Please Help My Plants Are Growing Funny

Hi all
Here's another update. there was a small amount of algae on the Cabomba and i tried the remove it by waving my hand near it. a piece about 3 inches just snapped off. as i tried to pick the bit of plant out of the water it snapped yet again. there is also another plant in there not sure of its name. but if i go anywhere near it. it just breaks up and there is now lots of this plant just floating around the tank in very small pieces. i also have a sword plant and the leaves on that are starting to bend as well.

I have now removed one of the tubes from the tank on the advice from Andy. this now leaves me with 3 T8 tubes. now should i still increase the traces a little bearing in mind that i have dropped the amount of light ? or do i still need to up the traces a little more like about 25% and is it worth increasing the Macros as well

Thanks guys
and sorry to be a pain


this is a picture of the other plant now staring to break up


and a picture of the sword

Paul

Take a look at this page on defficiencies.

LINK TO PLANT DEFFICIENCIES

In my eyes I can see calcium deposits on the amazon leave (may just be the light) which could indicate poor CO2.

I think you dfefinately have low nutrients in the tank. Which method are you using? If its a method like PMDD+P or light method similar then it will not hurt to up the dosing. It shouldn't be long term anyway. upping the dose should just indicate what the problem is and if it isn't a nutrient defficiency then you can return to the lower dose.

I would combine the 25% increase with the reduction in light as it won't hurt.

My money at the moment from the pics is on defficiency of trace and poor CO2/circulation!!

Andy

Hi Andy

this is what i dose

Macros
25g Potassium Nitrate
2.2g Potassium Phosphate (monobasic)
22g Potassium Sulphate
16g Magnesium Sulphate Heptahydrate (Epsom Salts)
500 ml distilled water


Micros powder from A.E
30G with 500ml of De Ionised water

i put in 12 ml of Macros and 6ml of Micros. i do this everyday and dose both at the same time . i have a drop checker in the tank and this is a green color which means i should be somewhere near 30. i will up the macros to 15 ml and the micros to 8 ml . and see how that goes

fingers crossed this will do the trick
Thanks again

The dosing seems OK to me. exactly double what I use on my 33USG. I do however have only 1.5WPG of HOT5 which I would say is anywhere between 2 and 3 on the WPG rule (T5 v WPG rule problem)

My drop checker was always green when I used to have a problem and I argued against it being the cause of my algae but then it was explained to me that the CO2 can be OK in some regions and not others and this meant that the drop checker was in the flow of the bubbles and that the problem areas were in 'dead spots'

Circulation was the problem in that the positioning of the diffusor meant I saw bubbles travelling but they didn't get around the whole tank.

This can cause the same problem with transporting nutrient!!

I upgraded to an external filter that pumps approx 5 x the tank volume and then moved my diffusor around the tank until I could find a point where it transported all the bubbles around the tank without losing any to the surface.

(I also removed half the media suplied with the filter so that the flow wasn't reduced too much. It isn't really need much in a planted tank anyway)

Hope the traces sort you out and wait a week or 2 for results. These things can take time so you want to change 1 think at a time letting you rule out each one before trying the next alteration.

Andy

Hi Andy. i think the Circulation is ok i have a fair bit of movement in the tank but i will look again at it and see if i can improve it a little more .as to one of the plant that was in the tank .not sure of its name but this plant has now totally disintegrated. iv never seen a plant go to mush so fast. the small piece i took out the other day felt very weak and very soft and floppy . so I'm now down to 3 tubes and i have increase my ferts so i will wait a while before i get back to you to let you know how its going. also today i did a test on my tap water. and i tested it for KH and GH and both of them came out at only 2. dose that sound a little to low to have both the KH and GH at only 2.

Cheers Mate

No idea on the GH and KH. I've not tested for anything for many many months.

Normal test kits are notoriously inaccurate anyway and can lead the user to fighting a problem that an inaccurate reading gives out.

If you have some 4dKH water then do a test on it and see if the KH comes out at 4. This should tell you how accurate this particular test is.

I think once you up the trace and lower the light you should see some improvement.

Andy

Hi
i do have some 4dKH water . i got it from A.E to use in my drop checker. anyway i did a test with that and it came out smack on. so i know the test kit is reading properly. i also tested the GH and KH from the tank water tonight. and they both came out at 1. but I'm still not sure if this is the problem. i could add some Epsom Salts to my water butt and bring the GH a little higher and then add the water to my tank on water change day. but there's not a lot i can do about the KH. there's no point in bringing that up a little only for the CO2 to bring it back down again when it gets in the tank.

CO2 will bring the Ph down not the KH!!

Ph and KH are entirely seperate but can be affected by the same thing.

Someone else will have to deal with your KH/GH issue as I have no idea what is good or bad. I just watch fish, plants and drop checker. lol

You are already dosing MGSO4 in your fert regime so this shouldn't really be needed.

Hopefully someone knowledgable will come your way and answer this latest query.

Andy

Thanks Andy

Update

well its been about five days since my last post so here is an update. small bits of algae are forming here and there but not a lot. some of the leaves on the plants are going a bit yellow and some plants are now getting a bit leggy. there are no bubbles or pearling coming from any of the plants at all. so this is what i have done. i took 2 of the T8 tubes off the tank and replaced them with 2 T5s one is a Giesemann Aqua flora and a Giesemann Midday. so this gives me 2 T5s and 1 T8 over the tank i think both of the T5s are N.O and not HOT.

20 minuets after putting the lights on i now have some pearling going on. not sure if its the lights or not but my tank now has a yellow look to it. might be the color of the light or maybe its coz the plant went a bit yellow coz they never received enough light. not sure if i now need to up the fert or not or maybe stick with what I'm using and see how it goes. should i cut as much of the algae off as i can or just leave thing as they are .
Thanks Guys

Cut the algae off. Get rid of infested leaves.

Then do a decent water change.

Leave lights as they are and keep up the increased dosing.

Give a week to see what happens. (Plants take time to adjust)

Good Luck

Andy

Thanks Andy. cut as much off as i could and did the water change. i seem to have a lot of leaves that just break off and float around the tank. some of them look like there just rotting. maybe this is normal ?
hes a picture of what they look like

Its not normal I can assure you. It has been caused by a defficiency of some kind wether it be CO2 or a nutrient defficiency.

Andy

Hi
i dont think i can go any higher with the co2 without killing my fish. maybe the ferts i am using are not very good . this is a list of whats in the ferts

Boron 1.06%
Copper 0.23%
Iron 8.2%
Manganese 1.82%
Molybdenum 0.15%
Zinc 1.16%

donkey said:

Hi
i dont think i can go any higher with the co2 without killing my fish. maybe the ferts i am using are not very good . this is a list of whats in the ferts

Boron 1.06%
Copper 0.23%
Iron 8.2%
Manganese 1.82%
Molybdenum 0.15%
Zinc 1.16%

Click to expand...

Are you not dosing any NPK? The list there is just a trace element mix. Nitrogen Potassium and Phosphate are the main nutrients needed by the plants.

You will also have to give the plants time to recover. leaves that wer starting to deteriate will take time to weaken and break off so keep removing them and wait for the new growth to appear.

Andy