# Over dosing? (with pics)



## looking4roselines (May 10, 2008)

My dry ferts came in two weeks ago and I started to notice some damaged/bent leaves on my stargrass and Pogostemon stellatus two weeks after dosing. See attached pictures.



















Here are the ferts and the dosing schedule:









The amounts I am dosing is the recommended amount from Chuck's calculator. Is it deficient in some other nutrients or is it because those two plants cannot tolerate the amounts I am currently dosing?

My Limnophila-aromatica is also experiencing some type of deformation on its new leaves. It is calcium deficiency right?

Everything else seems fine. Especially the HC. It looks like its starting to spread.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Do you also provide CO2 or Excel for the plants? And, how much light are you using?


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## looking4roselines (May 10, 2008)

There are plenty of CO2 (maybe excessive). I will have to check with the check droper. I dont have any solution to the droper at the moment.

There are two sources of co2 in this tank which gives about 1-2 bubble(s) per second. One from a glass diffuser and the other is diffused through a hang-on filter with the similiar mechanics of the Redsea reactor. (I do plan on removing the glass diffuser if check droper determines that diffusion through the filter is enough. I ordered some check droper solutions but wont get it until another week later.)

Tank is illuminated by 2x24" t8. 24watts each. One is 10k and the other 6.5k


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Most people overestimate the amount of CO2 they have. You do have enough light to need CO2, so I'm guessing that your deficiency is carbon. I admit it is just a guess.


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## DBTS (May 10, 2007)

Just wanted to ask do you have an SAE or an Oto perhaps in that tank?


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## looking4roselines (May 10, 2008)

I have two ottos.

But its very odd how this only occured after dosing dry ferts. I was using the Seachem Flourish Comprehensive prior to the dry. Is it because of the change in dosing patterns?


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## DBTS (May 10, 2007)

Have the oto's been there for long time? We'll actually I'm just venturing a guess that those grazer's caused those bent leaves. I previously had stargrass, rotala rotundifolia and oto's and SAE's. My 2plants were exhibiting the same thing and I kinda notice my grazer's resting or feeding on the leaf of this 2 plants. Coupled with fragile leaves and fish resting might or might not have caused the leaves to become bent. It's just a guess after all. 
Well you could try transferring the oto's in another tank and leave them there for awhile and remove all those leaves that are bent and observe if there'll be any changes or you could just continue with what you're doing now and wait it out and see if there'll be any improvement. The plants might just be adjusting to their new food source.


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## looking4roselines (May 10, 2008)

lol DBTS. I was just thinking the same thing about five minutes ago. It also seems like the leaves were getting damaged after I tossed them in maybe 2 weeks ago, give or take. Also the leaves looked more like physical damages.

I am going to have those guys removed. It looks like the amano shrimps are doing all the work anyways.


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## tropism (Jul 21, 2006)

I suppose it's _possible_ that your problems were caused by the otos, but personally I don't think it's very likely. The leaves in the first photo (especially in the circle in the top right) look like they're crinkled -- almost like they've been folded. I've seen similar things in some of my plants, *also* right after starting dry ferts (phosphate, actually). At first, I was dosing everything but phosphates (which I kept at or very near 0 ppm with phosphate removing filter media). In my experience, PO4 'deficiency' seems to not have much effect other than slowing down growth. My plants were not growing extremely fast, but the leaves looked normal. A couple months later I decided that I should see how they grew with PO4 being added (and the PO4 remover taken out). The plants REALLY took off, but that's exactly when I started having problems with crinkled and deformed leaves. I think when the plants were PO4 limited they were able to get enough of the other nutrients they needed to have normal (but slower) growth, and could not do that fast enough when PO4 was no longer limiting. I'm actually still trying to figure out exactly what (calcium?, some trace element? an excess of a trace element?) it is that's causing it though.

Here's a picture of my Ludwigia that I took some time ago, when it was happening the worst. This was definitely not the worst of the crinkling though. Some of my vals were putting out leaves that look like somebody had folded them like this: /\/\/\/\/\










I'm not saying that that is for sure what happened with yours -- but just out of curiosity, I have a couple questions. Do you know what your GH and KH are? Calcium levels? Were you dosing PO4 at all before, and did you happen to test for PO4 _before_ you switched to the dry ferts?


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## DBTS (May 10, 2007)

looking4roselines said:


> lol DBTS. I was just thinking the same thing about five minutes ago. It also seems like the leaves were getting damaged after I tossed them in maybe 2 weeks ago, give or take. Also the leaves looked more like physical damages.
> 
> I am going to have those guys removed. It looks like the amano shrimps are doing all the work anyways.


Give us an update if you do take this route.


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