Is this a deficiency

[zebradanio]

Hygrophila polysperma suddenly dropped leaf,s , a fist sized bunch floating on top of the water and holes in the leaf,s .

dosing 20% ei daily and 1ml per 50ml easy carbo daily and weekly 50 % water change , should I up the ei and/or easy carbo ?

Everything else seems to be doing very well so far

Cheers

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Afraid so, co2 deiciancy.
Upping easy carbo and reducing light will help a lot.

 

[zebradanio]

Would upping the liquid carbon help ?
if so to what sort of levels

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Hygrophila polysperma is fine low tech, so it isn't just a CO2 issue.

reducing light will help a lot.

it does look a bit bleached out, I do this with floating plants, because they have access to aerial CO2, you can use their growth and leaf colour as a guide to nutrient levels. Because the leaves are a bit pale, and have holes in them, this suggests that both of the "big" macro-nutrients are in short supply. I'd try adding a bit more KNO3, and the new growth should green fairly rapidly.

cheers Darrel

 

[zebradanio]

Thanks for the help
So add more KN03 to the Macro solution or directly to the tank or leave the macro solution the same but up the dose , I,m currently dosing about 20%
Also what would be the maximum safe dose for liquid carbon , I,m currently dosing 1ml per 50 litres , the bottle says 2 ml per 50litres maximum.
btw the lights are 2x40w T8 if that helps.
Cheers

 

[ian_m]

Why are you dosing 20% EI ?

The idea of EI is you dose in excess so plants always have as much nutrient as they want and any excess (and plant waste) is removed at the end of the week during the 50% water change.

Don't worry about excess harming fish, due to a pump failure I dumped 1litre of 1 1/2 strength EI macro in 180l tank, giving about 300ppm nitrate. Were fish bothered, of course not. Plants we happy though.

You dose macro & micro alternate days as the phosphate in macro can react with the iron in micro and form insoluble iron phosphate.

You don't state your tank volume, so we can't work out if 80W of light is OK level or a Klingon death ray level for the plants.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

So add more KN03 to the Macro solution or directly to the tank

You can do either, nitrates are all really soluble, so you can add it as a dry powder and it will dissolve really quickly.

or leave the macro solution the same but up the dose , I,m currently dosing about 20%

I think that is probably the answer to the pale colour then, I'd start by upping the dose of the macro solution to 50%, I would imagine you will see a fairly dramatic response. I'd leave the liquid carbon dosing the same, my suspicion would be that it is macro-nutrient issue, rather than a carbon one.

Have a look at this thread, it explains how you can use a floater to indicate whether plant health issues are likely to be CO2 or nutrient related <Plants with Deficiency of something | UK Aquatic Plant Society>.

cheers Darrel

 

[zebradanio]

Hi
I was dosing 20% ei micro/macro alternate days with no rest day because I wrongly thought it was a low tech tank .
I,ve recently been informed dosing liquid carbon makes it high tech so I,ll do what Darrel suggests and up ei to 50% , the tank is 240litres ,120cm long Ian , sorry forgot to mention that one , does this dosing rate and the lighting sound Ok to you guys ?
Cheers
Peter

 

[ian_m]

63US gals & 80W gives 1.25W/gal so OK not in super high light area, but as pointed out tank is high tech as carbon dosing.

So if using EI you should be dosing at 100% IE values else plants will be running short of nutrients, giving poor colouring, holes in leaves etc etc.

 

[zebradanio]

Cheers .