# Nutrient Deficiency???



## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

I have been having a problem with my 80 gallon tank and I was in need of some advice. I have attached some pics so you can see whats happening.



















I ahve been using EI fert method. This is also an ADA aquasoil substrate. Here are my fertilization proceedures.
even days-3/4 teaspoon Kno3, 1/8 teaspoon K2Po4
odd days-15 Ml Flourish, 5Ml Flourish Iron, 24 Ml Excel
On weekly 40 gallon water changes(RO)-1 Tablespoon Equilibrium, 1 Tablespoon Alakline buffer, 30 drops Green Gain, 60 drops ECA

At my last test my tanks specs were
Ph-6.1
Kh-3
Gh-5
Po4-2.0
Kno3-20
Ca-20
Mg-10

Soem recent things that happened are a rescape with manzanita wood about 1 week ago. About 3 weeks ago I did a 4 day blackout to combat green water. The blackout hurt the plants really badly. The damage on the stems I believe is from the blackout. The problem is it keeps spreading, and most of my plants are melting. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!!


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## fishmaster#1 (Apr 10, 2005)

Your tank crashed IMO. Sorry about your luck. Happened to me twice before. You need to remove ALL the brown stuff at once. Save only the green tips-you can peel of the brown growth off the stem to get it big enough to plant.
Melt will not stop until you remove all the brown growth and do a W.C. You might want to check the heater(or lack thereof) and the light bulb to make sure they are running right. Also check for copper or lead poisoning.


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

The biggest question I have is it keeps spreading. Even to plants that werent damaged from the blackout. Even some of my aromatica is starting to melt. The tips are turning transparent and this brownish stuff is going everywhere. I may have to clear the whole tank out and replant. The plants that are most damaged are the sensitive ones-tonina's eriocaulons pantannal macrandra etc.


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

fishmaster#1 said:


> You might want to check the heater(or lack thereof).


Why? Did you find some vital limitations in temperature resistance?

Thank you
Edward


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

Hi chiahead

Something is wrong. What surprised me was the high KH and Mg. Why do you add so much Equilibrium? The KH should be at 1 degree, pH 6.0 and CO2 30 ppm. No alkaline buffer. 
You use RO so you can clean up the whole aquarium nicely. Can you do 90% water changes and start fresh?

Good luck and keep us posted.

Thank you
Edward


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

I'm puzzled by your dosing plan  

I don't know what's in ECA or Brighty Green, so how can you know what cumulative effect you're having in the tank? You're adding both of these as well as KNO3 and KH2PO4. And on top of that you're adding Flourish and Flourish Fe. At this point I wouldn't know what's in your tank... I would either stick to the ADA line of ferts only or stop them altogether and switch to dosing individual nutrients and Flourish; not both.

Why are you dosing Excel like that? The standard dosing of Excel for 80g is 40ml after a >40% water change and then 8ml every day. I would stick to this type of routine if you want to use Excel. Even if you want to overdose it, dose Excel daily.


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## urville (Sep 20, 2004)

is that whats left of your plants?
cause if not i've seen this before. that brown growth like that on plant leaves i've ony seen it with a diatom outbreak, i assumed thats what it was


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## Gumby (Aug 1, 2005)

I've had that exact same problem before. Typically only happens with a few plants. I see it the most on my Ludwigia repens after replanting or seriously stressing the plants. I think one part of the plant goes necrotic (probably from stress in my case) and if you don't remove that part it will take out the whole plant. 

My best guess would be possible fert OD and/or the heater issue that others mentioned. Once you get the water params where they need to be, remove the parts of the plants that are melting down and salvage what you can of the live portions of the plants.


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

on some of the plants I have been cutting off the dead area and replanting. Then it started to happen again. I dont run a heater in this tank, but the water temp runs about 80 degrees. I appreciate all the responses to help. I dose the green gain because I have a ton of stems plants and I thought it was supposed to be good for them. I just recently started the ECA mainly because I wanted to boost the color in the macrandra and pantannal. I have had to use my diatom filter 5 times in the last 2 months for green water. I am not sure why it was happeneing. It may have been from some bad excel that I had. I since have changed to a new bottle and havent had the green water yet. I am considering just redoing the entire right side as that is where all the yuckie brown stuff is at. Most of the other plants are doing well(rotala green, Cuba, Najashen, blyxa, hairgrass, cinerum). Again thanks all for the responses. Any other ideas???


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

I agree with Laith. Stick to one form of fertilization or the other, because afaik, the contents of ada stuff is proprietary and therefore, unknown to us. The fact that you have had such an ongoing battle with gw, tells me that something is out of whack in your tank. If it were me, I'd do a massive water change and decide on one form or the other of fertilizing and stick with it. Until things settle down, I would do water changes twice a week. Good luck.


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## Simpte 27 (Jul 16, 2004)

I had the same thing happen to my H. Balsamica and java moss. Never did figure out what I missed. The only thing I can attribute to the melt was too much trace, not enough nitrate and poor CO2 levels. I had to destroy all but about 2-3 inches of the hygro and removed a large clump of the moss. I hope you can find something more definitive. I do not want a repeat.


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## urville (Sep 20, 2004)

maybe this will help maybe not.

I had GW bad I was dosing my EI 4 days out of the week, you know like Macros on M and Fri which is WC day, and traces on Tues and Sat's. and I had not dosed due to a sudden irrational fear of nitrate killing everyone. I did three days of about 60-65% water changes and then on WC day I did my last one and added my ferts, and so far everything is extremely better. For me it was taking my ferts and dividing them into daily doses. Like now I do two drops of PO4 four days a week, and i dose my kno3 and K with little envelopes i made. i just laid out my ferts in the whole weeks dose and split it by sight into equal 4 day portions. i took my weeks dose of traces and counted the amount of drops it was with my syringe, and then i just split the number of drops by 3 days, now I have an even/odd schedule that i dose everyday and things are already looking better and honestly I can tell the difference in my plants too.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Ditto Laith's comments!

I had some similar problems with my Toninas this spring. My 2 y/o son had managed to unplug my CO2 controller. The tank went a couple of days without CO2 and looked very similar to yours. I don't want to this to sound bad but my Toninas never recovered! I think if I would have upped the CO2 a bit more, I could have saved them. Why not try bumping up the CO2 a little bit at a time and see if conditions improve???

It looks to me like maybe some harm was done to the plants by the blackout also. This may be compounded by the overdosing of Excel every other day. 

Greenwater is caused by NH4. I have no idea what is in the ADA ferts but at this point, I would think it has ammonium or urea as a nitrogen source. Both can cause green water very fast!
As previously suggested, stick with one form of ferts or the other. I would use the KNO3 and KH2PO4 personally since that is what I'm familiar with. It is also easy to figure out exactly what you are adding with these.


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## urville (Sep 20, 2004)

i honestly swear that GW can also be caused by the just right nutrient imbalance. I say this because I can 99.9% swear that I had no Nh4 and hadnt in a long time. it happened after a water change, and i'd say it could be the tap, but i always use a little more prime than i need.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Here are the things that have caused or almost always cause green water in my tanks:

1) Changing out an aged gravel substrate to Eco Complete. 
2) Removing a very large sword plant and not doing a water change afterwards
3) Removing a lot of plants from the substrate at one time and not doing a water change
4) a heavy pruning (topping plants and discarding the lower stems) and not doing a water change
5) Drop in CO2 levels with high lighting
6) 2 y/o son playing with the Mag Float I left in the tank ](*,) Needless to say, the majority of substrate was pushed away from the glass and a big cloud of mulm and what ever else was in the substrate was now in the water column. 

Most of the above would seem to cause NH4 to be released from the substrate into the water column. By not doing a water change afterwards the NH4 stays in the water column. 

The heavy pruning and CO2 drop cause plant growth to slow so NH4 is not taken up as fast.

You can easily test any of these above theories and prove to yourself that they will cause green water. Finding the nutrient imbalance to cause green water may prove elusive


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## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

urville said:


> i honestly swear that GW can also be caused by the just right nutrient imbalance. ...


The whole point here is that with the dosing the way it is, there is no way to tell what is going into the tank and what is already in there. Hence the recommendation to use one or the other of the fertilization methods but not both at the same time.

I can't see a way to correct any imbalance with the current dosing... Decide on one method or the other and then start off with a large water change.


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## urville (Sep 20, 2004)

no no laith your right i was making a comment to Matpat about what he said sorry... I should have used quotes.


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## chiahead (Dec 18, 2004)

I thought the ECA and green gain contained no Kno3 or K2Po4 only some iron and humic acids and vitamins. Thats why I was using it as an addition to the main stay ferts I use. I do know that these ADA ferts do not add to any of my testable kits ie. Kno3 Po4 kh gh calcium magnesium. I do not own a potassium kit though. What I was thinking about doing was pull out the dead stuff and see if I can save any of it, then do a huge water change and see what happens. The good thing I think is I havent had any more green water problems since switchig to my new batch of excel though. The original bottle got extremely hot for a few days. According to seachem it shouldnt be a prob, but who knows. I wonder if anyone here is using green gain and ECA, I am sure there are some people using them without using the full line of ADA ferts. Any experience with these products would be great. Again I thank you all for helping me.


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