# melting lower leaves



## JNB (Feb 27, 2011)

I have a 55 gal. with two 6500K t-5's on top. pH is about 8.0 (I can't do much about that), temperature is close to 80 degrees. I only started fertilizing with Flourish about 2 weeks ago, so maybe that will end up making a difference. I don't add CO2. My problem is that most plants I have seem happy, but the leaves on the bottom half always melt away . Moneywort is a good example. It grew like crazy and I had to start cutting it back, but still the bottom half of the plant always had the leaves melting away. What is the issue, not enough light?


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Address the following:

1. Bad flow - not reaching all areas of the tank well.
2. Slight underfeeding of the plants - you want to feed them well but not overdo it.
3. Better bulbs - Kelvin is not a way to compare bulbs. More light is not really needed unless your T5s are 28 watt each.

If all of the above are in line you can have leaves on the back side of the tank, close to the bottom, that are intensely green.

--Nikolay


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## JNB (Feb 27, 2011)

I think 2 of the issues are addressed. The light bulbs are are 54 watts each and I recently started dosing Flourish once a week. I would dose twice a week but I am concerned that it might promote algae - I just had an outbreak recently and put these new plants in to help resolve it, and it has definitely helped. As for the flow, whenever I clean the tank I can see that the water has constant movement around the plants, but it's not like a good "breeze", for lack of a better term. Is that enough?
I also just spread my plants apart more, they were fairly close to each other before. You mentioned having the plants against the back of the tank. Is there an issue with having taller plants in both the mid-ground and the background?


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Both potassium and magnesium deficiencies result in die-back of older leaves. Make sure you have enough of those two nutrients.


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## JNB (Feb 27, 2011)

I will see what I can find out. A specialty store near me will test for almost anything you want. If you can test for it, they will probably do it for free.


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## NursePlaty (Mar 24, 2010)

maybe the light isnt strong enough to reach the lower leaves, or too many plants blocking that higher leaves cover up lower leaves


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