# Fertilizer burns? Leaf tips yellow and dieing



## titan97 (Feb 14, 2005)

Some of my leaf tips are turning yellow and look like they might be dieing off. It is happening with my sword and my dwarf sag. I haven't seen it with my vals, yet. It got worse the day after I added Fluorish Iron and Fluorish Trace for the first time. I'm assuming that the plant tips are burned. Any other ideas? 

I got the Iron for my other tank that was showing light-green to yellow new growth in my ferns. My swords in this tank looked flat as well. I just wanted to see if it would do anything to my high light tank.

-Dustin


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

I've never seen any thing that was fertilizer burn, aquatic plants do not get burned typically because we do not add NH4.

Your leaves are deficient, nut excess burnt.

Adding the fert likely relived one limitation only to start another.
You need to add all the ferts, not just one.

Eg CO2/NO3/K/PO4/Mg/Ca/SO4/Traces

Regards, 
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com


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## titan97 (Feb 14, 2005)

Tom,
I do add all the ferts, to be sure. I have:

NO3: 50ppm
PO4: >5ppm
KH: 9
GH: 12
pH: 6.8
CO2: ~50ppm
Ca: 30ppm
TDS: 800ppm

I dose K, NO3, and Flourish daily. Although I think I'm overdosing the Flourish as my water is slightly yellowish. My stem plants are growing like the proverbial weeds. I'm giving my trimmings away, I've got such good growth. I don't see any stunting, curling, holes, or vein-ing. The only thing I see is _occasionally_ yellow leaf tips. If I squint, it could be said that the yellow tips are more prevelent on old growth. Matter of fact, none of the newest leaves have the yellow.

-Dustin


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

Hi Titan97
The *'More is better' *does not always work.

You have 50 ppm NO3. This level is becoming toxic to fish and not needed for plants. Levels around 10 - 20 ppm are fine.

Next you have PO4 of unknown level. What is more then 5 ppm? It can be anything. The 5 ppm would be already too much just like the NO3. Fish are not happy in such contaminated water.

Next is KH of 9 degree. Most plants, especially the so called soft water plants have difficulties living in such water.

CO2 is 43 ppm based on the KH / pH, that's good

Your Ca is 30 ppm. This means that your Mg based on dGH is 34 ppm. This 34 ppm of Mg is absolutely something to look into. Most plants can not grow happy in this condition. Where is it coming from?

Edward


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

Well, I have actually added more than 50ppm NO3 as well as high levels PO4 etc and explored the upper ranges as well as the lower ones and I've yet to see yellowing tips. Question is, have you?

50ppm from fish waste of NO3 is not the same as 50ppm from KNO3.
I've gone to 120+ ppm of NO3 from specifically KNO3, before any negative sign where observed, and then it was only shrimp, this was for soft water wild south american fish acclimated to moderate KH/GH water.

The Mg is a bit high and likely from the tap sludge they call tap water there in AZ. My tap is has higher GH and KH, but a better balance of Mg. 
Do you have any Anubias?

Regards, 
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com


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