Echinodorus serial killer

[LMuhlen]

This is, to the best of my knowledge, an Echinodorus parviflorus. It was in my main tank before I rebuilt it, and now it is in this improvised plastic tank, where I keep some plants for storage purposes. In the main tank it wasn't particularly good looking, but at some point it even sprouted three new plantlets. For the longest time, I cultivated these plantlets in this same plastic tank, and they grew much better than the mother plant did in the main tank. However, at some point, they all took a turn for the worse, and started growing stunted curled leaves, which became progressivelly worse until I gave up on the plants.

Now this original plant, one of the two I had in the main tank, went to this plastic tank and actually improved for a few months. And now the same thing happened again, it started growing curled stunted leaves.

Back when I had the first three plants that died, I used to dose this tank pretty heavily and I assumed I may have killed them with some sort of excess. This time around, I was basically changing the tank's water with water from my main tank, so feeding it with whatever excess happened to accumulate on the main tank inbetween water changes. And I dose this main tank with what I consider to be a mid-range for ferts.

This plastic tank has a small homemade internal CO2 reactor and is fueled with yeast CO2. There is a circulation pump attached to an internal filter. Some of the other plants, like the Althernanthera mini also in the picture, are also not particularly happy, but they are not dying either. Some of them are even doing good.

GH is around 6 dGH and KH around 0.5 dKH.

As a final comment, something very similar happened to an Echinodorus flame and in the end it also died. This is going to be the 5th Echinodorus that dies this way if I don't figure out what is happening.

 

[hypnogogia]

Is the plastic food grade? Could something be leaching into the water?

 

[Nont]

I figure it caused by low light level, what light are you using?

 

[LMuhlen]

I figure it caused by low light level, what light are you using?

I went looking for this information, since I hadn't considered this option, mostly because the plants are really close to the lamp, there is maybe a 10cm distance.

The lamp is some cheap brandless Chinese deal bought from Aliexpress. It is listed as 12W, with white red and blue LEDs. it is, however, a dimmable 220V lamp, and I'm using it at a 127V outlet. That's probably half the power, so 6W. There is also a second issue... Being the awful product that it is, it has 3 light settings, one with all LEDs on, one with half the LEDs on, and a third one with the other half of the LEDs on, and the trick is that to switch between settings, you have to turn it on and off. Because of this, each day it is in a different setting, meaning that in 2 every 3 days, it is at a half power setting... Down to 3W.

I never stopped to think about it before, but maybe 3W of light may be what is causing so many issues in this tank... I'll see what I can do to boost the light a little and see if it helps.

Is the plastic food grade? Could something be leaching into the water?

Probably not food grade, it is meant for storage. It is old, though, and I change 50% water every week, so hopefully if something was leeching, it would be over already.

 

[Wookii]

It looks like you are having health issues with a number of plants in the tub, with holes in leaves and some chlorosis. it suggests some nutrient issues.

If I were you, I'd treat the tub like a proper planted tank, and water change with fresh water and dose nutrients directly rather than assume all are prevailing in the old tank water in sufficient quantities.

 

[LMuhlen]

Up until a few months ago, I did treat this tub as a normal tank, and throughout many months I diligently performed maintenance and fertilized at EI levels. I'm now experimenting with this more relaxed approach, and honestly I don't see any difference in the results... The first 2 E. parviflorus and the E. flame died during the high ferts times and I suspected I may have exaggerated a bit. But now seeing how I'm getting the exact same problem with this new approach, it looks like it may be something else.

Yesterday I added a second lamp, which is also quite old, but if the problem is not enough light, now I have more light.

I'm also dosing a small quantity of my macro mix and some micros, just to prevent an eventual extreme lack of some element due to my lazy maintenance strategy.

With these changes, my plan is to wait and see.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Is the plastic food grade? Could something be leaching into the water?

It definitely looks like a toxicity symptom. It might be too much of one of the microelements? It could possibly be a deficiency, but I'm not sure what of, Boron (B) possibly? <"Proteomic and Genomic Studies of Micronutrient Deficiency and Toxicity in Plants">.

cheers Darrel

 

[LMuhlen]

To update this thread, after adding a second light and keeping everything else roughly the same, the plant recovered! It now has 3 new mostly-healthy looking leaves, with just a little bit of spiraling.

Unfortunately, the tank exploded with green thread algae, the long kind. I kept the light intensity at max up until now to check if it would save the plant and, now that I'm happy that it is not in imminent danger of dying, I reduced this second light to 65% power. Other than that, I've been doing some extra careful maintenance.

The other plants which looked miserable didn't improve, which leads me to believe they weren't suffering from low light or they have something more important going on...

This weekend I adjusted the fert regime for my main tank and it should impact on this tank as well, I'll see if anything major changes.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

To update this thread, after adding a second light and keeping everything else roughly the same, the plant recovered! It now has 3 new mostly-healthy looking leaves, with just a little bit of spiraling.

Unfortunately, the tank exploded with green thread algae, the long kind.

Good (and bad). Because Green Algae share the same <"basic physiology and photosystems as the higher plants">, and you haven't changed your fertiliser regime, I'd guess it was a light issue.

cheers Darrel