Leafs getting patchy

[Tippersloth]

Hey guys my swords are getting patchy, I’ve had them for several months now and they were doing really well with big growths etc. they normally bounce back after awhile as this has happened before but it seems to be nearly every leaf now. I’m currently using flourish range of fertilisers (see photos) what would be the best method to get them back to health? No other plants have this issue.

 

[Sgooosh]

Hey guys my swords are getting patchy, I’ve had them for several months now and they were doing really well with big growths etc. they normally bounce back after awhile as this has happened before but it seems to be nearly every leaf now. I’m currently using flourish range of fertilisers (see photos) what would be the best method to get them back to health? No other plants have this issue.

sadly, swords are heavy root feeders and require tabs, so i dont think those have much use.
get some flourish root tabs, that seems to help a lot
have any snails?
it might be the land leaves dying... that happened with all of my swords (3, 2 species)
those are some cool swords, what type?

 

[Barry Tetra]

I’m quite sure it’s the Seachem Excel that does that, liquid carbon contain Glutaraldehyde which is harmful to both plants and fishes.

 

[itiwhetu]

What stemmed plants do you have in your tank. I have always found that this group of plants grow best when around stemmed plats like Hygrophilia or Cabomba. If they are alone in a tank they will often struggle.

 

[ClownLurch]

All my plants went like that. Someone on here pointed out that Flourish was short of an essential ingredient……that Flourish sold in a seperate bottle. Hmmm fancy that eh? It worked by the way.

 

[itiwhetu]

Just watch how much of that stuff you feed into your tank

 

[Naughts]

All my plants went like that. Someone on here pointed out that Flourish was short of an essential ingredient……that Flourish sold in a seperate bottle. Hmmm fancy that eh? It worked by the way.

Which ingredient? Lol

 

[Byron]

I assume from this thread that you are not using the Flourish Tabs, and that is critical with swords. One tab next to each plant's crown, pushed into the substrate, and replace every three months. These make a huge difference.

Do not use Excel, ever. At recommended doses it can kill some plants, and if overdosed has the ability to kill plants, bacteria and fish. It contains a highly toxic disinfectant, glutaraldehyde. The fact that some use it to kill algae should sound warning bells.

As for the ingredients missing in Flourish Comprehensive Supplement, there are none. But a couple are minimal, because they occur in the source water for many aquarists. Calcium and magnesium, which is the GH. Do you know the GH of your water?

 

[ClownLurch]

Which ingredient? Lol

Potassium

 

[Sgooosh]

Potassium

ooh nice i have all the ferts hahahahahhahahahahha

 

[Tippersloth]

Thanks for the info guys, I don’t have the exact names of all the plants but I know my main plant is ambulia and grows very quick. I’ve got rose sword and Osiris sword the rest are just a mix bundle of swords. I’ll stop using the excel and do a 50% water change also buy some tabs

 

[Sgooosh]

Thanks for the info guys, I don’t have the exact names of all the plants but I know my main plant is ambulia and grows very quick. I’ve got rose sword and Osiris sword the rest are just a mix bundle of swords. I’ll stop using the excel and do a 50% water change also buy some tabs

yeah swords REALLY like root tabs, when it ran out my sword started geetting bad

 

[StevenF]

As for the ingredients missing in Flourish Comprehensive Supplement, there are none. But a couple are minimal, because they occur in the source water for many aquarists. Calcium and magnesium, which is the GH. Do you know the GH of your water?

Actually it is missing nickel but since plants only need about 0.001 ppm in the water. So tap water probably has enough. Flourish only supply about 0.03ppm of Ca and Mg but for most tanks 9ppm of Ca and 3ppm Mg (less than1 degree GH) would typically the minimum suitable for plants.Also Flourish comprehensive only supples 0.06ppm of nitrate NO3 and potassium K. And 0.002ppm of phosphate PO4. meaning 99% of the macro nutrients pants come from fish waist or tap water not the fertilizer.

It also has about 1/20th of the zinc and copper and boron plants need . Zinc and copper at one time were plentiful in tap water. due to water pipes. Zinc coated iron pipes were once common. today copper pies are common. In new construction plastic pipes are used. If you have plastic pipes you probably are deficient in copper and zinc No one uses zinc coated iron pipes anymore.

So of the 14 nutrients plants need to grow Flourish comprehensive is missing one and is deficient in 8.

My experience with a small 5 gallon RO water shrimp tank is that Flourish comprehensive doesn't work. But if you use a combination of Comprehensive, Seachem nitrogen, phosphate, Equilibrium GH booster, and Seachem Trace, and SeaChem iron might work. In fact hidden in the seachem website is this fertilizer calendar with all of the bottles listed above plus a few others. So much for a one bottle comprehensive fertilizer.

 

[Byron]

What you say is probably true for high-tech method planted tanks, but certainly not for low-tech or natural fish tanks that have plants. I am not trying to sell Flourish Comprehensive Supplement, but it is one of the best "supplements" available to aquarists (Brightwell Aquatics FlorinMulti is much the same, and there is also the UK product TNC Lite). I'm sure there are similarly good supplements in Europe that I have not heard about or tried.

The name seems to get lost...Flourish Comprehensive Supplement. These products are not intended as the sole source of nutrients, so for those of us with fish tanks that need to ensure everything is there, they work very , very well. I have had heavily planted tanks for years with zero GH/KH water solely by using the liquid and substrate tabs in the Flourish line. So from this perspective, Flourish Comprehensive is not deficient in any nutrient if it is used as it is intended.

And nitrate and phosphorus keep getting mentioned...these should never be added to a low-tech or natural method planted tank with fish. With a couple of rare exceptions, all aquatic plants used in the aquarium do not take up nitrate unless there is insufficient ammonia/ammonium for their nitrogen needs, and with fish present and assuming they are being fed, nitrate is useless and merely dangerous to fish. As is phosphate.

 

[StevenF]

What you say is probably true for high-tech method planted tanks, but certainly not for low-tech or natural fish tanks that have plants.

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.

And nitrate and phosphorus keep getting mentioned...these should never be added to a low-tech or natural method planted tank with fish. With a couple of rare exceptions, all aquatic plants used in the aquarium do not take up nitrate unless there is insufficient ammonia/ammonium for their nitrogen needs

that is your opinion. In my experience with which is that you can have enough plant growth with fish to in a low tech tanks runout of the nitrogen and phosphate. Plant growth can be surprisingly fast when all nutrients are pressent in sufficient results. As long as phosphate and nitrate are held at constant low levels the plants and fish will do fine.

I have had heavily planted tanks for years with zero GH/KH water solely by using the liquid and substrate tabs in the Flourish line.

forstarters KH is not a plant nutrient. 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. In these tests less than one degree will read as zero. But in truth you never have zero GH in tap water there is always some calcium and magnesium pressent. Especially in fish waste. So in your tank you don't have zero and you have less than one.

The name seems to get lost...Flourish Comprehensive Supplement. These products are not intended as the sole source of nutrients

Every plant product they sell is listed in on there website in the "Plant Supplement page" Including many products that don't contain may plant nutrients. Furthermore Seachem states:

Flourish® is designed to be used in conjunction with other macro and micro-nutrient supplements

So based on that statement they treat the product as s supplement to NPK dosing. In fact in the Seachem dosing calendar recommends dosing Flourish comprehensive with flourish nitrogen, phosphate, equilibrium products. I is not intended suppliment for your water. In my opinion Seachem is not using the word literally, but mostly in a causal way for marketing reasons.