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Did something eat these?

To add a bit more to the post above, I have attached the repens - you can see some partial discolouration.

I also attached a photo of the crypts. It looks like a leaf has been scratched or the tissue pulled?

Then the New crypt has a hole as well.

It is possible that my Ca<Mg ... or co2.

I hope those photos help.

Any insights are appreciated.

Josh
 

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Hi all,I think the older leaves on the Duckweed (Lemna minor) look a bit pale, so possibly you are running low of one of the mobile nutrients in the water column.

I'd just try adding a bit more of the macro-nutrients and magnesium and see what happens.

cheers Darrel

Thanks Darrel. Will watch for the next few weeks with 1.75x EI and .2 ppm more magnesium - daily.

Have any other EI users had this experience?

As far as I can tell, these aren't CO2/Flow related issues. From so many people's experience, it seemed that they need no more than EI doses at all - once they dialed in CO2 and fixed flow.

I could get behind the fact that my filter is not 10x (explaining some thinning/melt of rotala that is at the substrate behind the forest), but the plants showing symptoms are directly at the front where the CO2 mist/spray bar flow directly goes in front of.

So, EI is just a dosing level that is pretty close (and likely more than) what your tank needs?

I never saw this behavior until my plant density increased immensely (makes sense - but I didn't think I would run into with the EI regime). When I ceased the potassium bicarbonate + magnesium dose, I noticed a tiny bit on the Crypt but attributed it to the magnesium.

Josh
 
Hi all,

I have been meaning to make this post for a while - so it kind of "journals" my thoughts:

Major points:
I used to remineralize my water with 15 ppm CA, 5 Mg, 40 ish potassium, and 2 KH added.

I had no health issues except Rotala crunching. I was unsatisfied with the crunching - it seemed "wrong" - but maybe it was "right" ... it also had much darker veins than it does now.

After stripping my water of the remineralization, the crunching stopped yet the rotala paled.

I added magnesium (with a daily dose), and the rotala cleared up and there was no crunching. But Darrel's duckweed index proved yellower than I would have liked.

I began to wonder why ADA (and other lean dosing regimes) could have such low GH in their tanks and show no sign of magnesium deficiency whereas I had it in my tank (I have low GH tap water).

I later realized that GH was suggested as part of EI (and when I stopped "remineralizing" my water ... I stopped adding GH booster).

I decided to front load - and added all the magnesium all at once on Water change day. The plants (especially Pogo) greened up more.

Then I saw some weird "hooking" on the crypts and anubias - and the anubias was coming in very yellow.

I added Ca bringing me up to the 20ish range in the tank.

Things looked better - the rotala colored up nicer. At this point I was 20ish Ca and 12 ish Mg. I read that plants color up in higher GH's from Tom Barr. But look at ADA.

I realized that although the plant may only need "tiny" amounts of these, we still need to have enough in the water so that the plants "get" them ... whether that is a probabilities game or not. I think it has to do with the number of ions in solutions.

This led me to wondering if you can dose EI in low low GH water (maybe 1?)... but when you dose the "right amounts" it puts you at around 3 GH ... and that is enough. If we reduce the number of ions, I think the minimum GH required for healthy plant growth decreases. And this is probably down to ionic interactions.

STILL Darrel's duckweed told me that I needed something more. I read over and over that I would have "enough" potassium by dosing EI levels of KNO3. But that daily business didn't work with Mg ... so why would it work with K? Something about these positively charged species.

So I front loaded my booster with equal PPM of Potassium to Calcium. On water change day, I added 9, then 12, and have now abandoned the measurement approach and embraced Clive's this is "food not medicine" ... so I have been slowly increasing the potassium every week by 1/4 tsp.

So, if I had just added a pre-made booster, dosed EI properly, and dialed CO2, everything probably would have been fine - HAH! But I learned a lot doing this.

After the potassium addition, my duckweed and rotala greened/un-yellowed just enough that I am satisfied. I am going to continue adding potassium until I see an adverse effect. I will probably also stop at some point and add more Calcium. Also, I'd like to dose a lot more magnesium so that Mg > Ca in ppm and see what happens. The constant will be EI dosing. Then I probably have to abandon EI and go lean and then do all this again :).

I also added some Rotala Macrandra mini-butterfly, some limnophila aromatica, and some rotala bonsai to see what happens to some more sensitive species.



I still have no clue what caused the crunching -- maybe it was the KH? Or maybe it was "right" and it was trying to flower.


Josh

EDIT: I backtracked on increasing my EI dose and left it at constant EI levels.
 
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Any new learnings and trials from this @JoshP12 ?
Totally! It was nice to read a post from 2020 and “remember” where I was in my thinking then!

Here is a recent ish post:
Thread 'A reflection - putting it all into one scape'
A reflection - putting it all into one scape

It’s a pretty long read but I’m pretty transparent about everything.

@_Maq_ recent substrate experiment (I post here:
Post in thread 'Maq's Substrate Experiment'
Maq's Substrate Experiment)

Does hammer home/solidify many of the ideas that complement water column fertilization.

Send a PM or post and tag me any time.

Cheers,
Josh
 
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