• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Unknown plant problem

SilverJ

Seedling
Joined
18 Feb 2014
Messages
12
Hello everyone..

Hope you can share your knowledge with a not so new newbie.

The problem that I cannot figure out is as follows:

The adult leaves on my crypt parva are turning brown, I cannot see that its some kind of algae or deficiency.
The leaves of my java ferns are the worst some turns black like burned on the edges, some gets transparent and the other have some holes in..

I have diy leds consisting of 3w 10 blue 10 red and 20 6500k on a 6hour shift.

Dosing EI No3 29.44ppm, Po4 2.79ppm, K 19.71ppm, Fe 0.52ppm with a weekly water change

Using Eco complete substrate.

Getting 1ph drop with co2 by lights on

Using tetretec ex1200 cannister filter with a 3000lph wavemaker.

Its a normal 4ft tank
IMG-20170814-WA0002.jpg
IMG-20170814-WA0001.jpg
 
Seeing the pics it looks like a rather new setup.. :) And you unfortuately picked 2 plants which are rather difficult to read.. But both need time to transition and addapt and both are relatively slow growing plants. Prone the show some melting for the first weeks maybe months. Crypt are very depended on a large healhy rootsystem which needs time to develop. Above the substare it looks like dying, but bellow the substrate is grows on, once it feels happy it'll come back. Same goes for java and this one grows so slow it can look like dying fatser than growing new leaves. Same story it needs time. My best guess is, the problem you yet can't figure is having patience. :)
 
Yes the current setup is still very young :) about one month and maybe a few days. The two mentioned plants is from the beginning. Although the tank has a couple of years running i let it all go a few years ago because of BBA who killed everything:jimlad:. So everything i mentioned about the tank sounds good no need to change anything anywhere? I must admit im no good when it comes to patience :crazy:
 
okay so i lost a couple of my leds during the last month or so..
Now im struggling with my plants like previously stated Im using eco complete substrate.
All my plants seem to went into a dormant state and if they grow they do it very slowly and then they end up being leggy and trumble down.
My ph pen went a bit hay wire so the reading is between 0.8 and 1 ph drop.

Please help with this issue
 
The adult leaves on my crypt parva are turning brown, I cannot see that its some kind of algae or deficiency.
The leaves of my java ferns are the worst some turns black like burned on the edges, some gets transparent and the other have some holes in..
Hello,
These are classic symptoms of poor CO2. So is this: =>
i let it all go a few years ago because of BBA who killed everything:jimlad:.

Despite the fact that you are recording a 1 pH drop by lights on and that you have added a wavemaker, the plants cannot lie. They are telling you that whatever you are doing is resulting in an inability for them to uptake sufficient quantities of CO2.

This factor is likely a major contributor:=>
diy leds consisting of 3w 10 blue 10 red and 20 6500k
It's really not a good idea to blast the tank with photon torpedoes when you have just recently flooded the tank. Newly submerged plants really are not capable of processing CO2 very easily so the best policy is to reduce the lighting in order to enable them to cope with a hostile environment.

Without a PAR meter it is very difficult to guess the amount of PAR, but LEDs often have more energy than we think.

Next, we need to review exactly how your filter outlets are arranged and what the placement and orientation of your wavemaker is, as well as how you are diffusing the gas. None of these data are shown above yet that information tells us a lot more than pictures of dying plants.

Please post this type of photos so we can get a better ide of what's going on.

Also, I'm puzzled by:=>
Dosing EI No3 29.44ppm, Po4 2.79ppm, K 19.71ppm, Fe 0.52ppm with a weekly water change
How can you possibly know to the nearest 100,000,000th of a part what your dosing is? Even if you could determine with such accuracy it wouldn't actually mean anything or do do anything for you.
Lets just do a reality check and round to the nearest ppm, OK? So 29, 3, 20 and 0.5. These all sound like nominal figures - and the problems described aren't nutrient related anyway so there is no reason (yet) to question how you arrived at these figures.

However, since this is CO2 related, we have to question how you are measuring pH. Using..what? A pH pen? Calibrated

So there you have it, at least you know the culprit, so we're halfway there. We know the "why" but not the "what".

kindly provide more detailed schematics or photos (top view, side view, frontal) of the equipment.
For better illustrative purposes, drop the level of the water to below the filter outlet so we can see the flow pattern.

Cheers,
 
I was understanding if you get a 1 ph drop you're co2 is enough for the tank.

I will take pictures and upload them but for now the the filter outlet is a spraybar on the right side of the tank spraying down and underneath the spraybar its the wavemaker who is slightly spraying on the middle of the front glass so that the plants at the back can have some movement. Im using an diy inline reactor for diffusing the gas. So its the filter going out in the reactor going out to spraybar and then the wavemaker. The reactor dissolves all the gas so no small bubbles coming out of the spraybar.

For the readings I just took them from an EI calculator for what im supposed to get with all the ingredients used..

Im using a PH pen its calibrated but somehow it doesnt stay on a reading it jump between 0.8 and 1 ph drop
 
Just in case you don't know (I see you said you're not so new newbie): a Java fern's leaf that is growing will normally be transparent at the tip. Only old leaf that has stopped growing will be all opaque green. And if you've just put the fern into the tank. Old leaves will often deteriorate if they're not fit in the new environment.

The Crypt also look fine, I would recheck if they're really parva. Many Crypt's will turn brown under good light.
 
Last edited:
The only picture i could not take now is the spraybar flowing downwards
 

Attachments

  • DSC_0032.JPG
    DSC_0032.JPG
    541.3 KB · Views: 133
  • DSC_0029.JPG
    DSC_0029.JPG
    1.4 MB · Views: 127
  • DSC_0028.JPG
    DSC_0028.JPG
    1.4 MB · Views: 135
  • DSC_0027.JPG
    DSC_0027.JPG
    641.2 KB · Views: 131
Hope you can view the images
Hi mate,
Yeah, I can see the photos but I'm struggling to interpret them.
The first photo shows the filter and a CO2 canister. Then there is a white thing. I assume that's your diffuser? If so, since it's opaque then you can't see through in order to tell if there is any gas buildup inside. The gas buildup in these types of external diffusers can act as a backpressure which stifles flow rate and diffusion rate.

What is the inside diameter of your filter output?
What is the inside diameter of the diffuser input and output?
What is the minimum inside diameter of the hosing along the filter path?

Did I misunderstand or did you state that the holes in the spraybar are pointing downward?
If so, you've committed a cardinal sin as it defeats the purpose of using a spraybar.
Output from the spraybar should be placed on the back pane horizontally facing the forward pane in order to create a circular movement. Please review the thread https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/right-distribution-with-spray-bars-on-front.22048/#post-225808 as well as the link to another thread showing images of spraybar placement.

Images 2 through 3 show a wavemaker but it's not clear whether there is only one of these or if there are two. It appears that one of them is located directly beneath the spraybar, which is correct, but it looks as if it is pointed at an angle, which is not good. It seems there is another at an unspecified location also pointing off axis. This is unclear.

If you have two wavemakes then they need to both be placed under the spraybar (at equal distances from the left and right side panes) pointing forward in exactly the same manner as the holes in the spraybar - horizontally facing the front pane.

Please would you be good enough to clarify the questions above?

Cheers,
 
a Java fern's leaf that is growing will normally be transparent at the tip.
This condition is due to poor CO2, and is only "normal" because it takes a ridiculous amount of CO2 to fix it, which isn't worth the trouble.

Cheers,
 
Yeah the white thing is the diffuser. The inside is 16mm of the filter output. Im not sure about the inside diameter of input and output of diffuser all i know the 16mm of the filter connects on the input and output of diffuser so it might be 14/15mm. Its a 50mm pvc pipe so i assume inside is 50mm.

The holes in the sprqybar is pointing downwards so that the substrate beneath the wavemaker can get movement as well.

I will have a look at the link, thank you.

Its only 1 wavemaker photo taken from different angles. Its beneath the spraybar. The reason i put it that way is i tested it and its the best way that the flow can be aaround the tank if i point it directlynforward the stems at the back get less movement.

Should the spraybar and wavemaker not point from side to side instead of back to front?

If there was a build up somewhere would my ph2 still drop? And my drop checker still show lime green to yellow with lights on? I know everything is just a indicator and the plants tell the truth?
 
Would it be better to replace the reactor with a ceramic glass diffuser? Its just that a reactor disolve the gas more..
 
I have diy leds consisting of 3w 10 blue 10 red and 20 6500k on a 6hour shift.

Nout to do with Co2 as XIM say and I'm of the same opinion - your issue is your lighting especially the 10 blue & 10 red, the 6500K is ok, its class as a cool white light probably as close to natural day light, 5000K is more of a natural light but probably hard to find LED with that colour spectrum. Turn off the blue and red LED's.

Paul
 
Thnx for the input paul. How can blue and red leds stun plant growth?

Sent from my D2533 using Tapatalk
 
Have experimented with all manner of bulb's/spectrums and have yet to see any real preference by plant's.
"Color spectrum matter's or does it ?"thread somewhere here at UKAPS I remember reading.
My own LED fixtures contain all manner of blue/red's and plant's perform just fine.(Finnex planted + Fluval 2.0)
Have used T5 and T8's in past from 4000k to 10,000k and all in between combination's of spectrums with little difference noted from plants other than how they made the tank look to my eye's.(plant's don't care much)
Plant's just keep growing.
Some pink or rosette bulbs might help plant's look more red if they are so inclined to do so, but they won't make the plant's any more healthy that I could ever note.
I can add glut(carbon supplement), before lights on and note more red from red plant's than bulbs alone can produce and I can clearly see the effect's of the glut wear o9ff in my low tech tanks six hours into light period .
This leads me to believe that the gas CO2 were I to inject it,,would produce best result's with wider range of plant's.
Embarrassed to admit how long it took me to come to that conclusion but am happy for now with low tech and carbon supplement .

P.S. Nothing wrong with plant's in photo's which does indeed look to be crypt parva and another species behind it.
Just need time for substrate /tank to mature and leave em be.
I can grow needle leaf java fern without issues but cannot seem to get regular java fern to do much of anything.
Maybe swap out the java fern if it struggles with bucephalandra.
Could do a whole lot worse than listening to Clive IMHO
 
Last edited:
The holes in the sprqybar is pointing downwards so that the substrate beneath the wavemaker can get movement as well.
No, please review the information in the link.

Thnx for the input paul. How can blue and red leds stun plant growth?
Exactly. Now, do you want to get your tank healthier? If yes, then please stay on the path as suggested by roadmaster and stop worrying about colors, which is the least of your concern right now.

If there was a build up somewhere would my ph2 still drop? And my drop checker still show lime green to yellow with lights on? I know everything is just a indicator and the plants tell the truth?
Yes, it would, but may not be as efficient as it could be. That's all I'm saying.

Would it be better to replace the reactor with a ceramic glass diffuser?
No, I'm not suggesting that at all. I only mention that it is opaque and therefore we cannot see inside. It would have been better if you made it with clear plastic so you could get more information.

The reason I'm asking the questions about pipe diameter is that some reactors are sold or are DIYed with the right diameter pipe but the manufacturer or hobbyist installs fittings on the tube which have an inside diameter smaller than the inside diameter of the filter output.

In any hydraulic or pneumatic circuit the flow rate of the fluid or gas will always be limited by the smallest inside diameter of hose or connection anywhere in the system. So for example, if your filter output has an inside diameter of 16mm and you built your reactor with connectors that have an inside diameter of only 12mm then you will have reduced your flow rate by almost 50%, so effectively, even if that filter is Tetratec 1200, by choking the output with a 12mm connector on the reactor you will have turned your Tetratec 1200 into a Tetratec 600. Once you choke the flow at any point by forcing it through a connection that is smaller than the filter output, you will never recover the original filter output flow rate.

That's why the answer to these questions are super important.

Every method of diffusion, whether by reactor or by other means, has advantages and disadvantages. So you need to pay attention to the factors that affect the efficiency of the method you select.

If you have choked the flow rate by undersizing the connectors, and if you have compounded the problem by pointing the holes down instead of facing them forwards, this could very well be a major contributing factor to the failure of the plants to efficiently obtain CO2 even though your pH readings and your dropchecker show that everything is all right.

About 90% of the gas you inject into the tank goes straight up and out of the tank and is lost to the plants.

The dropchecker and pH sensors are actually telling you the amount of CO2 leaving the tank, so trust what the plants are telling you more so than what the sensors are telling you. The symptoms are made more acute if the lights are very bright.

So have a look at the associated links in which I show how to use spray bars and move the wavemaker to the center whle pointing it's output directly forward to be parallel to the spraybar's forward facing holes.

Cheers,
 
Okay so i have adjusted my spraybar and wavemaker according to the wave and aeroplane picture. Lets hope for improvement
 
Back
Top