Leafs getting patchy

[itiwhetu]

Don't you guys ever think that you are over thinking this. Water, plants, fish. Full stop.

 

[itiwhetu]

No Fertilizers, Just fish and light. This is a part of a 250 liter tank at the other end was an Amazon sword. If you make it to complicated nobody will want to have planted tanks.

 

[Byron]

It is not a low tech or high tech thing. I tried to run my small tank as a low tech with RO water and with flourish comprehensive and it din't work. Put the tank light on a dimmer and no mater how dim I set it I still had out of control algae and no plant growth. The truth of the mater is that there is simply not enough of many nutrients for any plants growth. It doesn't enough have keep duck weed growing. It died off. This fertilizer is entirely dependent on your water have enough. It only has enough for few hours or maybe a day of growth. And yet the bottle instructions say to dose 1 or 2 times a week.

I'm sorry Steven but this has most certainly not been my experience. My source water is zero GH/KH (the actual GH according to the water authority is 7 ppm, which to me is basically zero) and I have grown swords with just the Flourish Tabs, not even the liquid. I am now using the liquid in tanks with floaters, which is all three of them now. Another member @seangee has elsewhere mentioned using RO water and having good plant growth with these products. The photo below is of one of my tanks with these two fertilizers and the fish food being the only additives. The GH and KH are zero, pH is in the low 6's in this tank. First photo is from May 27, 2014, second is the same tank in February 24, 2015; the photos are not great, due to my then-old and cheap camera, but they do illustrate the issue.

I agree on your points about calcium and magnesium, but that supports my contention that I have sufficient of these with the addition of the Flourish products. Fish and fish food provide a lot of nutrients. And without question more than enough nitrogen and phosphorus. Again, this is backed up by these photos.

 

[itiwhetu]

I have often thought that when plants do poorly it could be something as simple as CO2 deficiency, as we spend our whole time trying to get the oxygen content of our aquariums as high as possible for the fish.

 

[StevenF]

'm sorry Steven but this has most certainly not been my experience. My source water is zero GH/KH (the actual GH according to the water authority is 7 ppm, which to me is basically zero) and I have grown swords with just the Flourish Tabs, not even the liquid.

But did you ever try growing plants in RO with an inert substrate with just the liquid comprehensive. No. Yes I know there are some people that report success with RO. But I have seen other without. The big differences I see with RO tanks is many use aquarium soils or substrates that aren't inert. That may be enough for a year. but when the substrates deselected than the only other source of nutrients is your fertilizer, and fish waste. But is you idon'thave enough fish waits then it is just the fertilize. I tried 4 different fertilizer with and without GH booster and none worked in my shrimp tank. Flourishroot tabs were not in any of thievish stores I went to so I never tried them. Perhaps the root tabs work much better than the fertilizers I tried?

GH measures calcium and magnesium which are plant nutrients. the typical test kit measures in one degrees. 1 degree is 17.8 ppm. Plants only need a quarter of that amount to do well.

A quarter of 1 degree is about 5ppm. You had 7in your water More than enough. Additionally look at your root tabs they are rich in calcium and have magnesium. Much much more than in Flourish comprehensive. As I stated earlier Comprehensive has only 0.06ppm of GH in it. That is about 1/80th of 5ppm. When I was using flourish comprehensive I had:

1. A nitrogen deficiency. Add Seachem nitrogen to correct that and plants did grow for a while
2. Then a phosphate deficiency, Added Seachem phosphate to correct that and plant growth resumed for a while.
3. Then GH deficiency. Added Gh a GH booster. Plants did well for a while.
4. Then I had an iron deficiency. Add Seachem iron to fish that.
5. A few months later plant growth stopped again. Macros and iron were now OK but still no growth. I eventually concluded it was probably a problem with Mn, B, Zn, or Cu. At this point I stopped using flourish comprehensive and mad my own micro fertilizer and used Seachem nitrogen, and Phosphate and the GH booster I was now making. Success, plant growth f for over a year. The last deficiency with flourish was likely Zinc and Copper. I am now using 0.020ppm zinc and 0.010ppm copper. Flourish comprehensive has less than 0.0002 ppm (yes 2 parts per trillion) of these two nutrients and my shrimp are doing fine..

Since I joining thisfrume I have observed that people with planted tanks tend to fall into 3 catagories, Those that succeed with few problems.Those that struggle, And those that fail and stop trying to grow plants. Most commonly the problems often fertilizer, substrate, and water related. Even on a forum where discussions were mainly focused on high tech tanks CO2 was never a problem, GH however was a common issue.

 

[Byron]

Flourishroot tabs were not in any of thievish stores I went to so I never tried them. Perhaps the root tabs work much better than the fertilizers I tried?

Yes, exactly. I used Seachem's Equilibrium at a dose that resulted in tank water being 5-6 dGH, in order to provide calcium and magnesium, and the swords thrived; they had previously been showing evidence of calcium deficiency, so the 6-7 ppm of GH, if that is accurate, was clearly not sufficient. Then when a marine biologist suggested the Equilibrium was not a good idea given my fish species, I stopped, and the larger swords began to decline (with just Flourish Comprehensive liquid), so I began using the Flourish Tabs, and the swords rebounded. This has worked for some 5 or 6 years now, one tab next to each of the large swords, replaced every 3 months. With or without the liquid, the swords are doing very well; I sometimes forget how long it has been, and the swords do show signs of weakening slightly, after 3 months if I forget. This is why I always recommend the Flourish Tabs for swords, regardless of water GH.

The liquid I use primarily for the floating plants, and without question it improves their growth (Ceratopteris cornuta primarily, also Salvinia in other tanks).

 

[Guest14017]

My water registers 1 drop on both the GH and KH test kit. I use Seachem Equibrium in my tank too. It definitely helps my plants. I don't have success with many plants regardless but I love it.