Twisty Leaves.

[jarrod0987]

About a month ago I had twisty leaves on some of my plants. This had been going on for about 1 month and the plants were not like that when I brought them home. Ammonia and Nitrate tested 0 ppm since day 1 on this tank. I thought it might have been a Nitrogen efficiency as many claim or a Calcium overdose as some say. I do have a GH of about 10 dKH. I read in Tom Barr's articles that he has success with increasing CO2 and he believes this is actually a carbon deficiency. That make sense to be as Carbon is the main ingredient for the structure. So I started dosing Excel.

I have noticed there are no more twisty leaves for over 2 weeks now. There has been 0 ppm of Ammonia and Nitrate the whole time so it was not a N deficiency as is commonly advised in this case. Also, the Calcium level is stable as is supplied by oyster grit in the substrate so is not an overdose of Calcium as that has not gone down either. It must have been a carbon deficiency as adding Excel seems to have been the change that fixed it.

 

[Autumnsky]

The bottle says it promotes ferrous state of iron.

 

[jarrod0987]

It "promotes" it I guess. it is Gluteraldahyde. A Biocide and carbon source. It's kind of an intermediate between soil approach and CO2 Injection. I have never read Iron being implemented as a cause of twisty leaves. I was also doing Flourish Iron at the time anyways but that was not fixing the issue. Excel seemed too.