# Concerned about spots and browning on plants



## emcdonie

Hello! I am new here. I hope I am posting in the correct spot. My husband and I could use a little seasoned advice. Our plants are developing lots of dark spots and some are looking brownish. Initially everything looked so vibrant. So we know we are messing something up, we are just unsure what.

We have 3 aquariums right now and while we aren't new to keeping them in general, we are new to live plants. We bought these about 4 months ago or so. We are gravel only. 50 G We did just recently stop charcoal filtration since we learned it is a no no with plants.

About 3 weeks ago, we purchased Seachem Flourish and Excel. We only used a very little bit once or twice, but after the problems started showing. We are both really afraid of overdoing either since we feel like we are shooting in the dark with what is wrong. We read Excel is a big no no with the anacharis. So we have these, but are hesitant to just dose at random.

We have the master test kit, and the main water parameters test ok. Lighting wise, we have two 48" tubes on top. 40W 5000K. We just switched to these tubes, we had older aquarium bulbs on before that that were much higher K ratings. We do run our lights probably a solid 12 hours or so a day.

The plants are amazon swords, anacharis, pennywort, water wisteria, and dwarf something??? Sorry I can't remember the name. Most everything shows the dark spots and edges. The anacharis show browning. All of these our LFS said were appropriate for our tank and lighting.

Temp wise it is running at about 80 I believe. Any suggestions to improve or do better? We are unsure if this is some sort of algae or if it is a deficiency??? Thank you in advance for any help you more knowledgeable folks can offer. Our LFS really wasn't very helpful I am afraid.

Adding this information: Most everything is fairly green except the anacharis has a brown look. The green isn't as vibrant as it was initially. The anacharis just has a sick look to it. The dark spots are the worst on the amazon swords. They won't just wipe of like I would expect an algae to do. You can see them best on the up close picture I took of the clipping. I know it is hard to tell from the pictures overall.

Here are some pictures, hopefully they post okay.


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## emcdonie

Here are a couple more pics if they help at all.


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## rjordan393

Some of us also have these black spots. Anubias seem to be the first to come down with it from all the posts that I see on this forum. But I do not see this plant in your tank; which makes me think that the driftwood in your tank may be the cause.
I have been bugged by this black spot algae for over a year. After many observations and making some changes in my tank and removing all affected leaves every one or two days, did not help at all.
It would only take one or two days for other leaves on the anubias to be affected. So the plants that were affected, were my Anubias first, then the Wisteria and Hygrophila corymbosa last. My Bacopa carolina was not affected.
So just on a hunch, I removed the driftwood and the anubias with it. Its only been six days and the black spot algae has not appeared.
I just added some Swords and Dwarf Pennywort to my tank and they are not showing any black spot. So I am watching every day for signs of re-appearance of this algae.
I will leave the reasons for the brown spots to others as I feel its either a deficiency or an excess of a nutrient.


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## Zapins

The anacharis is likely turning brown because the temperature is 80F. It is a cold water plant and doesn't really do well above about 70-74F.

I can't see the spots clearly enough to say what they are for certain. If they are removable by rubbing the leaf then it is probably green spot algae which tends to go away as the tank matures. If the leaves themselves are damaged then it might be a deficiency, toxicity or other sort of mechanical damage.

If you can get a picture or two of the sword plant that is very close up and in focus it would help a lot.

What are you adding for fertilizers? 

Where on the plant did the single leaf shot come from? The one with the light colored background and 2 leaves? Are those old or new leaves?


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## emcdonie

We have the temp at 80 for the guppies(the tank has mostly them), but I know we can probably reduce it a tad to see if the anacharis looks better. I hadn't thought that or the wood could be a culprit. Easy enough to try though.

To answer the questions....the spots do not wipe off. The leaf is physically damaged. The picture with the two leaves were where we clipped some out. The sword leaf was an outer older leaf I believe. It was the worst looking leaf in the tank. I read about potassium deficiency? I wondered about it. The LFS said it was algae, but the young lady who answered that look highly uncertain of herself about answering plant questions. She seemed to be giving other questionable information. Thus, weren't sure if we should trust her answer much. It is the store where our plants came from initially, and we noticed, their amazon swords happen to have the very same issue going on.

Fertilizer wise, we just purchased the Seachem liquid Flourish. A basic blend, but were hesitant to use much until we really figured out our issue.

Here are some odd things I have wondered about. In the tank we have a common pleco, ghost shrimp, a molly, a platy, and several guppies. Also as a "free bonus" when we bought the plants...snails hitchhiked along. Could any of critters in the tank be causing it?

Finally, I wonder about our water supply. Especially since we seen the LFS has the issue now to. (previously they didn't either). Our water has been making the news here in Columbus, OH lately. The reservoir that serves our area, has been kicking off some freakishly musty water. It has twice made the news, and they swear it is safe. They say they are adding extra things to freshen it and extra carbon. However, it still smells hideous. They admitted it tested unusually high for hardness. I know it tests a bit high for ph as well, but not crazy high. Many people are filtering heavily their drinking water OR buying bottled. We use a faucet mount for our drinking. But we haven't for the fish tank as obviously that isn't practical. I wondered if it is just plain whatever is going on with the tap water. Especially since I seen our LFS was affected too.

So many variables, it feels hard to pin down. I appreciate the help/advice. I truly do.


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## rjordan393

<So many variables, it feels hard to pin down>
When growing plants, that is what we are up against. I would suggest a "Reverse Osmosis" filtration system for your tanks. This will give you better drinking water also. But before you spend any money, I would like for you to go to www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumPlants.html and download the complete article. It is titled "Aquarium Plants; General Care, (Basics), Substrate, Ferts, CO2", etc etc. Its about 37 pages long. On the same website, there is another article about 30 pages long. It is titled " Aquarium Calcium, KH, pH, GH, Mineral Cations/Electrolytes ".
Both are a must have if you want success in fresh water aquariums and plants. I go over my copy every now and then. The most important thing in aquarium keeping is the "water quality". This will be you first step after getting a grasp on the necessary knowledge of what is involved.

If you do purchase a "Reverse Osmosis" system, then the size you will need will be based on how much water you need for water changes.
Also you will need a area to store the water and keep it in containers before use, because RO systems are a slow drip process. You get about 1 gallon of good clean water to about 3 to 5 gallons of waste water. Ask questions on this forum about any equipment you intend to purchase. 
You must keep in mind that your smelly water may be just temporary and when your county solves the problem, you might still have to treat your water.


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## emcdonie

I will print that out and read it. Offhand, it looks like an awesome source of information. THANK YOU

As for an RO filter, you have no idea how much I would love to do that. Especially lately with how the tap feels even more questionable that usual. However, we are in an apartment for now and my understanding is that isn't so easy to do in such circumstance. One, space is limited, but we also can't do any perm installs. 

I would dearly love to get the fluoride out of our drinking water, so I have wanted that for some time. I will read about it again and see if anything technology wise has changed since I last looked at the possibility a while back. I know before most things seemed to be perm installs, and anything that wasn't was incredibly expensive. It has been quite a while since I looked, so I will check again.

Thanks again!!


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## Zapins

Unfortunately I wouldn't put much stock in any advice the LFS workers give you about anything. Most of them are kids hired for part time work. They often are completely new themselves and give answers that they make up on the spot when under pressure.

The pleco you have will likely become a problem in the future. They tend to eat holes in leaves, but they do not turn leaves yellow and black like the leaves in the pictures. The blackness is mainly along the edges of the leaves on the older growth which is a sign of phosphorous deficiency. New leaves are unaffected and are normal size and shape.

The Flourish comprehensive liquid you have has phosphorous in it, but it is extremely dilute. You'd need to add quite a lot of it to get any amount of phosphorous into the tank, and this will cause you to overdo other nutrients, so it isn't a good option. What you should do instead is either buy monopotassium phosphate from http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/index.asp?Option1=products, Flourish phosphorous, or root tabs (with phosphorous in them).

If you buy phosphate from the site above you might as well buy some potassium nitrate, potassium sulfate and CSM+B. Maybe some calcium and magnesium as well since they are extremely cheap. These will give you a life time supply of fertilizers which you can use to grow your plants healthily. They are much cheaper than buying premixed fertilizers like flourish.

Toxins in the water are a possibility, but I doubt that they are causing the issues you are seeing. They are probably nutrient deficiencies. I can say this because deficiencies are usually localized to either the new growth or the old growth. Toxicities occur in both new and old growth at the same time. The entire plant is damaged and dying. There is no selectivity.

These pictures are part of the deficiency database I am putting together from people's old posts. Have a look through any of the pages to see what various deficiencies look like. I am trying to gather as many photos of each deficiency as possible in every plant species to help people figure out what they have.

Deficiency Finder Main Page: 
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquarium-pictures/category/12

Phosphorous deficiency









Phosphorous deficiency









Pleco damage


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