Ideas Please

[Antix8989]

Hi All,

I'm seeing a new issue in my 1 year old 60cm. There are pale patches across multiple plant species. It's most pronounced on the S. Repens. My setup is as follows:

1. 90L 60cm tank
2. Oase biomaster 250
3. In-line CO2 from a CO2 Art Pro SE regulator. 3.5bps. Nice lime green at lights on and throughout the photo period.
4. Twinstar 600EA at the back 600SA at the front, both on dimmers. Yes overkill, it's more for aesthetics. They only ramp up to ~40% (see graph for timings)
5. TNC complete 14ml per day from a P1 auto doser. Regularly calibrated. Bottle shaken etc.
6. Using London (liquid rock) Tap water.
7. running for almost a year, various issues along the way. Mostly settled now after a rearranging the layout 4 months ago.

Stocking:

1. 12 Rummy nose tetra
2. 5 otocinclus catfish
3. 8 Amano shrimp
4. 10 cherry shrimp
5. An assortment of nerite and bladder snails.

Additional info:

• I recently reduced the fish stock from 11 neons + 7 rummies to 12 rummies. Unfortunately introducing ICH. Treatment is working, but have had to increase water changes to 30-50% every 48hrs for the last 2 weeks. I re-dose fertz to compensate. e.g. 7ml for a 50% change. (I wouldn't usually do this, only while treatment and the associated water changes are happening)
• I've added some extra plants around a, 53B and hottonia palustris being the faster growers. I would of expected more growth from them by now (almost a month, plenty of root growth, but little leaf development)
• I was getting pin holes in the H.Pinnatifida, so started dosing seachem potassium, just to see. It's growth suddenly exploded.

My thoughts:

• Too much light? bleaching the leaves somehow? I did experiment with the SA ramping up to 100% and down to 40 in the first 20 mins of the photo period.
• CO2 access issue? I see micro mist all over the tank, a little less in some areas, but still visible and moving.
• Too high flow? I don't run the bio master at full flow. approx. 75%. 100% looked too aggressive.
• N/FE/Ca uptake issue?
• Some combination of all three caused by the ICH treatment. Fix the ICH, get back to normal water change frequency and dosing and it'll sort itself out.
• The older growth on the slow growers looks fine, some old leaves show evidence of past mistakes, but they aren't deteriorating. New leaves are stunted/yellow/patchy. In contrast the fast/er growers, Siamensis 53B/Vallisinaria/H. Pinnitifida are show signs of deteriorating old growth, with patchy new growth.
• Possibly switch to EI salts (Aquarium Plant Food UK - Home Page) and get a second P1 for the second bottle. (I can't be trusted to dose regularly).

Appreciated anyone taking the time to read/look. Welcome any thoughts/questions/criticisms etc.

Cheers

 

[Hufsa]

EDIT: I was too quick to assume

Hmm so I thought fertilizer but then I checked your dose, that should be more than enough..

 

[Hufsa]

@Happi have you seen patchy bleaching like this?

 

[Antix8989]

Bit of a better photo.

My guts telling me a deficiency of something immobile, probably due to the water change frequency. I'll up the dose until I'm back to a normal routine.

Could water changing in the middle of the photo period cause an issue? I see a lot of false pearling afterward, I assume due to the water being saturated with gas from the pump/tap, so any real pearling acts as a nucleus for dissolved gas to coalesce? (a bit like bubbles forming on the walls of a glass of pop) Ideally I water change after lights off, but it's not always possible witch ICH. When there's a load of spots gone the next day, best to get that water out and dosed up quick!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

My guts telling me a deficiency of something immobile, probably due to the water change frequency. I'll up the dose until I'm back to a normal routine.

It is likely to be iron (Fe) deficiency because of your very hard water. @Zeus. . had <"a similar effect on Pogostemon helferi">, which I'm going to say he <"rectified with FeEDDHA">?

cheers Darrel

 

[MichaelJ]

Bleaching leaves... What @dw1305 says and possibly Magnesium deficiency... If your using straight tap water you might be very low on Mg in your neck of the woods, and your not getting much Mg from TNC Complete either. I would hedge the bets on both Fe and Mg here...

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Zeus.]

which I'm going to say he <"rectified with FeEDDHA">?

Always hard to say what actually resolved the issue, was it the Fe EDDHA, did I dose more Mg or was it as just the plant producing white leaves occasionally which another one of our experts suggested (sorry cant find/or remember the post/member 🤷‍♂️. Only way to be sure is to change one thing at a time and see if you can reproduce the white leaves and resolve it by changing one thing. I would like to think it was the Fe EDDHA

 

[plantnoobdude]

im going to go with Fe deficiency as well, next up would be Mn and Mg. I'd try adding maybe 0.1~0.2ppmFe Dtpa per week additionally. with an additional 5ppm Mg. if that doesn't work maybe 0.05ppm Mn from EDTA per week as well. iron issues rectify quite quickly and results should be seen within 1 week. cheers,

 

[Antix8989]

Thanks All.

My goal is to automate as much as possible, so I'm hesitant to get more bottles. Seeing the H.Pinnitafida improve with K, only to run into a possible Fe problem. Perhaps my TNC complete isn't quite right for my use case. It seems silly to automatically dose a 'complete' fertilizer, only to manually supplement that with two more bottles.

That said, I'm going to give an EI salts kit crack, if that doesn't work, then I know there's another underlying issue. Maybe my water is just too hard (I did think about this when picking the plants), or full of nitrates (>50ppm from the tap!), or my flow/CO2 is not as effective as I think it is.

If it works, happy days, save some pennies for another P1 and forget about it

I'll fix the ICH first, and up the TNC to 18ml. Then swap to EI salts, and report back in a couple of weeks.

Cheers
Ben

 

[Happi]

@Happi have you seen patchy bleaching like this?

We start working with Mg, Fe and Mn to see if that would fix the issue. Let's wait and see and we go from there.

 

[Happi]

lets start with some Mg and EDDHA Fe to possibly rule out your hard water causing this issue.