# Ugly leaves & algae on lower parts of stem plants, Why?



## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

Heck if I know, I'm interested in the answer myself


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

The secret is that theyre pulled and trimmed and only the top growing portions are replanted. Algae growing on lower leaves is usually caused by not enough flow around the bottoms of the plant. This also ties into co2 circulation. Alot of people fix this with a koralia nano. I dont like the extra visible equipment in the tank so I built a spray bar that hangs just under the front lip of the tank and blows towards the bottoms of the stems. Some plants are so slow grow that I cant reduce shedding and a little algae(alternantheria is one) and ive noticed most tanks keep slightly shorter stems in front to block the view.


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## captain_bu (Oct 20, 2007)

chad320 said:


> The secret is that theyre pulled and trimmed and only the top growing portions are replanted. Algae growing on lower leaves is usually caused by not enough flow around the bottoms of the plant. This also ties into co2 circulation.


X2...

Agree that the main issue here is CO2 and adequate circulation. Same thing with carpet plants if you don't circulate CO2 properly at the substrate level they don't do as well. Despite what some think more light is not always the answer to poor plant growth.


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## jcardona1 (Jun 27, 2008)

So I think my issue may be circulation. I use two drop checkers in the tank, and both are yellow most of the light period, so co2 is not a problem, but perhaps the distribution of it. 

But even then, light will still have some effect on the lower portions of a stem plant right?

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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

The flow portion helps not only co2 distribution but also to mve the lower part of the stems around a little allowing some shady spots to recieve a little more light. it also helps prevent detritus from settling on the leaves and giving the algae a foothold. What plants are you referring to specificallly?


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## jcardona1 (Jun 27, 2008)

The two plants I have in question are rotala rotundifolia and limnophila aromatica.


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## Sharkfood (May 2, 2010)

Rotundifolia can grow in pretty low light, but if it's really bushy on top, that could still be an issue. Most likely it's circulation I would think. Getting good CO2 distribution seems to be the most difficult thing I've dealt with in planted tanks. Maybe its easier for some, but I rearranged my filter returns multiple times before I got a set up I was happy with.

I ended up sticking my intakes in the back corners of the tank, one near the substrate, and one about 2/3 up the water column. I put the returns at the top, near the corners, facing towards the center in such a way that the currents intersect each other at close to 90 degrees, and angled slightly downwards. This creates 2 main currents that circle clockwise, and counter clockwise while also creating a downdraft at the front of the tank. The turbulence from the intersecting flow creates numerous light currents that change constantly. Only one return carries CO2 with it, but the intersecting current pushes CO2 rich water from one return in the other direction if the microbubbles are any indication. There really aren't any "dead" spots in the tank now except maybe the very top in the back 1-2" of the corners, but theres no plant mass, and very little light in these spots, so no algae grows there anyway.

I don't know if a set up like this would work for you, or even if it interests you, but it's something you might try if you aren't happy with your current flow patterns.


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## Joe.1 (Nov 23, 2009)

Great information sharkfood. I was just trying to figure out how to fix my circulation. Just did.


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

@Sharkfood, thats exactly the way mine is set up + the spray bar. I keep R. rotundafolia in mine and it keeps its leaves from bottom ones to the top.


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## Sharkfood (May 2, 2010)

> @Sharkfood, thats exactly the way mine is set up + the spray bar. I keep R. rotundafolia in mine and it keeps its leaves from bottom ones to the top.


 

I should have just asked you then rather than spending 4 months figuring it out myself :icon_lol:. Why do I always do it the hard way?


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

Try hanging a spraybar under the top front lip of your tank. you cant even see it. I use mine to diffuse co2 through. Works great.


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## kevmo911 (Sep 24, 2010)

For the same reason as everybody else. We see an idea, say "That's stupid", and then many hours of trial and error later, we come to a brilliant conclusion that happens to be the same as the concept that the other guy suggested in the first place.

But, seriously, there's no teacher like experience. You learned a hell of a lot screwing around on your own, and then you realize your hard-earned knowledge matches somebody else's. And yes, I'm currently making the same experiments with flow


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## jcardona1 (Jun 27, 2008)

Thanks for the info folks. I'll have to play around with my returns. The tank is 57g, and running a 1017gph pump, so there's plenty of flow. I had a spray bar on the back left wall of the tank, pointed forward. In fact, the current was so strong along the front of the glass that it directed downwards, and killed off all my blyxa japonica in the front. The blyxa away from this direct blast of current is doing fine. See the pic below for the blyxa baldspot, I have replaced it with riccia stones. 

I think I will take the approach of one return in each back corner as sharkfood mentioned. Here's a pic of the current setup. You will notice an elbow at the end of the spray. I have since added a short spraybar section aimed towards the right to direct some flow towards the other side of the tank (short section of pipe removed for pictures).

Also, because this is a rimless tank, I can't really have a spray bar along the front


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

If your current is too fast coming from your spraybar try drilling out each hole 1/32 or 1/16th larger. You could also add some that point directly down, or slightly towards the back glass to try to get more circulation around the bottom.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

chad320 said:


> The flow portion helps prevent detritus from settling on the leaves and giving the algae a foothold.


Yet, some members here have tanks without any filtration. Which makes me believe the main cause of algae is the additives that the city puts in the water. I can't get away without water flow in my tank.



chad320 said:


> Try hanging a spray bar under the top front lip of your tank. you cant even see it. I use mine to diffuse co2 through. Works great.


 Interesting!! Got a link to it?


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Plants compete for light, even different parts of the same plant compete for light. The "lucky" parts are those at the top of the plant, where they can spread out, gather the most light, and *shade everything below.* So, it is light that is most important, but not because you don't have enough light. It is more because you don't prune so that all parts of all plants get their share of the light. When I had L. Aromatica the stems would quickly grow to near the water surface, getting larger and larger in diameter as they got closer to the light. Soon afterward the lower parts would start to collect algae. I had to prune those about twice a week to avoid this. It became more of a job than I wanted to do.

I found the catch 22 of high light tanks was that the more beautiful they became, the more necessary it was to temporarily destroy the beauty with heavy pruning. I couldn't see any way to have a "mature" high light tank for more than a few days at a time.

For this, lower light was the fix for the problems of plants not having enough light :icon_mrgr


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

Hoppy said:


> For this, lower light was the fix for the problems of plants not having enough light :icon_mrgr


But wouldn't the lower part of the plants still don't have enough light (compare to the top part)?
Maybe the less light isn't likely trigger algae even though the lower part of the plants are lacking light.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

mistergreen said:


> But wouldn't the lower part of the plants still don't have enough light (compare to the top part)?


Logically thinking that It slows the growth of the plant thus longer time till plant gets top heavy.


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## jcardona1 (Jun 27, 2008)

And the thing about my lighting, I don't even consider my tank to be high light. I have two t5ho bulbs that are several inches off the tank as seen in the picture. The PAR meter showed I'm at about 40-50 micromols at the substrate.

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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

jcardona1 said:


> And the thing about my lighting, I don't even consider my tank to be high light. I have two t5ho bulbs that are several inches off the tank as seen in the picture. The PAR meter showed I'm at about 40-50 micromols at the substrate.
> 
> Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk


Jose, slightly off topic but how far above the tank are your lights?


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## jcardona1 (Jun 27, 2008)

They're about 28-29" from my substrate.

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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Hyzer has T5HO 27in above substrate and his tank is low tech.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

I don't think that tank has high light, but having lower light just makes the problems show up more slowly. Eventually the plants have to be pruned to allow light to get past the upper parts. And, some plants just grow very vigorously and densely. Rotalas and L. aromatica are ones I found to be very vigorous about spreading out above everything else in the tank.

Pruning is an art, like most of the stuff we have to do with a planted tank. I found it counter intuitive - what was obviously the best way to prune, as I saw it, was not the best way at all. And, it is just very hard to force yourself to clip off such beautifully growing plants. There is a good Tropica UTube segment about pruning, but I can't get it downloaded right now. And, I had a couple by Karen Randall, but those seem to have disappeared.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

I run a UV sterilizer which adds extra current and kills any spores. That seems to help.


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## bsmith (Jan 8, 2007)

J, just to get this out of my head how old are your bulbs?


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

bsmith said:


> J, just to get this out of my head how old are your bulbs?


He used a PAR meter to determine that he has low medium light.


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## bsmith (Jan 8, 2007)

Hoppy said:


> He used a PAR meter to determine that he has low medium light.


Did he give an exact date of when he did that or even say how long ago it was?


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

Jose, do you have a close up pic of the stems?


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

bsmith said:


> Did he give an exact date of when he did that or even say how long ago it was?


I cheated :biggrin: I know him, and I know he measured it less than a month ago.


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## jcardona1 (Jun 27, 2008)

Sorry guys I was out on vacation, just got back! The bulbs are new, less than a month old, Giesseman brand.

I don't have any pics of the stems since I trimmed the bottoms and replanted the tops...

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