This is what gets me. It might just appear to feed this way in natural environments because it is the easiest way to obtain it's nutrients for one reason or another.

I also have wisteria. I do nothing but add liquid ferts twice a week and I'm running 2 x 25w crappy t8 tubes. My wisteria has already claimed a third of my tank and has started carpeting the gravel. It is ridiculously healthy. It was sat in the shop before I bought it without root tabs and was probably shipped without root tabs.

What I'm saying is is that I think it just takes time for the plant to adjust to a stage where it can compete for the uptake of nutrients in the water column with plants that are already exceptional at it.

Here is my wisteria about 1 month ago


It is now twice as high as that and is encroaching the rock halfway.

 

[Mebbid]

Who determined that a crypt was a 'root feeding plant'? This is what gets me. It might just appear to feed this way in natural environments because it is the easiest way to obtain it's nutrients for one reason or another.

I also have wisteria. I do nothing but add liquid ferts twice a week and I'm running 2 x 25w crappy t8 tubes. My wisteria has already claimed a third of my tank and has started carpeting the gravel. It is ridiculously healthy. It was sat in the shop before I bought it without root tabs and was probably shipped without root tabs.

What I'm saying is is that I think it just takes time for the plant to adjust to a stage where it can compete for the uptake of nutrients in the water column with plants that are already exceptional at it.

Here is my wisteria about 1 month ago
View attachment 242285

It is now twice as high as that and is encroaching the rock halfway.

Things like that can be said about anything in this hobby. Who said a tetra is a schooling fish? It's all a matter of trial, error, and observation. Over time it's easy to see the different in plant growth that occurs directly after a major change. In my photo journal of my root tab thread my water wisteria is sitting right next to my amazon sword. You can see a timeline of change from my wisteria and my amazon sword both of which I had for months before the introduction of my root tabs. I didn't have crypts back then or I would have included them in as examples but I am seeing the same sort of change with the root tabs that I've added recently to them as well.

You can also see how much nutrients a plant takes in through it's roots by the size of the root ball attached to it. Star repens is a good example of this in that it has a decent sized root ball which it absorbs nutrients through and it also takes in nutrients form the water column as well. On the other hand a plant such as anacharis the roots seem to be an afterthought, they do no more than anchor it into the ground.

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

Who determined that a crypt was a 'root feeding plant'?

I recall reading this in a pretty informative post somewhere in the planted tank or barr report forum. They said something along the lines of crypts being suitable for DSM (dry start method) because the way the plant adapted to be root feeders. That's also why they're fine to be used in terrariums. But researching crypts, you'll discover evolution of adapting to where they flourish in nature made them a 'root feeding plant'.

According to Wikipedia, "They also live in seasonally inundated forest pools or on river banks submerged only at high water." So obviously when they're emergent, they have to get their nutrients from the roots. So their physiology allows them to live in and out of water, which is only possible with root feeding.

 

[Caliban07]

I recall reading this in a pretty informative post somewhere in the planted tank or barr report forum. They said something along the lines of crypts being suitable for DSM (dry start method) because the way the plant adapted to be root feeders. That's also why they're fine to be used in terrariums. But researching crypts, you'll discover evolution of adapting to where they flourish in nature made them a 'root feeding plant'.

According to Wikipedia, "They also live in seasonally inundated forest pools or on river banks submerged only at high water." So obviously when they're emergent, they have to get their nutrients from the roots. So their physiology allows them to live in and out of water, which is only possible with root feeding.

I don't question this. Like I said, the crypt may be predominantly a root feeder because of the way it has evolved due to it's region and environment. I understand that the majority of aquarium plant are bog plants and only now and then are submersed.

All I am suggesting is that the have the ability to adapt to utilize what is available.just like fish have the ability to adapt to changing ph solids and temps.

I don't know which plants are grown for the trade or plucked from their natural habitat but I would imagine the same applies? Plants grown for the trade will handle changes better just like farm bred neons would adapt better compared with a wild one. Plants grown for the trade are grown submersed in most cases right?

We know a neon is a schooling fish as someone was kind enough to observe them in the wild. We know they live in soft acidic black waters thanks to these people but with perhaps a slow initial period for acclimatising they have shown they can adapt survive and grow but we will never truly know how these changes have affected the fish on a cellular level. For eg the change in ph alters the blood ph which in turn inhibits the uptake of X nutrient which cause the neon to become deficient.

I just like to think that plants can adapt to however they need to In order to survive. My wisteria is a good example.