# Nutrient shortage & some other problems



## ShinLi (Mar 15, 2009)

Hi there ^^, a few months ago I started up my first aquarium. It's a Juwel Vision 260 (260 liters, don't ask me how many galleons that is XD).

I have a few problems.

I think there is somekind of nutrient shortage going on. Because some of my older plants are showing holes in them and are turning yellow slowly. I've just bought a new bunch of plants, and don't want them to die. Here are a few pictures to show you a few of my older plants with the problems. I'm sure you guys can figure out what kind of nutrient deficiency is going on ^^.










^^ This is the plant I'm having the most troubles with. I pulled out all the dead leaves about one and half week ago. It is shooting new leaves, but the older leaves are yet again turning brownish/yellow with the holes.










^^ Same plant, another leave










^^ Nother bunch of older plants. Dunno if anyone can see anything wrong on it. But the javafern (in circle 1) is also showing brownish colouring on the leaves. In circle two there's a plant who is also kinda dying. Just before the plant that still looks relativly good there's a the same plant who died completely.

I also have Eleocharis parvula on the left side of the aquarium (you can see it a bit on the left in the last picture), and it's starting to get overgrown with algea. It first grew like mad, but steadily is subcoming to the algea and isn't growing properly anymore and I'm afraid if I don't do anything it will all die (and that will be a shame of the money I spend on it XD).

This is my first aquarium, so any help in fixing these problems would be really helpful.

A few details

-I give 5ml of EasyCarbo (easylife) once a day
-and 15ml of ProFito (easylife) once a week after 
-don't have a co2 instalation
-refresh at least 1/3 of the water once a week

Well I live in the Netherlands, so I"m not sure if I can implement all the solutions you give to me. But all the help is really appreciated. And I could always figure it out further on a dutch fishy forum, but you guys are a little more knowledged about the whole plant aspect of it. So yeh *begs on knees* help?


----------



## Veloth (Jun 25, 2008)

Have you tried increasing the doses? How much light do you have? The more light you have the more of everything else you need.


----------



## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

It does sound like you need to add some more ferts to your system. FYI, 260 liters is approx 70 gallons. I don't know how much lighting you have, but if it is 150W or more, you definitely need to add macros, and CO2 will be very beneficial. You might find this link useful:

http://www.aquatic-plants.org/articles/basics/pages/index.html


----------



## bsmith (Dec 13, 2006)

Looks like a Potassium defficiency to me.

Here is the best diagram I have seen on plant nutrients and defficiencies.

http://www.finostrom.com.gr/images/aqua/fertilizers/mapContentImagemap_Details.jpg


----------



## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Sword plants in general are pretty demanding in terms of nutrients. They are like sponges.

I agree with bsmith, it does look like a potassium deficiency, but I'm willing to bet the plant is running low on iron and nitrogen as well simply by virtue of it being a sword plant.


----------

