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Pogostemon Helferi - New growth is white

Steve Smith

Member
Joined
19 Jul 2007
Messages
4,412
Location
Wellesbourne, UK.
One thing I have notices with the P. helferi is that the new growth on the top seems to be almost white, though the ribs and veins of the leaf seem to be normal green. It almost looks like a powder coating, for want of a better description. Could this be a defficiency of some sort? The rest of the plant looks healthy and a nice bright green colour...

My dosing is a bit all over the place which makes me wonder, but I don't think I'm underdosing.

This pic doesn't show it too well, but you can see the white new growth:

CRW_5106.jpg
 
Hi Steve,

It sounds like a micro nutriant deficiancy. The new growth that is white and the rest being green sugests thats the problem IMO.
Try adding some Tropica tablets under the PH or just alter your dosing.

What are you using to firt your plants?
Cheers.
 
Sorry, should of posted that, it's a continuation from my shrimp journal :)

Dosing TPN+ and EasyCarbo. I'll get a stricter regime down with the dosing and hopefully that'll sort things out. I'll also plonk a few TPN+ capsule under the PH and Staurogyne for some slow release goodness :)
 
Try adding some Tropica nutrition, the normal stuff, the brown bottle. Trols form Tropica told me its hight in trace and Ion,this might help you out too!

The scape looks pormicing Steve. Influanced by the latest ADA resaults?

What substrate is in there? Is it the Lim Popo from Unicpac?
 
Thanks Aaron, interesting read but didn't get to the bottom of it.

I have TPN somewhere, so I might alternate dosing TPN and TPN+ like I think you mentioned at FoF Graeme. Interesting to try it out :) The substrate is Eco Complete, which has probably lost all nutritional value. I'm using it mostly as I like the colour, and hopefully the dark substrate will bring out the colour in the Cherries :)

The scape may have been influenced, but not consciously :) I had the wood upside down as a tree before hand, and just wanted to try out the stump idea. I kept adding rock and shuffling it about till I was happy!

As for the PH I think I'll just leave it be, but I'll get my dosing sorted out. If it goes a bit weird I'll perhaps just prune it out... It's only been growing in this tank setup for a few weeks now.
 
Thanks for the info Sam :) I'm going to start dosing TPN and TPN+ alternately, as soon as I find my bottle of TPN (in the cupboard somewhere!) Graeme was telling me that the Tropica chap he was talking too at Glee said they'd had good results doing this.
 
Interestingly, even though I still haven't got my dosing sorted out (busy weekend and all), I have added a small amount of extra trace elements several times in the last 4 or 5 days. I've noticed new growth has started to come through green again on the affected plants :)

I'm going to start dosing 1 day TPN+, 1 day TPN and see how I get on :) Still haven't found the TPN bottle though!
 
That's interesting to note, my PH was growing slowly but surely under EI. Whe I changed parts of the tank around I stopped EI, with plants coming and going I switched temporarily to TPN+ for fertiliser and dosed according to the plant level I had in the tank.

I too, have ended up with white edges on a couple of plants but the weird thing is, those are the plants that have grwon back the best. EI is back on now so I'll wait and see what happens now that trace is going into the tank again.
 
My understanding of white growth on what would be the new plant tips, is a micro defficiancy.
Plants can access macros from other parts of its self with relative ease, where as with micro, it can only acces that as it grows from either the water colum or the substrate.

So if the tips ( new growth ) is white, it is Micro defficiant. If the whole plant starts to go pale or white then its Macro defficiant.

Taken from another site.
Summary of Macronutrients

Macronutrients are the elements most vital to all plant-life. There are three major and most prominent macronutrients: Nitrogen (“N”), Phosphorus (“P”), and Potassium (“K”).

Summary of Micronutrients

Along with the basic macronutrients, plants also require micronutrients (or Trace-Elements) for sustained health and vigor. Some of these trace-elements are Calcium (“Ca”), Magnesium (“Mg”), Sulfur (“S”), Manganese (“Mn”), Boron (“B”), Zinc (“Zn”), and Copper (“Cu”).

Cheers.
 
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