# Dying leaves...any ideas?



## pb300 (Jun 5, 2008)

Any Idea what would be causing my temple (hygrophila corymbosa) to have these spots on the leaves? Some of the leaves have also fallen off over night.









I started dosing dry ferts on monday with the ei method.
Macros every other day, micros in between.
1/4 tsp kno3
1/16 tsp kh2po4
1/8 tsp k2so4
3ml flourish (switching to csm+b when this runs out)

I have 1x96watt pc over 30 gallons and have been running a split lighting schedule since a bad algae breakout. I started running the light this way to try and beat the algae but now its mostly for viewing. I'm home in the morning and at night.
10-2 4 hours
5-11 6 hours
10 total

For now I'm using diy co2 until I get the rest of the stuff to run pressurized. The bottles fizzled out a few days ago but I made a new batch last night and am running 2bps.

Also in the last week I haven't noticed any pearling in my tank, but I suspect thats just from a bad co2 batch.


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## pb300 (Jun 5, 2008)

Something tells me I need more iron. I only have plain gravel and apparently flourish is not very high in iron. Should I switch to the plantex now and just ditch the flourish?


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## hooha (Apr 21, 2005)

Chlorosis (loss of the chlorophyll/green color in leaves) is a sign of iron deficiency - I would agree with your assessment  

You can double your flourish dosing, or add 3 ml of Flourish Iron.

The other consideration is how long ago did you plant these stems? Were they emersed when you bought them?


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## pb300 (Jun 5, 2008)

Its been about 3 weeks or so since I bought the plants and no they were not emersed. They grew fine until I started fertilizing at the beginning of the week. From what I read though the plants will show what is lacking once they start using the other nutrients.

Flourish iron is not an option as its not sold anywhere around where I live so I guess I'll double up on the regular flourish and see what happens.


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## sai_dee (Mar 20, 2008)

I had the same problem and dosed more Iron. Are you not able to order some Flourish Iron online?


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

OK I’m sure that a lot of people will jump on this but no one here can really figure out what is wrong with your tank. (and that includes me).

Here are some things to check:

Are you dumping 50% of your water each week?
Do you have kits to test for Potassium, Phosphate and Nitrate? And what are the values?
If you are worried about iron, do you have an iron test kit? The only way to know if it is low is to test for it. 
What is the pH, kH, gH of your water?
What kind and how many fish do you have in your tank?
If you are going to do EI with CO2 you need more light.
How long has your tank been set up?
Tell us more about the algae bloom?

OK here is the good news. Tanks go through a normal cycle whenever you change something. If you keep things reasonably constant they come to equilibrium and some things will do well and others will not. This is called a niche. In your niche, it may mean that given the conditions you have, hygrophila corymbosa cannot grow there. 

If hygrophila corymbosa fails try something else.


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## pb300 (Jun 5, 2008)

sai dee: yes I could order flourish iron online but I already have regular flourish and plantex csm+b. from what I ready it seems the plantex has a decent amount of iron in it.

ray:
1. Yes I do a 50% wc every week
2. Only have a kit for nitrates right now, its always been 0ppm and went to 15-20ppm when I started dosing.
3. No iron test kit yet.
4. PH stays around 6.8 because of the co2. My tap water is usually 7.6-7.8. No kh or gh kits yet.
5. 2 otos, 2 cories, 7 harlequin rasboras, sunburst platies (3 full grown, 4 younger ones, and about 10 fry)
6. 96 watts over 30 gallons isn't enough?
7. Its been going for a few months now. It didn't start out with plants though.
8. As soon as I got the light the tank started with diatoms, then spot algae, then hair algae. The hair algae was bad enough that I was having to scape it off the glass every other day at least. I did use algae killer even though I wanted to try to get rid of it by getting the plants going. Only problem was the ferts took longer then expected to come.

All the plants were fine until I started fertilizing, even after 3 doses of the algae killer. The temple was growing fine putting out new leaves every few days until the start of the ferts. Within two or three days the leaves started to get spotty. I continued with the ferts to see if thing would work themselves out. They have not, and its been almost two weeks. All plants in the tank are now losing leaves faster and faster.

I'm not too worried as all of these plants were free with the exception of the temple and I'm considering using different plants anyway. Tonight I'm also thinking about ordering some fluorite to replace the plain gravel in my tank. And yes, shame on me for not having all the test kits but my wallet is only so big right now.


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## ray-the-pilot (May 14, 2008)

It is still impossible to say what is causing the problem but it is likely the result of your dosing plan or the inclusion of the algae killer. I’d drop the algaecide since in the long run you don’t want to be using it in you tank and some products will cause plant melt.

If you are going to use EI, follow it EXACTLY. If you don’t you are going to worry about what is missing. It probably will not solve your problem by adding what is missing but it will take away the guilt you have for not adding it.

OK now about algae! 
I’d add more algae eaters. You have 2 Oto’s but they are not going to consume to the level of algae that you have. You have a 30 gal tank so you can fit 2 Siamese Algae eaters in it and 7-8 Oto Cats. Think about adding (this is hard for me to say but it is good advice) some snails. They are great at eating algae but you will have the problem of getting rid of them when the algae is gone. 

This is my opinion so there is no science to back it up. There is plenty of algae in every tank in fact it is good for your fish to have algae in your aquarium. Look at your tank and see the things that are good about it. You have a breeding population of fish. That means it is not so bad from a fish point of view! You are not doing too badly.

Ok, scrape that algae, add those ferts as required, and get those algae eaters! I am sure that if you persist, you will have a great tank!


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## pb300 (Jun 5, 2008)

Pretty sure I'm just going to start the tank over seeing as how the plants are almost completely melted. I have a possible lead on a local source for soilmaster select charcoal which will really fit my budget. As I said before the plants were free with the exception of the java moss and temple (everything else was taken from my brothers tank)

As for the algae, I am no longer have any problems with algae at all. I also will not be using the algaecide again, it works but I really don't like using chemicals. I forgot to mention in my last post that in addition to my 2 oto's I also have a sae. I orginally had more oto's but I lost 2 (they came from the lfs looking rather sickly) I plan on getting for oto's once I get everything in the tank straightened out.

I ordered the red sea deluxe test kit today off amazon so now I can test iron, co2, etc. Hopefully my next go won't be such a pain.


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