Deficiencies and toxicities of plant nutrients.

[Caliban07]

I've just set up a control to test my substrate. I've purchased s.repens, rotala wallichi and Monte Carlo. I've placed some in a tub with just sand and the rest in the eco complete.

Most the new plants are still in emersed form so will be interesting to see if the transitions are the same.



The new Rotala at the back



Old rotala



There's no way the rotala was coming back from that.

The tank is inundated with Algae. The iron is definitely working as this stuff was black the other day.



Stunted yellow and crinckled s.repens compared knew emersed s.repens.

 

[Caliban07]

Curling tips on blyxa japonica blades



Necrosis black 'dead' base of the rotala wallichi stem.

 

[flchamp89]

Wait....rotala in the tub. How long it been in there

 

[Caliban07]

No lol it uprooted and got caught in the tub.

Edit: it's an old one that's been stagnant for about 2 weeks.

 

[Bert2oo1]

No lol it uprooted and got caught in the tub.

Edit: it's an old one that's been stagnant for about 2 weeks.

Gee bud the tanks looking ruff. That algae is really setting in. You still glut dosing?

 

[Caliban07]

Gee bud the tanks looking ruff. That algae is really setting in. You still glut dosing?

It's not really as strong as glut and not as effective as excel so I believe. It's easycarbo. That's all I have. Not going down the glut of peroxide route.

 

[BioChem]

I'm at 100% lighting, 160 par at substrate. (I'm not scared of light like caliban07 [emoji23])

I'm almost 100% sure I'm into
toxicity again. My hygro has gone back to the way it was before I water changed and didn't dose for 3 days. Start of the week it had very fast growth and was a vibrant green. Now it has gone pale and is curling the new growth. The new growth also has patchs of red I between the veins.

Milfoils growth has stopped dead. Hasn't grown at all for 3 days now. This plant normally hits the surface 1-2 times per week.

AR mini is looking worse than ever. Curling every leaf, a little dull in colour.

I've ruled out co2. I'm at 30-35ppm
I've ruled out nitrate. I'm at 40+ due to no nutrient uptake from plants.
Phosphate level is 3ppm (EI level)
GH is at 7
Kh is at 4

At this point I think my substrate has absorbed a heap of micro's from when I was dosing full EI. I really don't feel the need to dose micro's at all untill I start to see deficiency. I will still dose iron to recommended EI as I want to eliminate everything 1 by 1 and find out exactly what is causing this issue.

Something is blocking my plants uptake. TDS hasn't changed at all from start to finish of photo period. Surely I should be seeing atleast a 6-10 ppm shift from plant uptake? Especially since my lighting is so strong.

160 PAR! Impressive! May I ask, which light fixture you use?

 

[Bert2oo1]

160 PAR! Impressive! May I ask, which light fixture you use?

I use makemyled (a company in south Australia) I've got 3 120cm LED tubes. To be honest I haven't found anything good here in Aus apart from these. They cost me about $400 to set up but that's the price of 2 finnex fixtures if I was to get them from America and I don't think they would be capable of putting out as much light as these (if I needed it lol)

Here's the eBay add:
https://www.ebay.com.au/ulk/itm/191745879322

 

[BioChem]

I use makemyled (a company in south Australia) I've got 3 120cm LED tubes. To be honest I haven't found anything good here in Aus apart from these. They cost me about $400 to set up but that's the price of 2 finnex fixtures if I was to get them from America and I don't think they would be capable of putting out as much light as these (if I needed it lol)

Here's the eBay add:
https://www.ebay.com.au/ulk/itm/191745879322

Thanks for posting the link. Awesome lighting! I'd love to give this a try with my 29 gal.

 

[Bert2oo1]

Thanks for posting the link. Awesome lighting! I'd love to give this a try with my 29 gal.

I had 2 60cm tubes on my 30g and i grew high light plants no worrys

 

[Autumnsky]

Massive root systems may be explained by the the use of Mycorrhizal fungi in starting aquarium plants in soil, a beneficial fungi causes a sybiotic relationship and multiplies the roots dramatically. Can't remember where I read it but somewhere it was used in the bacter type additives for scaping and it is very often used in the production of wholesale plants for all veggie & flowering plants, forest trees and fruit tree, used in hydroponics markets as well.

Thought this could explain the crazy amounts of roots. I got nothing on the dosing parts of the thread, just reading along at this point, for the educational value.

 

[Caliban07]

Massive root systems may be explained by the the use of Mycorrhizal fungi in starting aquarium plants in soil, a beneficial fungi causes a sybiotic relationship and multiplies the roots dramatically. Can't remember where I read it but somewhere it was used in the bacter type additives for scaping and it is very often used in the production of wholesale plants for all veggie & flowering plants, forest trees and fruit tree, used in hydroponics markets as well.

Thought this could explain the crazy amounts of roots. I got nothing on the dosing parts of the thread, just reading along at this point, for the educational value.

Very interesting Autumn. Never heard of this. I trim the main root section off my S.repens and leave the next root node available. Would this have any effect?

 

[flchamp89]

Inoculants are commonly used in agriculture. Not all plants will respond from the addition of the fungi. I personally do not use or recommend them. However, many old timers believe in them as they have been around for a lot longer than most realize. I would think that some of our plants were definitely started with these.

 

[Caliban07]

Inoculants are commonly used in agriculture. Not all plants will respond from the addition of the fungi. I personally do not use or recommend them. However, many old timers believe in them as they have been around for a lot longer than most realize. I would think that some of our plants were definitely started with these.

If they were started with them and grown roots to reflect this would the roots grow back the same way if trimmed and replanted in a different substrate?

 

[flchamp89]

I doubt it. If used on our common aquatic plants. Think of it as a grafting starter. Its a growth stumulator to create hypae

 

[mandoborg]

Reading threads like this reminds me you continue to learn throughout this hobby !!I've been noticing my Dwarf Sag leaves turn yellow, then transparent, then finally float away.... My Amazon is developing small pin holes as well....... I use DIY Iron and Osmocote root tabs, as well as EI. I have a bag of chelated Iron I bought on ebay that I've been dosing once a week, and csm+b once a week. Thinking of replacing the csm+b with the chelated for a month or so to see what happens. All my ' numbers' look ok.....well the ones I can test for anyway...so I'm curious how this will turn out.

 

[Bert2oo1]

Reading threads like this reminds me you continue to learn throughout this hobby !!I've been noticing my Dwarf Sag leaves turn yellow, then transparent, then finally float away.... My Amazon is developing small pin holes as well....... I use DIY Iron and Osmocote root tabs, as well as EI. I have a bag of chelated Iron I bought on ebay that I've been dosing once a week, and csm+b once a week. Thinking of replacing the csm+b with the chelated for a month or so to see what happens. All my ' numbers' look ok.....well the ones I can test for anyway...so I'm curious how this will turn out.

What substrate are you using? If it's Eco or similar I'd say you wouldn't need to dose any micro's with those tabs and iron in there. I think maybe a few of us underestimated the uptake rate of our substrates. It seems they have been soaking up the micro's in a big way.

I'd also do a few large water change just to knock out any Excess that may be in the column

 

[Caliban07]

Reading threads like this reminds me you continue to learn throughout this hobby !!I've been noticing my Dwarf Sag leaves turn yellow, then transparent, then finally float away.... My Amazon is developing small pin holes as well....... I use DIY Iron and Osmocote root tabs, as well as EI. I have a bag of chelated Iron I bought on ebay that I've been dosing once a week, and csm+b once a week. Thinking of replacing the csm+b with the chelated for a month or so to see what happens. All my ' numbers' look ok.....well the ones I can test for anyway...so I'm curious how this will turn out.

How much CSM+B have you been dosing?

 

[Delapool]

Some plants struggled much more than others. The most affected plants that also showed the earliest symptoms were AR and staurogyne repens. AR slowed to a crawl, and new growth was a darker maroon color and was twisted and stunted. This is also what I started seeing two days ago following the third dose of flourish. S. repens showed similar symptoms but also eventually shed all of the lower leaves leaving bare stems with just the stunted newer growth. Both of these species also became very brittle, with stems that snap easily when bent. I also noticed when uprooting s. repens it also had huge white roots that looked enlarged and were also very brittle. Other plants mostly just slowed down and were somewhat stunted. Bacopa caroliniana also started branching into two growth tips as if it had been pruned, and ludwigia also had dark discolored spots on some of the older leaves.

That is interesting - that is very close to what I thought I had with an iron phosphate issue. While the addition of phosphate buffers was the trigger (tested several times as it seemed so odd), it may well have set off a micros toxicity issue. Only as while phosphate was off the test kit chart and required lots of water changes, I wasn't adding a huge amount of buffer.

Hygo was the worse. From memory - growth stopped dead (all plants wiped out), stems went brittle, dark spots on lower leaves and stems, all leaves dropped off, new growth small and stunted (from memory). This was also under high light and insufficient CO2. I'd love to test this again as still have the buffers but frankly not game until a complete re-scape.

 

[Autumnsky]

The rootone or starter is similar but a different thing. The fungi will grow and colonize on the root and though you cut the root back it would still be there, and colonize like a sponge of BB rinsed off all but a corner would still be able to grow it back. The M. fungi (sorry can't spell it w/o looking it up) will cause the 1 root to sprout to 10 roots (I am making up the numbers but the process is the same), where as using a fertilizer might make it sprout off a few, and then the M. fungi keeps those going in hyper drive too, as they colonize. It keeps going.

Basically it causes a mutation which is beneficial for plant growth and health. Learned of this in Master Gardener plant classes, and yes it was a long time ago, and it was a long time ago before that they began using this.