# Trying to pinpoint deficiency



## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Hi everyone, I'm hoping the photos below will be enough to help figure out what I'm missing.

It's been a long road, but I finally have an algae free tank (battled fuzz algae, random bba, and GDA/GSA).

Tank is a Mr. Aqua 48g. 
Lighting is two BML lights suspended 10"s above the tank.
Pressurized CO2 maxed out.
Dose EI dry. 1/2tsp KNO3 every other day and 1/4 tsp CSM+B every other day. I stopped dosing phosphates cause my tests are showing over 10ppm (was dosing a dash measuring spoon with KNO3).
I just recently started dosing a bit extra iron using the dash measuring spoon as well.

Below are photos of the full tank. Specifically I'm seeing stunting in the Rotala Vietnam, Rotala Colorata (can't get it to color up either), Rotala Macandra, and some weird leaf color fading in the limnophila repens mini.

On to the photos!

You can see the color fade on the limnophila top right.








You can see the rotala colorata in the back here showing black margins on leaves and some stunting








Here's some R. Vietnam (some good, some stunted) I moved to the middle to get more light and some R. Macandra trying the same to see if it improves color:








Here's my favorite area in the tank, nice and lush and no growth issues:








Full tank shot:


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## Kathyy (Feb 22, 2010)

I suspect less light and better circulation is needed. See how the stem in front of the circulation pump is nice but the ones behind aren't? Perhaps next to the glass circulation is poor. I 'd raise the lights to improve spread rather than just cut back on hours too.

I had trouble with stems stunting and it turned out my water is a bit low in magnesium. Dosing calcium as well improved snail shell health so apparently my 3GH water isn't hard enough on its own. A single dose of GH booster changed things, I saw better growth inside a week.

If you can move things around and have plenty of water moving capability then try to get a circular flow with returns and intakes at the same side of the tank facing out. I am pretty sure I only have 5xgph and it is amazing to see flake food zoom from one end, down to the bottom and still have speed going back towards the intake. Sometimes putting things in positions that seem right make for chaotic flow and the CO2 isn't getting distributed as well as you think it is. 

Remember hobby water tests aren't the best. Have you calibrated yours? Perhaps it isn't reading properly. I dose way more phosphate than EI suggests because I see positive results with plant growth and would hate to see how high the phosphate in my tank is! I don't think this has anything to do with low phosphate though.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Thanks for the reply. I was contemplating raising the light another 5 inches. I'll try that. My gh tests at 5 so I think I'm good on that. I do have gh Booster but the seiryu I have is definitely raising gh. I'll try the light first so I know what is working and isn't. 

As for circulation I just loved the pump there last night. It was front left aiming to back right. I loved here cause I wasn't getting much flow to the front middle. The pump has been my hardest thing to figure out where to position. The back right is moving a good bit honestly. The black I think is from old growth when I got these stems. I cut them down to grow new shoots to fill it out. 

I'll start dosing phosphates too can't hurt like you said. Hopefully that's my only deficiency.


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

How much is a dash of iron?

You are adding quite a lot of CSM+B (0.4 ppm three times a week is about 1.2 ppm iron, which is beyond the upper safe limit for iron). Adding more iron on top of this exacerbates the situation and puts you at risk of developing a toxicity problem which can cause stunting, color abnormalities and other issues. I'd cut the CSM+B and iron dosing in half when you add it every other day.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Zapins said:


> How much is a dash of iron?
> 
> You are adding quite a lot of CSM+B (0.4 ppm three times a week is about 1.2 ppm iron, which is beyond the upper safe limit for iron). Adding more iron on top of this exacerbates the situation and puts you at risk of developing a toxicity problem which can cause stunting, color abnormalities and other issues. I'd cut the CSM+B and iron dosing in half when you add it every other day.


A dash is 1/8 tsp according to the Internet. I had no idea I was using too much csm+b. I was going by Zorfox's dry dosing recipe thread actually. My tank is a 48g and the 46- recipe shows 1/4 tsp for dry dosing. Is that not up to date? 

Should everything then from that list be halved?


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

*From:* http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=21944



Zorfox said:


> 20~40gal
> 50% H20 change-weekly
> 1/4 Tsp-KN03 3x a week
> 1/16 Tsp-KH2P04 3x aweek
> ...


For a 48g tank you should be dosing 1/8 tsp of CSM+B 3x a week. This adds about 0.2 ppm each time you dose, so a total of about 0.6 ppm per week. This is definitely a safe value of iron to add and will prevent deficiencies easily.

Use http://calc.petalphile.com/ to plug in numbers and choose the product you are using to see what you are actually adding each time you dose.

The other fertilizers are not as much of a problem. Only traces really cause problems when they are over dosed. Iron is harmful to plants between 1-2 ppm concentration. 

Without knowing what form of iron you are dosing when you add 1/8 tsp and how often you are adding it there is no way to tell you how much extra you are adding (11% DTPA? Something else?). How often is this added?


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Interesting. I went by this thread:

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=647697



> 10ml/46 Gallons
> 
> KNO3 106.5 gm (approximately 20 1/2 teaspoons)
> KH2PO4 16.2 gm (approximately 3 teaspoons)
> ...


I'll definitely reduce to 1/8 tsp as you're saying. Maybe this thread I'm linking to was a typo? So you think because I'm dosing too much iron it is mimicking a deficiency of iron? I did just read another thread that said the same. I was dosing the iron from GLA, I believe it's DTPA? I'll stop that though and follow the link you provided instead. Looks like CSM+B is the only difference... When I get home today I'll do a 70% water change to clear things up.

How long should I expect to see new growth reflecting these changes? About a week, ie. a few new shoots popping out?

Thanks for all your help and the help you provide this forum....I was hoping to get you to chime in here!


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

No problem, I enjoy figuring out plant problems.

*Do you know what % iron the DTPA is that you are adding? It comes in several strengths.

Also, how long have you been dosing the CSM+B and the iron? When did the problems start happening?
*
If the issue is a mild toxicity then it will take about a week or so, maybe two until the plants recover. They aren't too badly damaged right now, only slightly discolored. The new leaves will be normal looking, the older ones will probably not recover.

There are other micro nutrients in CSM+B that can affect plants, not just iron. It is difficult to tell which one is causing what symptom since they could all be damaging to plants. Copper becomes toxic above about 0.1 to 0.15 ppm when maintained at that level long term, iron's toxicity level is somewhere between 1-3 ppm depending on the species.



> So you think because I'm dosing too much iron it is mimicking a deficiency of iron?


It is hard to say what deficiency is being mimicked without dosing each nutrient individually and running plant tissue samples through a machine to see what is missing. The effects could be from an induced deficiency or from a combination of deficiencies. It might also be due to cell damage from too much of a given nutrient or something else entirely. There are many possibilities. 

If you are interested in seeing other CSM+B damaged plants and a rather lengthy explanation you can have a look at the following link. 

*From: *http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=503585&highlight=csm+toxicity+b

Here are two examples of plant that were kept in too high CSM+B conditions. But the symptoms can vary from plant to plant. Notice the random discolored leaves and the holes and edge damage that happen. New and old growth symptoms are usually a sign of a toxicity. Your plants do not look quite this bad, so perhaps they are not experiencing the same level of damage or they were not exposed for long enough. Or perhaps they are not suffering from a deficiency. We will see when the CSM+B is reduced.



















For comparison here is a picture of iron deficiency in another species. It is usually more distinct, the newest leaves are very pale compared with the older ones.

*From*: www.deficiencyfinder.com










Another iron deficient plant.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

I think your spot on with it being a toxicity. They photos look like what I'm seeing. 

Any idea why the newer dosing page I linked to has double the dose from what you linked to? Might be a good idea if that is wrong to make note in that thread so others don't follow that like I did. 

I'm going to do this and hope I get the nicer reds from Macranda. 

Does that cause stunting too? My R. Vietnam keeps doing that... Actually all my rotala seem to get some random stunting. All other species seem good.


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

I had a look at the thread and I see what you mean. I'm not sure why Zorfox has those numbers. He is usually spot on with his advice/calculations. Perhaps he accidentally doubled it when calculating the values out? Or perhaps he modified the original EI recommendations intentionally. I am not sure.

Plants react weirdly to trace toxicities. Sort of like how someone can be ill from food poisoning, but then also have an allergic reaction to some other type of food and at the same time have a bruise and a cut from falling. The symptoms overlap and give you a complex pattern that doesn't really match perfectly with any one of the causes.

Each species of plant has a different threshold for each nutrient, and for this reason when too much trace mix is added to the tank each species tends to react slightly differently. Sometimes this reaction is a stunting of growth, sometimes deformed new leaves, sometimes burned or bleached older leaves, or any combination of these effects. Deficiencies are much more straight forwards and have a fairly reliable appearance that can be identified because plants tend to use the same nutrients for the same purpose inside the cells. 

Increasing the lighting can help reds color up. They produce different pigments to compensate. 

Stress responses like higher iron levels or nitrogen limitation/borderline deficiency can also increase red pigments, though these are not ideal ways to maintain a tank long term.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Ok great. Thanks for confirming the other thread. 

Like I said based on my overdosing and what you're saying how it presents differently this has to be my problem. Stunting, burnt looking leaves, and washed out Macranda. 

Going to do a water change now and reboot the tank. I'll follow back up here in a week or so to report back. Again, thanks a lot!


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## BBradbury (Nov 8, 2010)

*Your Plants*

Hello bsant...

Rotala species require strong to high light. Your lighting must be extremely powerful to benefit the plants if you have it 10 inches above the tank. Don't know how tall your 48 G is, but I have a 45 that's pretty tall and plants in the substrate aren't going to get the best light if they're 3 feet or so from the light source.

One other thing, Rotala doesn't like phosphates in the tank water. If you're feeding flaked food to the fish, the first ingredient is generally phosphate. This isn't the best environment for Rotala.

Just a couple of thoughts. You're the "head water keeper".

B


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

bsantucci, if you don't mind you should take a few more photos of the plants as they are now before changing the trace dosing. Some close up shots would be nice. It would be helpful to use the photos as a reference point to see if your CSM+B reduction helped and also helpful for others with similar issues in the future.

Also, be sure you only chance one thing out of your normal routine otherwise it will become difficult to say what fixed the problem.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Will do. I'll take out my good camera today and get some nice shots of all the plants as reference. 

Only other thing I want to change is raising the lights a bit more but I'll do that after I see change from this.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

BBradbury said:


> Hello bsant...
> 
> Rotala species require strong to high light. Your lighting must be extremely powerful to benefit the plants if you have it 10 inches above the tank. Don't know how tall your 48 G is, but I have a 45 that's pretty tall and plants in the substrate aren't going to get the best light if they're 3 feet or so from the light source.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the reply. My lights are very strong.... Dual BML lights. My tank is 36x17x17 so raising ten inches is 28 to substrate. I'm only running the lights at 60 percent as well right now so there is room to raise that. I need the raised to provide coverage since the tank is so wide. 

I checked the flaked and phosphate is kinda in the middle. I feed flake and pellet only 2 times a week. They get frozen the other 2 days. 

I dose less phosphate than EI shows because it was running high in tests.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Here's some photos of the plants worst affected by the toxicity:


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

Thank you for posting those pics. I'm looking forwards to the results.

It's strange, but if you weren't adding so much iron and I only saw those pictures I wouldn't blame myself for thinking the plants were iron deficient. But not with the high levels you were adding. 

Keep us updated!


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Hey Zapins can you take a look at the below pic? Why are the Macranda leaves doing this now? Am I just not destined for rotala in this tank? Ludwigia is all growing awesome.


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

I'd keep an eye on it. You are still dosing the same ferts as before, just with less CSM+B right?

R. macrandra is one of the hardest plants to grow in my opinion. It can also be a very good indicator plant for nutrient problems, but at the same time it can sometimes show strange growth which doesn't seem to match nutrient conditions in the tank very well.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Yep no change except for less csm+b. Yeah I'm about to give up on it though it's just not working. I'll give it a few more weeks to see if it evens out. 

My rotala Vietnam though is looking fuller already and new growth hasn't stunted yet so maybe that's a good sign.


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

Yes that sounds like a good sign for the other plants. 

On the topic of R. mac I wonder if the plant grows seasonally. It seems to do well for several months and then inexplicably start growing badly for a while, then returns to normal growth, but i suppose that is a topic for a different thread.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Zapins said:


> Yes that sounds like a good sign for the other plants.
> 
> On the topic of R. mac I wonder if the plant grows seasonally. It seems to do well for several months and then inexplicably start growing badly for a while, then returns to normal growth, but i suppose that is a topic for a different thread.


Hey Zapins,

So I've been following your dosing you showed on the first page here for 2 weeks now, plants are growing nice. My Ludwigia Brevipes is actually turning the nice orange color, first time that has happened.

I came across a post of yours in APC and you told a guy with a 75g tank to dose much less phosphates than what you show in this thread.



> You are adding 5.25 ppm phosphate each week, which is an extremely high amount. Plants usually do not need more than 1-2 ppm a week in a high tech tank. You should be adding about 1/24 tsp 3x a week.


The instructions on this thread show 1/8tsp 3x a week. Can you confirm which I should be doing?

Also, even though my gH from the tap shows a 6, is it possible to have calcium/magnesium deficiencies? I ask because the rotala vietnam stunted tips certainly look like it may be from that. Any harm in adding gH booster to be sure?


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

Any pics of the plants after the changes? The color change sounds like a good sign. 

I doubt there are Ca/Mg deficiencies in your tank. They aren't used very much by aquatic plants and you can only develop 1 deficiency at a time. You can add some GH booster if you want to try it out, but I don't think it will help. Sometimes stunted plants just take a long time to recover and can show curled and strange leaves.

Yes I see that the instructions for EI on the fertilizer page recommend 1/8 tsp 3x a week for your size tank, however I think that is an error. The numbers on the instructions page do not increase by the same amount for a given volume of water. 1/8 tsp is 2.69 ppm, if dosed 3x a week that would be fairly high over 8 ppm which is way too high for any tank per week. 2.69 ppm is enough for the entire week and then some. So, breaking it up into 3 doses means each dose should be 1/24 tsp. This also makes sense

On a different note. I prefer using grams when dosing because it is unambiguous and easy to add to the tank instead of using fractions of a teaspoon which are hard to work with and measure. They sell cheap jewelers digital scales on ebay and amazon that can go down to 0.1 or 0.01 grams, might be worth looking into unless you like using teaspoons.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Sorry I haven't had time to reply here. Didn't have a chance to take pics but I will today before my cutting and water change. 

So I did one week with gh booster and wouldn't you K of it the rotala Vietnam took off. Last week I didn't use it and it all stunted again. My gh from tap is 6. Is it possible my tap is missing CA or MG?


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## Kathyy (Feb 22, 2010)

Guess it is low in something! Amazing how fast the plants show what the issue is. How is the R. macrandra doing?


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Kathyy said:


> Guess it is low in something! Amazing how fast the plants show what the issue is. How is the R. macrandra doing?


I tossed the Macranda actually. Lost patience for it. I'm gonna keep the r Vietnam though for testing this out. I have to believe it's MG in low on since I have seiryu stone and that would leech off CA right?


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Did a trim today. 

Before 









After


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

The plants are looking nice.

By the way, higher calcium can help reduce metal toxicity, so perhaps that is the effect you saw with raising the Ca along with reducing the CSM+B dose.

Do you have a calcium test kit?


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

I do not have a Ca test kit. Are they readily available from Amazon and do you recommend a particular one? 

My Bacaopa I noticed had some translucent areas on some leaves now though. I'm going to take out my good camera tonight and take some quality photos to show you. I've started getting a bit more GSA since dosing phosphates again, which is kinda weird isn't it? I thought higher phosphates = less GSA?


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

I've always used the Hagen test kit which works alright. I think they are on amazon.

Algae doesn't respond to nutrients in such a direct way. The high phosphate = GSA rule is not a hard and fast rule, but more of a general guideline that you shouldn't let your plants run out of any nutrient or it promotes algae. Unhappy plants = happy algae. There are many examples of people with high PO4 levels and spot algae.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Ok cool, I'm definitely sticking to it. The spot wasn't bad, I mean I hadn't cleaned my glass in 6 weeks and it just had a very fine coating. I cleaning it off with the cutting yesterday.

I did the full dose of gH booster this week so we'll let that play out for 2 weeks and see how the plants respond to the clipping and booster.

That rotala vietnam just doesn't want to grow though. I get a week of great growth, then boom, stunting. I'll take pics of them when I get home too. I cut them shorter and put them all back in the substrate to see if the stunting corrects itself with adding the gH booster...so we'll see if it was really that. 

I haven't touched my lighting yet, I'm still 10" suspended. Tank is 17" deep with 3" substrate so I'm about 24" from substrate with both lights only 55% max output for 5 hours roughly. The other 3 hours are ramping up and down. So I really shouldn't be too much lighting.


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## tug (Mar 22, 2009)

bsantucci said:


> As for circulation I just loved the pump there last night. It was front left aiming to back right. I loved here cause I wasn't getting much flow to the front middle. The pump has been my hardest thing to figure out where to position.


A case for Kathyy's flow. When I moved my prop-style Hydor on the same side as the return to/from the filter and my skim350 on the other side of the tank, the water column is much less turbulent. The eheim is low flow and skims the water surface. Nice to have down stream. Prop-style power heads pull water, facilitating the main filter when near the filter returns and mixing water from the reactor.

Your layout and the range of plants is just wonderful. I haven't read much past the post kathyy left but I'll get there.

"When two or more factors limit growth, addition of just one will have little effect. The provision of both will have a much greater influence. Marginally low in a number of nutrients, one unavailable nutrient limits overall growth, over time. Increase supply of that limiting nutrient, even slightly, increasing the demand for nutrients and another nutrient, the next unavailable, becomes limiting." - WIKI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig's_law_of_the_minimum


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## tug (Mar 22, 2009)

+1


bsantucci said:


> I did the full dose of gH booster this week so we'll let that play out for 2 weeks and see how the plants respond to the clipping and booster.


Its always tricky when more then one nutrient is limiting growth to diagnose any one nutrient as responsible but I do think we can find enough information from observing the plant's, heart burn or food poisoning aside.

The 0.2ppm Fe recommended dose for CSM+B is only a proxy for the trace. A pretty good one generally, considering the amount of copper in CSM+B. Before raising your CSM+B to a dose above 0.2ppm, an additional source of iron is often added first. Which one depends on KH, generally an additional 0.1ppm from another iron source is added and 0.2 from CSM+B. Mostly dosed, CMS+B, Fe Gluconate and DTPA Fe at 4:1:1 ratio by volume for moderately hard water.

I hope you don't need to raise your light higher the 10". I don't want to raise mine any higher and if you have to raise yours again, I have to consider moving my TV.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

tug said:


> A case for Kathyy's flow. When I moved my prop-style Hydor on the same side as the return to/from the filter and my skim350 on the other side of the tank, the water column is much less turbulent. The eheim is low flow and skims the water surface. Nice to have down stream. Prop-style power heads pull water, facilitating the main filter when near the filter returns and mixing water from the reactor.
> 
> Your layout and the range of plants is just wonderful. I haven't read much past the post kathyy left but I'll get there.
> 
> "When two or more factors limit growth, addition of just one will have little effect. The provision of both will have a much greater influence. Marginally low in a number of nutrients, one unavailable nutrient limits overall growth, over time. Increase supply of that limiting nutrient, even slightly, increasing the demand for nutrients and another nutrient, the next unavailable, becomes limiting." - WIKI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig's_law_of_the_minimum


Thanks for the reply! So you're saying you have your Koralia pump on pushing water the same way your output goes? I think if I did that it would blow everything down on the other side. My jet pipe puts out the water pretty fast.

That being said, I have the jet pipe pushing down the front glass from right to left. I have my Koralia now on the left side aimed at the surface for ripple, going left to right more to the back of the tank. I have my Eheim skimmer on the back right wall pointing to the front. The skimmer runs every 4 hours for 1 hour, not all day. In my mind, this gives me a good circular flow and seems to be working. My algae is completely gone aside from the random GSA that pops up after weeks w/o cleaning the glass. No more BBA or GSA on plants.


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## tug (Mar 22, 2009)

I like to provide for good flow but with as little turbulence as possible. My plants are always getting in the way of that. :red_mouth
I use an MP20 vortech propeller pump. It might be a little better then the Koralia. Mine pulls water more effectively then it pushes it. I thought a Koralia would do this too because they also use a propeller pump.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

There's definitely a good amount of pull from the koralia, if you have it near the surface it makes a small whirlpool at times. 

Do you have a photo of your setup? Curious to see, kinda tough to visualize. Below is how mine is set up.


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## tug (Mar 22, 2009)

Give my tank another 2 months to grow in and I'll come back to post a picture. Your happy with what you're doing or your not, MMV.

Sent from my XT1028


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

tug said:


> Give my tank another 2 months to grow in and I'll come back to post a picture. Your happy with what you're doing or your not, MMV.
> 
> Sent from my XT1028


Hah ok. I was more wondering about your pumps/pipes rather than the plants  Sounds good though.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Zapins said:


> I've always used the Hagen test kit which works alright. I think they are on amazon.
> 
> Algae doesn't respond to nutrients in such a direct way. The high phosphate = GSA rule is not a hard and fast rule, but more of a general guideline that you shouldn't let your plants run out of any nutrient or it promotes algae. Unhappy plants = happy algae. There are many examples of people with high PO4 levels and spot algae.


Hey Zapins. Got my latest round of pictures here and hoping you can diagnose. 

I've been dosing steady with my EI, reduced CSM+B and phosphate as discussed along with gH booster.

New issue is my Bacopa has stunted and has some leaves losing green. The photo below shows that. Some of my other plants have slight stunting too. Can you see anything from these pictures? Stunting to the left, leaves losing color to the right. My Rotala Vietnam is stunted again as well.


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## Kathyy (Feb 22, 2010)

Try putting the Koralia right under the outflow pipe to amplify the circular flow. Right now the currents are probably meeting in the center of the tank and creating chaotic flow with inefficient CO2 and nutrient delivery to the plants. If you want the Koralia on the left side of the tank then it needs to be low down or near the top angled straight down [wouldn't try that!] so water leaves the pipe, heads straight across the top 1/4 of the tank, hits the far wall goes down, gets picked up by the Koralia and moves back to the intake. Perhaps having the two flows at somewhat different angles would avoid plants getting blown around too much?

Amazing how fast stem plants respond to a situation. I don't know exactly what is going to happen but the plant growth is probably going to change when you change water circulation.

Usually the triad of light-nutrients-CO2 is applied to algae problems but one suspects perfect plant health needs the same balance. Too much light? Not enough CO2?


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Kathyy said:


> Try putting the Koralia right under the outflow pipe to amplify the circular flow. Right now the currents are probably meeting in the center of the tank and creating chaotic flow with inefficient CO2 and nutrient delivery to the plants. If you want the Koralia on the left side of the tank then it needs to be low down or near the top angled straight down [wouldn't try that!] so water leaves the pipe, heads straight across the top 1/4 of the tank, hits the far wall goes down, gets picked up by the Koralia and moves back to the intake. Perhaps having the two flows at somewhat different angles would avoid plants getting blown around too much?
> 
> Amazing how fast stem plants respond to a situation. I don't know exactly what is going to happen but the plant growth is probably going to change when you change water circulation.
> 
> Usually the triad of light-nutrients-CO2 is applied to algae problems but one suspects perfect plant health needs the same balance. Too much light? Not enough CO2?


Thanks for the reply Kathyy. So my worry of using the Koralia on the same side as my jet pipe is that the current will blow the plants all over. I already have the Fluval flow restricted a quarter of the way to keep the jet from being a destructive force haha. Do you think I should try just the flow from the jet pipe and not use the pump at all?

I like it near the top to create surface agitation for O2 exchange personally. I do have a eheim skimmer though I run 30 minutes like 6 times a day, I mean I guess that would be enough O2 exchange also?

I do agree, seems I have my lighting/co2/nutrients in check now, so flow could possibly be the culprit for the Bacopa, but the R. Vietnam is directly in the path of the jet pipe and being blow around, so flow shouldn't be causing that to stunt.


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

bsantucci said:


> New issue is my Bacopa has stunted and has some leaves losing green.
> 
> The photo below shows that. Some of my other plants have slight stunting too. Can you see anything from these pictures? Stunting to the left, leaves losing color to the right. My Rotala Vietnam is stunted again as well.


When you say stunting what do you mean by that? Are the plants still growing or have they stopped growing entirely? Or do you mean the slightly twisted looking leaves?

Do the new pale Bacopa leaves color up after a few days or do they stay pale as the plant keeps on growing new leaves?

Do the leaves tend to straighten out over time?


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Zapins said:


> When you say stunting what do you mean by that? Are the plants still growing or have they stopped growing entirely? Or do you mean the slightly twisted looking leaves?
> 
> Do the new pale Bacopa leaves color up after a few days or do they stay pale as the plant keeps on growing new leaves?
> 
> Do the leaves tend to straighten out over time?


Stunting, I mean this. the tips just stop growing. I've enlarged the photo I posted above. Normal Bacopa left, stunted to the right. I have two stems stunting. The pale leaves do not color up, they just have that colorless look to them the rest of the time. The leaves aren't curled, they just stop growing.










Here's a closer cropped shot of the area losing color. You'll see another stunted stem below it also.


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## Positron (Jul 22, 2013)

Is the top bud about to break through the water there? Perhaps it's stunting because it thinks its in air and wants to convert to a new form.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Positron said:


> Is the top bud about to break through the water there? Perhaps it's stunting because it thinks its in air and wants to convert to a new form.


Unfortunately no. All stunted stems are below the surface still.


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

The plants look in fairly good shape other than the small patches of damage on the new leaves and the pale shade of color. I'm wondering if whatever this is will develop into something more severe and obvious or if it will stay at this level. I suppose we may have to wait and see. Whatever it is, isn't very clear yet.

What are your nitrate levels at? Test kit value and also how much/how often you are dosing it?


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Nitrates show between 40-80 ppm tough to tell with those kits and mine are not calibrated. I do 50 percent water changes weekly so I figured not to worry about nitrate levels from dosing. 
I'm dosing the 1/2 tsp 3x a week according to EI. 

Mineral leeching from seiryu stones couldn't t cause this could it? I plan on removing them soon. I am going to be replacing all my hardscape with new driftwood as soon as I source the pieces. I have softer water loving fish so I figured the change would be good.

I really appreciate you sticking with me on this. I'm determined to figure this out. I got algae completely gone so now it's just to hammer out the plant health! . 

Could this be flow related as Kathyy mentioned?


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

Are you adding K2SO4? If so how much/how often? Anything else with sulfur in it?

Flow related? I'm not sure. More flow probably wouldn't hurt but at the same time I've seen many tanks that were practically stagnant without similar issues so I'm not sure that it is causing the current issues.

Algae being gone is a good sign. It usually means the plants are growing well and that they have everything they need to compete with algae.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

No I'm not using K2SO4. Should I be? I was under the impression it wasn't needed. Nothing else that may have sulfur no....


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## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

If you can, add something with sulfur in it and see if the issue resolves. If you add 15-20 ppm of K2SO4 per week that should bE enough to eliminate sulfur as a suspect.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Will do. I'll add with my wc today. I'll give it 2 weeks and report back


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Zapins said:


> On a different note. I prefer using grams when dosing because it is unambiguous and easy to add to the tank instead of using fractions of a teaspoon which are hard to work with and measure. They sell cheap jewelers digital scales on ebay and amazon that can go down to 0.1 or 0.01 grams, might be worth looking into unless you like using teaspoons.


Hey Zapins, I went ahead and ordered a scale to be sure the measurements are correct. Ended up going with this one

Amazon.com: Smart Weigh JDS20 Digital Portable Milligram Pocket Scale, 20 by 0.001g: Digital Kitchen Scales: Kitchen & Dining


That being said, do you measure out daily and then dose or do you measure weekly? I was thinking of measuring daily doses and pouring into a weekly pill container. Do you see any reason that wouldn't work?

Since I removed the seiryu from my tank the plants are all doing great except the Ludwigia's. Both Brevipes and Red have some random stunting now. Can the change in water parameters do that? Removing the stones and adding malaysian driftwood surely softened the water. Am I right to expect a rebound of the plants once acclimated again?


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Reporting back in here. The seiryu DEFINITELY affected the rotala vietnam and now I suspect the colorata I had too. The r. vietnam is bouncing back, getting bushier, and turning a nice golden hue. This is great, now I can actually get rid of this random ludwigia I have in favor of a fuller background plant, maybe rotala rotundifolia


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