beeky,
We'll have to get a clear idea of your semantics to address the question properly. The expression "limiting" as applied to plant growth does not have the same meaning as to "inhibit" plant growth. There are many ways to inhibit growth; herbicides, or other toxic substances, disease or predation (including algal attacks) can all inhibit growth. These are obvious so unless there is some specific substance of interest it would be laborious to attempt a list of all known
inhibiting substances. Probably anything under your kitchen sink if poured in the tank would be an inhibitor. As far as inhibiting substances produced within the tank's ecology, empirical data indicates that the nutrients we introduce have a far more significant effect in producing growth than the negative effects of any inhibiting compounds being produced inside the tank.
Instead, it's more useful to think about the limiting effects of nutrient
shortages. If a tank is "light limited" each plant will have a limit placed on it's maximum possible growth rate. That means that no matter how much more of the other elements you feed them at some point no further increase in growth rate will ever occur until the limit of the light intensity is lifted. It's important to note that the parameter of concern is "growth rate" not just "growth". It should be obvious that with all other things being equal a tank with highest light will exhibit highest growth rates than a tank with a low light. This second tank is therefore light limited.
Lets go back to this first tank. With all other parameters at "infinite" values there is a physical limit to photosynthesis wherein an increase in the wattage no longer increases the rate of sugar production and thus the growth rate. For some plants that may be 8 WPG, for others it may be 10 WPG. For slow growers like Anubias that might be 6 WPG.
I used the expression "with all other parameters at infinite levels..." but of course this is never really true. I started with light limiting because light is the driver of the uptake of all other things. If, instead of "infinite" value of nutrient concentration we had a "set" value for each at some point, prior to approaching the light limit, the uptake rate of a given nutrient might exceed the available concentration. It may be, for a given plant, 8WPG produces the maximum capable growth rate but this MAX growth rate may require 60 ppm CO2 concentration. If we had our set value at 50 ppm the tank would then become CO2 limited before it would become light limited. At this CO2 concentration level, even if we increased the light beyond 8WPG, growth rates would not increase due to our "throttling" of the CO2.
Light intensity drives -->CO2 uptake which then drives the macro nutrient uptake, the primary of which is Nitrogen. Lets say max possible growth rate in a tank full of plants requires 8WPG, 60ppm CO2 and 40ppm NO3. If we supplied max light and max CO2 but only supplied 30 ppm NO3 the tank would be Nitrogen limited and growth rates would be curtailed regardless of how much more light and CO2 we added. You can see that the same principles can be extended to both Phosphorous and Potassium. Finally, a tank being supplied with max light, max CO2 and max NPK then drives max uptake of the micronutrients, the primary of which is Iron.
Because plants are little more that a chemical factory production line, health and growth rate in this sense are mutually exclusive. A low tech tank is more often than not CO2 limited if no injection is offered and light limited if injection is present. Growth rates may be 1/5 that of a high tech tank yet the plants in the low tech tank can be healthier than those in the high tech tank, for example, if the high tech tank is macro or micro limited.
There is a fallacy therefore in correlating growth rates with health. Any highly lit tank with algae infestation is a testament to that. Poor CO2 limits growth but so does poor anything; poor micros, poor macros and combinations thereof. On the other hand some plants just have a tendency to grow spindly even when well lit and well fed. Frequent pruning can help to encourage bushier growth and to possibly thicken up the stems. Because so many deficiencies look similar within the same plant while appearing differently on a different species it's difficult to unilaterally diagnose and to pinpoint. Color loss on older leaves is typically a Nitrogen issue whereas color loss on new leaves can be an Iron or even Boron issue. Decay in leaf or stem can be Nitrogen and/or Potassium. Stunting/deformation can be CO2/Nitrogen/Phosphorous or Calcium/Magnesium or all. As a result of this sometimes ambiguous analysis my tendency is to increase dosages of everything, starting with a check of and adjustment of CO2 which is the most finicky. The ferts are easy because you can simply scale everything whether you are using powders or commercial - 25% more or 50% more or whatever. Deficiencies typically begin undetected as the tank grows in and when the total plant mass reaches some critical value. Uptake rates increase as a function of mass so one or more nutrients can easily bottom out (not necessarily zero but too low for comfort). The signs of stress may not show for a week or two because the plants build up a nutrient reserve and use the reserve when conditions warrant. This often causes us to draw incorrect correlations, to wit; "I did such-and-such yesterday and today I have problem X , therefore we may conclude that such-and-such causes problem X". Well, no, maybe it was something that started happening last Friday.
Chuck Gadd has a nutrient deficiency chart but it is old. It does have pretty good information though:
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nutrient.htm
Hope this addresses the question.
Cheers,