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GSA and holes in leaves

Matty123

Member
Joined
28 Feb 2017
Messages
198
Location
Birmingham
Hello!

I'm seeing holes starting to appear on some of my plant leaves, up to now on my tiger lotus and a stem plant that I can't recall the name of and browning on the edges of the leaves (hopefully I can nip it in the bud, pun indented). Also seeing dark green spot like algae on some plants (there's a bit of the usual bright green spot algae on the front of the glass). I've heard that GSA is due to low Phosphates and tested my tank water and it became apparent that my Phosphates were low at 0.25 and Nitrates between 5-10. I'm a bit stumped as I always 'overdose' with EI dosing and just yesterday overdosed x4 and testing the water again after dosing the results stated above became apparent! Can anybody suggest why they are low even after overdosing and what I could do to improve both the dosing and this dark green spot algae?

Thanks
Matt


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Do you have high plant mass in your tank? I do which is probably why my phosphates need knocking up too. I also have just a handful of small fishes in the 55G which also explains why.
 
Hello and thanks for the reply Progen!

After giving my grey matter a bashing last night with possible reasons to this I came to the same assumptions to what you described! It's 129 litre tank with around 20 fish in it and a heavy plant load. I came to the conclusion that the inhabitants aren't producing the 'wastes' needed and my hungry plants are sapping the available ferts as my LED lighting was nearly maxed out! I'm going to add more inhabitants this week and have dimmed down my LED lighting to lower the needs for ferts whilst also adding a bit more potassium and phosphates. Hopefully in a couple of weeks it ought to have balanced out. Once again thanks for your help on this Here's a picture of my tank
 

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Hey, don't take my word for it. I'm a very new newbie in this fertilazation game. Let's wait for the experts to come along.
 
Well. I thought the same as you so maybe on this thread we've come to a 'common sense' approach to things! We must remember that all experts were once newbies! We can all over complicate things to get to the root causes of things and be massively inundated with facts and figures to an over engineered approach when in reality the issues/problems were just staring you in the face! It was my phosphate test kit that was wrong as I had to buy a new one yesterday! With the process of elimination and my phosphate levels being ok the only other factor for the algae must be my lighting if which I've toned down already. I'll await and see the results


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What is your fert routine? And I assume pressurized co2, 1 point pH drop, is that correct?

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I'm a bit stumped as I always 'overdose' with EI dosing and just yesterday overdosed x4 and testing the water again after dosing the results stated above became apparent!

Another fellow in arms with Ei issues..

Just simple forget "Ei" and use Tropica Specialized.

Do a 50% water change, than after a couple of days do another one and start using "Tropica Specialized".

With medium light (50 to 60 lumens per liter), CO2 pressurized in order to 20 PPm Initiate dosing with 8 Pushs / day.

You may also need to insert Tropica Premium in case K or Fe is needed in more values.

If so you may dose the same 8 pushs of Specialised and 3 of Premium each day.

In time according to observation you may increase or decrease this dosage i´m recommending.

Try this and in two or three weeks you´ll see .. just try this. You can always return to your "EI" mehods if you wish of course.

Best regards,

By the way.. any filter that doesn´t perform a 1200 Liter / hour pump will be under the needs.

Filtration is the heart of any tank.
 
What is your fert routine? And I assume pressurized co2, 1 point pH drop, is that correct?

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What is your fert routine? And I assume pressurized co2, 1 point pH drop, is that correct?

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Hi Ed,

Thanks for the reply.

My EI dosing is via aquarium plant food.co.uk, it is as follows:

Macro

4tsp Potassium Nitrate
1tsp Potassium Phosphate
6tsp Magnesium Sulphate

Treating Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday (Friday no dose of ferts, Saturday 50% water change)

Micro Solution

1tsp Chelated Trace Elements

Saturday, Monday, Wednesday.

Yeah it's pressurised co2 injection

Apologies as I'm relatively new and getting up to speed with high tec tanks but I'm not sure what you mean 1 point PH drop means?



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Hi Ed,

Thanks for the reply.

My EI dosing is via aquarium plant food.co.uk, it is as follows:

Macro

4tsp Potassium Nitrate
1tsp Potassium Phosphate
6tsp Magnesium Sulphate

Treating Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday (Friday no dose of ferts, Saturday 50% water change)

Micro Solution

1tsp Chelated Trace Elements

Saturday, Monday, Wednesday.

Yeah it's pressurised co2 injection

Apologies as I'm relatively new and getting up to speed with high tec tanks but I'm not sure what you mean 1 point PH drop means?



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Hi Matt,

No worries man. We are all learning.

I will need to check your dose later, as I measure ferts in weight, instead of volume.

1 point pH drop means that you injected enough CO2 to drop your pH one whole point (e.g. from 7.6 to 6.6). Most people who use CO2 on high light tanks report good results with 1.0+ pH drop.

You can google for another ways to measure CO2. Feel free to pm me as well :)

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1 point pH drop means that you injected enough CO2 to drop your pH one whole point (e.g. from 7.6 to 6.6). Most people who use CO2 on high light tanks report good results with 1.0+ pH drop.

Sorry but this is not accurate.
T. Barr has already unmistify this way of measuring CO2 PPM.

The link is somewhere in this forum and of course in T. Barr report.
And if you look at the charts about this PH/Kh= Co2 you´ll find the y are very wrong..

The best way of measuring Co2 is with a reagent. And be aware on those 4dkh solutions made by hand..

The best reagent i have had so far is the JBL. 2 ml / 35 drops in the Checker and there you go.

Best regards.
 
Cheers Ed! Yeah I point drop. Before lights on my water is around 7.6 and of recent it's been going down to 6.0! But that's because I cranked up the co2 to a silly amount of 5 bps. PH is usually 6.4-6.2 when co2 is turned off an hour before lights out. Both drop checkers (1 at the top and 1 by the substrate) are lime green. Adjusted co2 so it's now around 3 bps. No visual distress from the fish. Oh my water is RO buffered to 4 dkh with Seachem Alkaline and remineralised with Seachem Equilibrium. Thanks again for your help on this


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Another fellow in arms with Ei issues..

Just simple forget "Ei" and use Tropica Specialized.

Do a 50% water change, than after a couple of days do another one and start using "Tropica Specialized".

With medium light (50 to 60 lumens per liter), CO2 pressurized in order to 20 PPm Initiate dosing with 8 Pushs / day.

You may also need to insert Tropica Premium in case K or Fe is needed in more values.

If so you may dose the same 8 pushs of Specialised and 3 of Premium each day.

In time according to observation you may increase or decrease this dosage i´m recommending.

Try this and in two or three weeks you´ll see .. just try this. You can always return to your "EI" mehods if you wish of course.

Best regards,

By the way.. any filter that doesn´t perform a 1200 Liter / hour pump will be under the needs.

Filtration is the heart of any tank.

Thanks Paulo!

I've read some interesting articles from you and boy you know your stuff! I can't really 'fork out' for any other ferts at the moment as I don't have the cash. I need to understand the ferts I have and learn up on it!


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Sorry but this is not accurate.
T. Barr has already unmistify this way of measuring CO2 PPM.

The link is somewhere in this forum and of course in T. Barr report.
And if you look at the charts about this PH/Kh= Co2 you´ll find the y are very wrong..

The best way of measuring Co2 is with a reagent. And be aware on those 4dkh solutions made by hand..

The best reagent i have had so far is the JBL. 2 ml / 35 drops in the Checker and there you go.

Best regards.

Liking all the help on here, it's much appreciated! Thanks Paulo, I'm going to have to look into this as once again I want to/need to learn so that I'm in the knowledge of what I'm actually doing and not just guessing! Thanks again Paulo


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Oh and Paulo I've got some of that reagent so will have to try it as I'm currently using the reagent that came with my drop checker from the co2 supermarket and 4 dkh water also from there.


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All this talk about pH drops is VERY dangerous unless you have an accurately certified reference liquid. This chart shows why.

RIYaPRT.jpg


And even not all of them certified are truly accurate.
For instance i try the Cal Aqua and it was not in perfect conditions. Even i bought it twice and both bottles were not cool.

Both Measured in the City hall water lab of my home town.
 
Yep, I need to stabilise mine instead of it dropping way too low by understanding the ethics of it instead of just playing around with living creatures life's...


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Sorry but this is not accurate.
T. Barr has already unmistify this way of measuring CO2 PPM.

The link is somewhere in this forum and of course in T. Barr report.
And if you look at the charts about this PH/Kh= Co2 you´ll find the y are very wrong..

The best way of measuring Co2 is with a reagent. And be aware on those 4dkh solutions made by hand..

The best reagent i have had so far is the JBL. 2 ml / 35 drops in the Checker and there you go.

Best regards.

Im sorry but you are mistaken. I have not made, in any moment, a comparison to specific CO2 ppm.

Also, quoting Barr without references adds nothing. In my own thread at BarrReport.com I discussed this with Tom. Feel free to google it.

There are many ways to calculate CO2. I think it is sad to compare pH drop and drop checkers. Different methods under different constraints.

This whole approach of creating dichotomies does not help. It is not black and white.



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I guess it is fair if explain where I am coming from, to avoid not being clear.

Most of the time I explain this is usually to keep people from relying too much on pH/kH/CO2 table.
I say this because that table assumes you have water, some carbonates, co2, and nothing else, almost pure water, and assumes also that any pH shift is limited to CO2. Changes to the pH by a bit of acidity would then throw the table off. I would have 100+ ppm of CO2, for example, which is just not true.

The point of measuring the pH drop is to compare the pH shift caused by CO2 injection, going from the pH when the water is in balance with the atmosphere to the pH during CO2 injection. That DOES give you the pH drop, but does not give you the CO2 concentration. The problem is with people saying 1 point pH drop equals 30ppm. That might be the case, might not. George Booth and his studies came up with this value of "residual" CO2, which varied from 2 to 3ppm in a tank. This is water in a tank, with active fish and bacteria. If we consider this as a starting point, a 1 point pH drop would add 20 to 30ppm.

All gases will, given time, balance themselves between air/water, as explained by Henry's law (partial gas pressure, solubility, etc). So, given time, the roughly 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause our water to have around 0.5ppm of CO2. Inside our homes this initial co2 value would go even higher (e.g. 1000ppm), which again would put more CO2 into the water.
Water, resting outside the tank, is getting its CO2 exclusively from the atmosphere, the air in our homes. In the tank the CO2 content also gets some help from all the fauna. Guessing its precise CO2 concentration is not easy, given the situation described. Consider that changes of temperature also change the situation, as warmer water will retain less CO2/gases in general.

CO2 injection, being very very short, shifts CO2 by 10x for every 1 point pH drop. So, if you have a 1 point pH drop, the initial CO2 concentration is now 10x higher (e.g. from 2.2 to 22ppm of CO2). That is regardless of kH, but you must some carbonates/bicarbnonates to measure the pH drop.

Many people have great results with 1 point pH drop. Some, because of several reasons, like the 1.4 to 1.5 region. That is up to you. My interest in this discussion is only clarifying that nailing down the exact CO2 value is not easy, but also not needed. Measuring the mililiters of CO2 being injected per minute is also another way to go (although in this case you have to consider dissolution), doing several back to back water changes with a known kH water (e.g. 4 dkH) and measure the pH directly (not practical but reasonably precise). Tom added a couple other ways to measure it in this thread: http://www.barrreport.com/forum/barr-report/journals/243230-switching-to-ei?p=244912#post244912 and he went very precise/technical on a couple.

Now being practical, it is to everyone to decide which way they prefer. I played with the drop checker for a while and it made no sense to me. I rather measure the pH drop because it felt more direct to me, it also opens the possiblity to control it via a pH probe, for instance. Every method will have its own constraints, and it really is up to you decide, but do it being well informed.
 
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