# Hole on crypto



## dc88 (May 17, 2006)

Hi

I appreciate someone could help solving this.
I have planted these crypto plants in my tank.










There are 2 different color leafs in there, a brown green and a green one. The LFS bundle them in same pot so I am not sure if they are different species. (Any idea the ID of it ?)

After planted 5 weeks in the tank, the brown one tend to get these "blow hole" on its leaf and then gradually melt down, while the green ones are intact.










Some people advise that the holes could be bit marks by fish or snail. (I had a little puffer in the tank, could it be the culprit ?)

Other suspects :

I use DIY CO2 in the tank so during the CO2 fermentation cycle (when refreshing new bottle) the PH does swing a bit (could be from 6.5 to 7). Could it be the PH swing cause the rot ?

I also occcasionally dose KNO3 (~0.5ppm each time once or twice a week) and PO4 (~0.1 ppm same frequency) to the tank. Will dosing KNO3 cause it ?

Some time I overfed the fish I noted it could happen too. Is NH4 spike the reason behind ?

Other infor of the tank : it is 26 gal, 72W PL light. 20% water change weekly, DIY CO2 with 2 parallel bottle alternate refresh, each last 2 weeks. Lighting 10 hrs.
Substrate: old tank substrate originally with Dupla latrite 5 years ago, recently added JBL clay balls to rejuvanate. Never vacuum.
Temperature maintain around 28 deg C.
Fish loading : 16 Cardinal Tetra, 10 R. espei, 4 Octocinclus, 3 Yamato shrimps, 2 cherry shrimps, one mini puffer.
Other plants : Red Lotus, Java fern, moss, Sagittaria subulata , E. tenellus, Crypto prava.

Than you so much for helping !

DC


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

I would think its the puffer. Puffers tend to nip at everything as they grow older, other signs of puffer damage can be seen on fish. You might start noticing fins missing, and cuts on the bodies of the fish. Puffers are known to bite at plants in this manner as well.

pH swings are normal and as long as they don’t exceed .5-1 degree each day then nothing bad should happen.

Dosing No3 should not hurt them as long as it is not a huge amount, which it doesn’t seem like.

The ammonia could be a problem for fish and especially shrimp if it gets high, but it is the preferred source of nitrogen for plants (and algae). Small amounts of ammonia should not cause problems.

I think your red crypt could be a wendtii. But others will have to verify, b/c I’m no crypt expert.

If you can, just remove the puffer for a week or so and see if any more new holes appear.

As far as the rest of your tank goes, everything else seems to be good. The only thing that you might want to consider is the temperature. While it is not harmful to your fish, a 28C temp will stress out shrimp, moss, and some other plants. It would be better if you turned the heat down to 26-27C.


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## dc88 (May 17, 2006)

Zapins said:


> If you can, just remove the puffer for a week or so and see if any more new holes appear.


Thanks, Zapins
I'll do that to see if indeed puffer was the one.



Zapins said:


> As far as the rest of your tank goes, everything else seems to be good. The only thing that you might want to consider is the temperature. While it is not harmful to your fish, a 28C temp will stress out shrimp, moss, and some other plants. It would be better if you turned the heat down to 26-27C.


Well, no luck for me on this one, as I live in a tropical land (Singapore). The typical ambient temp. is 30C. I actually just trying out using a cooler (Teco Micro) - one of the cheapest around that do not use refrigerant (sorry forgot to mention this one). But only manage to get to 28C the most. I knew other recomending using fan to blow the water surface, but I was concern over the CO2 escape hence reluntant to disturb the water surface, plus safety reason that kids might mingle with it - considering a live 230V appliance inches from water !
So far the shrimp and moss seem to hang on. The moss is still able to mutliply though look a bit spiky.

But do thank you for the thought !

DC


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Sure, np. 

Though the fan idea is not so bad as you might think. You dont need a huge air flow on the water, all you need is a steady breeze going over the top of the water, it should not be strong enough to disturb the surface of the water. So Co2 should not escape any faster.

As far as the kids... haha. Maybe you could get a small clip on fan or something like that. Not sure how you could prevent them going near it. But you might look into adding a small fan directly onto the case of your lighting fixture if its possible.


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## dc88 (May 17, 2006)

This is just an update after 2 months of following the E.I method. Despite the high temperature (sorry, I still have not put on a fan) given the fertilization regime according to E.I. recommendation the moss multiply beautifully !

As for the cypto rot, I finally found that 1 teaspoon of Seachem Equilibrium per week after the 50% water change had begun to solve the problem. The little puffer still live peacefully in there managing the snail population....


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