# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Deformed Ozelot Sword. Nutrient deficiency?



## imported_Mario (Jul 14, 2003)

I seem to have problems with a couple of my plants, in particular with my Ozelot Sword.

The plant is in my 90 gallon tank with 4 wpg, pressurized CO2, gravel mixed with fluorite, dosed with Traces, KNO3, MgSO4, CaCl2, KCl, PO4 and NaHCO3.

The problem with the sword is most obvious when seen in a picture. The first is the plant growing in my girlfriends tank and the second is what it looks like now.



















As you can see, the leaves of the sword are very wrinkled and deformed, sometimes folding back outward.

My Amazon sword seems to have a similar problem to a lesser extent and my Spiral Vals also seemed to suffer (leaves would curl back towards the substrate and not upwards). The rest of my plants (Crypts, Anubias, a number of different stem plants, Saggitaria) seem to be doing great.

I suspected that this growth deformity might be due to Calcium deficiency, so I slightly increased the dosing of Calcium and started to cut back on Potassium. In the last WC I completely left out KCl and now only added potassium with the KNO3.

Does this look familiar to anyone? Any suggestions are welcome. THanks.

[This message was edited by Mario on Tue March 16 2004 at 10:31 PM.]


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## imported_Mario (Jul 14, 2003)

I seem to have problems with a couple of my plants, in particular with my Ozelot Sword.

The plant is in my 90 gallon tank with 4 wpg, pressurized CO2, gravel mixed with fluorite, dosed with Traces, KNO3, MgSO4, CaCl2, KCl, PO4 and NaHCO3.

The problem with the sword is most obvious when seen in a picture. The first is the plant growing in my girlfriends tank and the second is what it looks like now.



















As you can see, the leaves of the sword are very wrinkled and deformed, sometimes folding back outward.

My Amazon sword seems to have a similar problem to a lesser extent and my Spiral Vals also seemed to suffer (leaves would curl back towards the substrate and not upwards). The rest of my plants (Crypts, Anubias, a number of different stem plants, Saggitaria) seem to be doing great.

I suspected that this growth deformity might be due to Calcium deficiency, so I slightly increased the dosing of Calcium and started to cut back on Potassium. In the last WC I completely left out KCl and now only added potassium with the KNO3.

Does this look familiar to anyone? Any suggestions are welcome. THanks.

[This message was edited by Mario on Tue March 16 2004 at 10:31 PM.]


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## Planted Engineer (Jan 15, 2004)

Hi,

Maybe the Na (in the NaHCO3) inhibits the Calcium/Magnessium uptake?

Wha't your Tap water GH/KH?

PE.


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## imported_Mario (Jul 14, 2003)

My tapwater is practically RO water with GH and KH between zero and one. The TDS is 40ppm.


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## Planted Engineer (Jan 15, 2004)

I am not sure I understand your plot - 

U are using RO water - and then you add calcium/magnessium?? Why not just take TAP water? Is it that your TAP water have GH/KH = 1???

Anyway - how much GH/KH do you have in your tank? It does look like calcium deficiency and it's either that you don't have enough calcium or your K/Na/S block it.

PE.


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## imported_Mario (Jul 14, 2003)

No, no, it is not actual RO water. My water is just extremely soft when it comes out of the tap.

In my tanks I have the following values: KH=6 and GH=10.

I was dosing potassium to 20ppm on top of the potassium that I was adding with the KNO3). So, I guess if it really is Calcium deficiency due to excessive potassium, I should see some relief soon.


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

With a GH of 10 in the tank that surprises me some. How much KNO3, MgSO4 and CaCl2 are you dosing? What is you water change schedule?

Roger Miller

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_"The indispensible first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want" -- Ben Stein_


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## Gagnon Brothers (Mar 3, 2004)

I had the same problem with my swords in my 3wpg/CO2 tank while those in my 1wpg/no CO2 were quite healthy.


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## imported_Mario (Jul 14, 2003)

Roger: My targets for Calcium and Magnesium are 15 and 5 ppm respectively. My target for KNO3 is at 25ppm.

I do a 50% waterchange every week or every other week. If I have to go two weeks without a waterchange, I measure NO3 and redose (together with traces).

In absolute amounts that would be:

25g MgSO4 7H2O
30g CaCl2 2H2O
9g KNO3
12g KCL (stopped as of last waterchange)

in about 45 gallons of water changed.

My traces are pretty much identical to CSM-B.


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## imported_Mario (Jul 14, 2003)

Gagnon Brothers: Did you ever find out what the problem was? Were you able to fix it?

I really would like the Ozelot Sword to be the centerpiece plant of my tank and it used to look so great.


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

Mario,

It will be interesting to see what happens now that you have reduced the potassium dose. The plants that you are reporting problems with are the same ones that were prone to stunting in my tanks due to high sodium plus some added potassium. The stunting shown by my swords was considerably more extreme than shown in your photo.

From the weights you have listed above I calculated that in 45 gallons of change water you should have 50 ppm of calcium and 14 ppm of magnesium. That agrees with your 10 degrees of hardness. The Ca and Mg goes along with 28 ppm K from KNO3 and 35 ppm K from KCl for a total K of 58 ppm. If you add enough sodium bicarb to get 6 degrees KH then you are also adding 49 ppm of sodium.

You are definitely adding more K than your plants need, but it seems to me like you *should* be adding enough calcium to stay ahead of the problem. Perhaps the combined effect from sodium and potassium was enough to trigger problems, but even that doesn't seem very extreme.

If you don't see an early improvement then you might want to look for a different cause. In my tanks I would add a broken calcium tablet to the substrate below the sword plants and the next new leaf that appeared -- within days -- would be normal.

Roger Miller

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_"The indispensible first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want" -- Ben Stein_


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## imported_Mario (Jul 14, 2003)

Thanks for the notes, Roger.

As for the dosing, the gram amounts are what I add to the water that is being changed. Since I have a 90 gallon tank, the final concentration should be roughly half the values that you calculated.

It seems odd then, that I end up with a GH of 10. I add roughly 35ppm Magnesium and Calcium at each water change. I guess that means that I have been overdosing and it is accumulating.

I will just wait for another week or so until I change anything else (no extra potassium). In that time the sword should put out at least a couple of leaves and if they look better, then I guess I found my culprit.


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

Mario,

The plants really don't use very much calcium or magnesium. What you are dosing is almost entirely in excess of what the plants use, but the ions have to be there to keep the plants healthy. As a result, the calcium and magnesium in you tank will build up fairly quickly to the concentration in your change water.

Roger Miller

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_"The indispensible first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want" -- Ben Stein_


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## imported_Mario (Jul 14, 2003)

Oh, I wasn't aware of that, interesting. I guess after I solved this problem I can slowly start to reduce my dosage of all of the nutrients. It seems like I really don't need to dump all this stuff into my tank every week.


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## imported_Mario (Jul 14, 2003)

Roger, it seems like cutting out the KCl has greatly improved the health and appearance of my Ozelot sword.







The new leaf is obviously marked and in the bottom a second new leaf is sprouting (also looking nice).

Thanks for your help and information... mario


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