# Diagnose this Defiency! [56k warning]



## Pyro (Nov 20, 2005)

I think it's turned into more of a gameshow than anything. I wish I could offer prize money, but I do have pictures! I've tried researching on this board, and the only thing I could come up with was an iron and a phosphate defiency, but i need to call upon the mighty plant experts.

The first is the dwarf sag. The new growth appears to be healthy, but the old growth appears to be rather dead...it isn't sending out any runners or anything and just kind of sits there and grows slowly. 









The repens is being really weird. It seems to be growing roots out the side? It also has holes in it at the lower parts. I think it might be a snail problem (I have these small tiny snails that snuck in on some plants, they seem to like to be on the plants a lot)









I bought a green crypt from the LFS before they shut down here for about $.75. It's growing, but the leaves are either dead/have holes on it, or are kind of a dark greyish green, certainly can't be good. 









I'm also reasonably sure my bacopa carlonia is a goner...








(oh, and that's my adorable angelfish!)

As far as dosing, I dose...
8 ppm Nitrogen, 2.5 ppm Phosphate, +8 ppm Pottasium via K2SO4 weekly
along with .2 grams CSM+B 2x a week

I use prime for water conditioner, and CO2 is done via pressurized CO2. CO2 levels somewhere between 20-25 ppm with a Hagen bubble lader a diffusion method. (7.1 pH, around 12 KH...KH fluctuates a bit because of new 100% eco-complete I changed out a few weeks ago)

I can't figure out twhat I'm doing wrong... If anyone could offer any advice or anything, I'd really appreciate it.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Hey Pyro,

I don't think you are dosing quite enough KNO3. The plants seem deficient on NO3 (possibly iron) in my opinion. What are your light levels like? My 75g uses 2-3 ppm of NO3 per day with a bit less then 3 wpg. If you are only dosing 8ppm for the week, a NO3 deficiency could definately be a possibility. 

I see you have some H. polysperma 'Sunset or 'Rosanervig' in the background..are the upper leaves a nice reddish/pinkish color? I have had the pinkest H. polysperma 'Sunset' in low tech tanks where I rarely fertilized them (NO3 deficiency) though high light will make them nice and pink also. 

The root growth on the L. repens is typical. It also appears there are plenty of healty side shoots on this plant so I would not worry much about the older growth for right now. I got some of this from Russ a few weeks ago and now that it has been in my tanks for a couple of weeks, I have the same issues on the older growth. New growth looks great though. 

The crypt also looks typical of ones you buy from a LFS. Most LFS keep their plants in pretty bad conditions (low light, now ferts, no CO2, etc) so you can expect quite a bit of melting of the old leaves as the plant transitions to it's new environment. You should get some new, healthy growth in the next week or two.

I think your problem stems from possibly not enough NO3 and the addition of some new plants that need to transition to your tank conditions. If it were my tank, I would remove the dead/dying leaves as they aren't doing the plant any good and could be a good place for algae to start. I would also remove any side shoots and replant them and depending on the condition of the rest of the plant, either remove the top 6" of healthy growth and discard the rest.


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## Pyro (Nov 20, 2005)

Thanks Mat  
The light is a 65 watt PC Daylight Bulb over a 29 gallon tank. There's no glass top, but the plastic shield is a little bit dingy, so cleaning that off probably can't hurt.

The hygro is hygro polysperma 'sunset'. The red is rather nice, deep pink. It used to look spectacular, as it was a deep green with a deep pink. The pink/red is still there, but the green itself is rather faded and more dull than anything. I have some stargrass and java moss that are both growing spectularly...I thought the stargrass was going to be a goner from leaving it out of the tank for about 24 hours, but after a month it's nice and green again and recovering.

I'll definatly take your advice though with trimming the repens, and the old, dead growth off of most of the plants. Stepping up the iron and nitrogen can't hurt either, thankfully I have a few years supply from Greg Watson


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## evercl92 (Aug 14, 2006)

Same thing happing with my repens. I dont like the look of the side roots, so I trim them off. They also seem to capture floating particles in the water, making it look like 'dust' on the plants.


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

You might also want to set the date correctly on your camera  .

No, it won't help the plants but it'll stop people like me making this suggestion  .


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

I see you just changed your substrate over to Eco..You might need to give the plants some time to settle in. Just give it some time, good ferts, Co2 and lighting. You should be good!


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## Pyro (Nov 20, 2005)

Thanks for all the advice everyone! 
I took your advice MatPat and just cut off the parts of the ludwigia that had holes in it. I took all the new runners and planted them. I have 5 plantlets about 1.5" sticking out. No roots yet, but the repens has been through worse than that.
The leaves on the hygro seem to be a lot smaller at the bottom. Most of the defiency symptoms occured AFTER I stated pressurized CO2, so I think I might just not be fertilizing enough. I made a minor typo. I dose macros 2x a week, so I'm getting 16 ppm for the week in NO3. However, I talked to someone last night who said they think the little holes in the leaves might be potassium...
So I'm going to adjust my fertilizing to the following.
10 ppm Nitrate, 2.5 ppm Phosphate, 8 ppm of additional Potassium 3x a week
.2 grams of CSM+B 2x a week (I missed a couple of doses on this, might be the reason for the lack of iron).

I hope increasing the fertilizer across the board will hopefully get rid of the defiencies. I assume too much fertilizer can't hurt with EI as long as I don't trigger an algae attack.


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