# leaves are growing curled



## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

I have several Alternanthera reineckii plants, and one of them has leaves that are growing curled longitudinaly. 
Does anyone have any suggestions as to why these leaves are growing like this???

it almost looks as though the leaves aren't opening up all the way. plant is in the same position as other reineckii
3wpg, co2 and your typical fert dose


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## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

anyone???


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## stepheus (Jun 13, 2006)

Maybe you can check on the kinds of nutrients you might lack in your water column - both macro/micronutrients e.g. iron, npk etc. I am not sure of what kinds of nutrient alternaria needs the most, although I have some of them growing in my tanks. However, mine has been growing quite robustly with basic soils, brand-less fertilizer tabs and occasional dosing, around 10 drips of liquid fert every other day.

Maybe you can enlighten us on the types of substrate you are using and the types of fertilizers you dose, it might ease the process of helping you.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

It would help if you posted pics, and your tank specs.

What about the other plants? Any problems there?


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## Salt (Apr 5, 2005)

Take a look here, it may help you:

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/science-of-fertilizing/31880-50-ppm-ca-and-still-ca.html


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## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

thank you for the replies...here is more information as requested:

No other plant has the symptom of leaves growing curled, and this is the only symptom of this one plant. It is growing well, and leaves are a rich red to magenta color as they should be. 

I use flourish products for dosing and substrate. Excel, flourish, iron, and something called "plant gro NPK" by Nutrafin which doses N, K, and P. Tank has been established for two years, with a substrate suplement added about 8-9 months ago(I cannot recall the brand of suplement though). I really don't test my levels like I should since my plant growth is what I want and I do not have alot of algea growth. I usually dose flourish and flourish iron 1-2 times/week. Excel is daily 10 ml, and NPK dosed every other day.

I use RO water exclusively, w/25% h2o changes roughly every 1-2 weeks.

peat filtration

I personally do not believe this is fert related.


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## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

Picture...I turned the lights on for this, so the alternanthera aren't open all the way. You can see the plants on the left side are healthy leaves, and the one behind and in the center has the curled leaves


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## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Let the plant establish a better root system. When I first plant my rotala green, the pants will grow in curled. After trimming it, the plant has enough of a root system to pull the missing nutrients from the gravel and the leaves grow in fine.


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## Ajax (Apr 3, 2006)

Are you reconstituting your RO water? If not that is exactly the problem. RO water will have no GH or KH, and must be reconstituted. Your plants aren't receiving enough magnesium or calcium if you're not based on what you posted you were adding. I used a product called RO Right when I used RO water years ago, and it did the job well. There are other products, but that one had a chart to tell you just how much to add to get the KH & GH where you wanted it.


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## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

I am using RO right to condition my RO, I add enough for the discus mix. I believe that is 1/4 tsp/10gal???

Also, the plant with curled leaves has been in the tank for well over a month, and just as long as the other alternanthera. I think its root system is just as good as the other plants.

any other ideas???


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## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

IUnknown said:


> Let the plant establish a better root system. When I first plant my rotala green, the pants will grow in curled. After trimming it, the plant has enough of a root system to pull the missing nutrients from the gravel and the leaves grow in fine.


are you suggesting I trim my plant?


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## Ajax (Apr 3, 2006)

HMMM....I'm stumped then. And here I thought I had you all fixed up :lol: My only other suggestion would be to test your water parameters to see what you come up with. 

I usually don't like trimming my plants when I'm trying to diagnose a problem due to the fact it takes them a bit to recover from that.


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## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

personally I think it's some sort of runt plant...Maybe i should send the plant back to the orphanage!


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## MrSanders (Mar 5, 2006)

this is a very common problem with Alternanthera reineckii and various other plants, that several of us expierence. Sorry to tell you though no one has of yet to come up with any solid evidence as to what causes this. It happens in my tank all the time... usually when I add Mg..... I'll get stunting like that... along with older leaves getting pinholes and yellowing.... Mg blocking K? Mg deficienct being relived and causing another deficiency? I couldnt tell you... All i know if when I dont dose Mg my plants arnt stunted but they dont grow well either.... and when I do dose it my plants grow stunting.... and not well....

There are lots of thinks people blame it on... One of the biggest being Mg deficiency or overdose.... also Ca/Mg ratio..... K blocking Ca...... CO2 issues..... yadda yadda yadda....

But like I said nothing that proves what causes it yet.... but please DO let me know if you figure it out.... im sick of NOT growing plants....


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## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

what could cause only the one plant to grow stunted, and all the others to grow just fine???
It would seem as if I had a deficiency it would effect the entire tank, yet the other reineckii are flourishing...


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## MrSanders (Mar 5, 2006)

couldnt tell you... but myself and others I know for a fact expierence the same thing..... for me reineckii first... then rotala macaranda 'green'... though all other plants seem fine.... at least they are NOT affected with any stunting issues..... some are more sensitive to what ever causes it I suppose


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## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

> There are lots of thinks people blame it on... One of the biggest being Mg deficiency or overdose.... also Ca/Mg ratio..... K blocking Ca...... CO2 issues..... yadda yadda yadda....


That's the thing. Everyone blames some kind of nutrient in the water column. Our substrates are packed with nutrients compared to the water column, why not focus on pushing the plants to get the nutrients from its roots? I'd let the plant grow to the water surface and then trim. When I say trim, I don't mean top off and replant. Trim the top of the stem so that the root system continues to get established and two new stems grow where you trimmed. Now the plant is forced to get nutrients from the substrate because there are no leaves left.



> what could cause only the one plant to grow stunted, and all the others to grow just fine???


Maybe the other plants utilized nutrients from the substrate better, because they had more of a root system in place.

I see to many people going crazy about certain nutrients stunting their plants, but not knowing how to establish a tank. What I mean by an establishing a tank is, one where there are tons of plants, that get trimmed properly. I see a lot of tanks with two stem plants in a 20 gallon, and they wonder what the problem is. I see people that plant glosso, grow it out, strip out the glosso, and replant. Glosso should be trimmed like grass. The root system is established, and you get a totally different look to the glosso that grows back. Rather than a large leaf, it is a small leaf (nutrients come from a different source) with no signs of nutrient deficiency. People need to focus on growing the plants, and then all your deficiencies will go away.


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## Ajax (Apr 3, 2006)

IUnknown said:


> That's the thing. Everyone blames some kind of nutrient in the water column. Our substrates are packed with nutrients compared to the water column, why not focus on pushing the plants to get the nutrients from its roots? I'd let the plant grow to the water surface and then trim. When I say trim, I don't mean top off and replant. Trim the top of the stem so that the root system continues to get established and two new stems grow where you trimmed. Now the plant is forced to get nutrients from the substrate because there are no leaves left.


I can't agree with that completely. I had 2 plants (r. wallichi & r. colorata) that stunted & curled up on me 4-5 months after I had planted them. They were never topped & replanted only trimmed, so that the root system was intact. Problem ended up being that I had increased the Brighty K along with the Brighty Step 2 (since Amano almost always adds the same amount of Brighty K & Step series) to get the reds to show a little better. Brighty K is potassium bi-carbonate (which I didn't know back then), and had jacked my KH up to 12 while my GH was still 6. My point is that there can be other factors at play here other than an under developed root system. And in my case it in fact was a nutrient in the water column that was doing the damage.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

apistaeasy said:


> what could cause only the one plant to grow stunted, and all the others to grow just fine???
> It would seem as if I had a deficiency it would effect the entire tank, yet the other reineckii are flourishing...


This could easily be caused by a few reasons. 
1) either the plants that are still doing fine are newer than the ones that are doing badly (bought more recently). This would mean that the new plants have more reserve nutrients than the old ones, so the old ones have run out of their reserves and are now "starving" while the new are still living off their "fat."
2) It could be that the plants that are doing fine are in a better part of the tank/were larger then the ones not doing well, so they had more time to accumulate reserves.

The other plants in your tank are not showing signs of the deficiency yet because each plant has its own character. Some can't hold as much in reserve (for a particular nutrient) so those plants show the deficiency first before anything else in the tank does. For example, anubias hardly ever show any deficiencies, because they grow very slowly, and their reserves run out a lot slower than fast growing stems.

IUnknown: Interesting point, but I think plants would develop extensive root systems by themselves if the substrate was sufficiently rich enough, so perhaps your point only applies to rich (soil?) substrates. However, most substrates out there do not contain enough macros, and only provide some micros in large amounts (usually iron). So training plants to grow in most substrates won't stave off nutrient deficiencies since the plant can't gather nutrients from the substrate and its leaves (only source of nutrient absorption) have been cut off!


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## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

I've noticed that with alot of fast growing stem plants they will grow roots out of the stem, above the substrate. How does this fit in with the root theory??? 

It looks like my plants in particular have an incredible root system. I have roots growing as high as the upper 75-80% of the plant.


btw Zapins, I really like your sig. funny.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Those are called aerial roots. And they are mostly for supporting the plant. Though they can also absorb nutrients (just as much as any other plant tissue can). In addition, they help some plants creep along the bottom.

You can cut them off if you like without hurting the plant.

Hehe thanks, one of my friends it and I thought it was great!


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## apistaeasy (Jul 16, 2004)

I took all my plants out in order to re-aquascape my tank, and for some reason the plant whose leaves were growing curled had not grown any undergravel roots.
I suppose this fits in w/the root theory pretty well. All other plants had extensive root systems.


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