# Not sure what is wrong with my hygrophila pinnatifida



## matt_1990 (Apr 4, 2014)

Well this is one of my first post I'm more of a reader than poster, but I can't figure what what is wrong with my plants.

Mostly my hygrophila pinnatifida is affected with the twisting leaves in new growth as well and bent and browning tips on older leaves. At first I thought is was still acclimating to my tank(only 2 weeks old) but now I think I'm missing something.

Dose ei (tsp)
1/2 kno3
1/8 kh2po4
1/8 k2so4
1/8 csm+b (also dose 5ml of liquid flourish iron on trace days)
Pressurized co2
Buildmyled planted led 48"

I have some pictures to show whats happening

































Thanks in advance for the help, and hopefully this was the right place to post this.


----------



## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

Since the tank is newly set up this problem might just need a little bit of time to straighten out and grow normally. Or at the very least for the problem to become more pronounced and easy to identify.

What is your water GH? Are you using RO? Is this the only affected plant?

Are you using aquasoil? Can you do an ammonia test?


----------



## matt_1990 (Apr 4, 2014)

See I kinda thought it might just be a melt still. But it is aquasoil and ammonia is already reading less than 5ppm, by the color i was seeing it looked 0. No on the ro water just tap. Gh around here is really high but I need to test it to be exact. If I remember right aquasoil lowers gh so I will test tomorrow to give that info.

As far as I can tell it is the only plant affected my fast growing stem plants aren't showing any problems as of yet.


----------



## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

5 ppm can cause damage to some species of plants, this may be the reason the hygros are not doing well. Wait to see what happens with the plants once the ammonia reaches 0 ppm.


----------



## Subtletanks91 (May 29, 2013)

How much current is in your tank. My leaves only turn up like that when there is too much current


----------



## matt_1990 (Apr 4, 2014)

I don't have much current I was actually going to get some powerheads to add more.


----------



## matt_1990 (Apr 4, 2014)

My gh is 8
Kh is 5
Phosphate is right between 1-2ppm


----------



## Positron (Jul 22, 2013)

My pinnatifida did this when I was over doing my traces and running into toxicity. Crinkle leaf is a pretty decent sign of Mn, Zn or Cu overdose. Since your gH is nice and high I doubt its a calcium/mag issue especially if your other plants show no signs. 

Also just as a test try upping your po4 by a bit. I swear that the tested po4 is less than what is actually in there. I think po4 will just bind to trace elements in the water, and when you test for po4 using the kits the acid splits it up so its available. 

If it is a trace overdose adding po4 will help stabilize things too. I dose 4 (sometimes 6) ppm po4 a week and never run into algae issues.

Obviously make sure your NO3 levels are 10-40ppm.


----------



## Solcielo lawrencia (Dec 30, 2013)

Positron said:


> My pinnatifida did this when I was over doing my traces and running into toxicity. Crinkle leaf is a pretty decent sign of Mn, Zn or Cu overdose. Since your gH is nice and high I doubt its a calcium/mag issue especially if your other plants show no signs.


I doubt that this is the case as H. pinnatifida is a nutrient hog compared to most plants.


----------



## matt_1990 (Apr 4, 2014)

I will try upping the po4 a bit and see what happens. It could still be a bit of a melt, even though I'm kinda doubting it due to how much it is growing. Its just a majority of the new growth is twisting.


----------



## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

What size is this tank?



Positron said:


> My pinnatifida did this when I was over doing my traces and running into toxicity. Crinkle leaf is a pretty decent sign of Mn, Zn or Cu overdose. Since your gH is nice and high I doubt its a calcium/mag issue especially if your other plants show no signs.


Lots of interesting points you bring up!

A lot of things can cause leaves to wrinkle, like a micro toxicity in your case and indeed if the micro dose is very high for the original poster's tank is very high it may also be contributing to the problem seen above (we'll need to know his tank size to calculate that though). However, I think the main issue in this particular situation is too much ammonium (an ammonium toxicity) since the tank is at 5 ppm of ammonium right now. This accounts for the burned/damaged older leaves and the wrinkled new leaves and the fact that not every plant shows similar symptoms. Some species of plants are more capable of using NH4 than others and some show rather severe signs of damage when exposed to it. 



Positron said:


> Also just as a test try upping your po4 by a bit. I swear that the tested po4 is less than what is actually in there. I think po4 will just bind to trace elements in the water, and when you test for po4 using the kits the acid splits it up so its available.


PO4 can bind trace metals and reduce their solubility/toxicity, particularly iron. Though that effect is more pronounced when using non-chelated micros/iron. The EDTA in the CSM+B will shield the micros from the phosphates for quite a while.

I think that larger water changes will be the most effective way of fixing this problem. The water changes will flush out any ammonia/ium from the tank and reduce the damage that it causes and at the same time it will help deplete the aquasoil of the more volatile nutrients. If you can maintain the ammonia/ium under 1 ppm for at least a week I'll bet the plant will show strong signs of recovery.


----------



## matt_1990 (Apr 4, 2014)

Sorry should have posted in the start

55g

I will also up the waterchanges some. I'm currently on every 3 days. I was on every 2 days.


----------



## Positron (Jul 22, 2013)

What's interesting to note about EDTA and all chelators for example. Fe has the highest affinity for these chelators (highest binding strength). This is on the order of magnitude scale of 2 or 3. Cu and Zn are the next to be bound, but at much lower affinity. If you put 1/8th teaspoon of CSM into a cup and mix it up, ALL of the fe will be chelated before anything else. The only way to ensure other traces are being chelated is to add more EDTA until the Fe is completely bound and there is extra.

Most of the chelators in CSM is bound to iron, and only very small amounts to anything else.


----------



## matt_1990 (Apr 4, 2014)

Wow, kinda confusing lol. I'm still a bit new to the dry fert game specially when it comes to binding and chelation haha. I'm confused on how the binding of the iron in CSM+B affects how much is being used by my plants.
Should I dose a bit more of CSM or keep at my 1/8 tsp?

Also my ammonia is now 0. Ill give her some time to see what happens. I'm kinda tempted to cut off some of the really bad twisted leaves.


----------



## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

Positron said:


> What's interesting to note about EDTA and all chelators for example. Fe has the highest affinity for these chelators (highest binding strength). This is on the order of magnitude scale of 2 or 3. Cu and Zn are the next to be bound, but at much lower affinity. If you put 1/8th teaspoon of CSM into a cup and mix it up, ALL of the fe will be chelated before anything else. The only way to ensure other traces are being chelated is to add more EDTA until the Fe is completely bound and there is extra.
> 
> Most of the chelators in CSM is bound to iron, and only very small amounts to anything else.


That is really interesting info. Thanks. 

Do you have a reference for that? I'd love to add it to my records for later.



matt_1990 said:


> Wow, kinda confusing lol. I'm still a bit new to the dry fert game specially when it comes to binding and chelation haha. I'm confused on how the binding of the iron in CSM+B affects how much is being used by my plants.


Chelation is a fancy term for a molecule that binds to metals like iron, zinc, copper, etc and prevents them from reacting with other chemicals in the water. Chelators are useful for growing plants because ordinarily iron reacts with things in the water column like oxygen to make rust, or with phosphorous or sulfur etc... Once the iron has reacted with something else it usually becomes non-soluble in the water and precipitates out as a gritty powder. This prevents plants from using it. Chelatos prevent the iron and other metals from reacting and therefore prolong the metal's presence in a tank. This lets plants actually use it and grow. People used to fertilize plants with ferrous sulfate or ferrous chloride many years ago as a source of iron, however, this method does not protect the iron from reacting with other substances once it dissolved in water and dissociated into ions. This reduced the time iron was available to plants to a few hours vs. a few days or weeks with chelation agents like EDTA or DTPA.

Luckily you really don't have to worry about chelators with CSM+B. The manufacturer has already chelated the iron and it is ready to be dosed. Positron was just talking about the manufacturing process.



matt_1990 said:


> Should I dose a bit more of CSM or keep at my 1/8 tsp?


No keep it at 1/8, 1/8 tsp every other day should be good.

Every time you dose 1/8th of a tsp of CSM+B to your 55g tank you are adding:

```
[U]Element[/U] 	[U]ppm/degree[/U]
B 	         0.02
Cu 	         0.0023
Fe 	         0.17
Mg 	         0.04
Mn 	         0.05
Mo 	         0.0013
Zn 	         0.01
dGH 	         0.01
```
To run your own numbers you can just put in data on this site: calc.petalphile.com and it will give you the ppm concentration as a result of your dose. There are a lot of options which makes the calculator easy to use. A lot faster than doing it out by hand.



matt_1990 said:


> Also my ammonia is now 0. Ill give her some time to see what happens. I'm kinda tempted to cut off some of the really bad twisted leaves.


I'd just wait it out. If you cut the plant now it will just take longer for it to come around.


----------



## matt_1990 (Apr 4, 2014)

Wanted to say the plants are improving by leaps now. It seems the ammonia was the problems. New growth and even some older growth is showing less and less twisting and dying off. Thanks for the help.


----------



## Zapins (Jan 7, 2006)

No problem. Thanks for posting your plant question/problem. I find it interesting to see when different species of plants start showing issues as the ammonia gets higher.

Any chance of an update photo?

Also, did you make any other major changes other than those we discussed before?


----------



## matt_1990 (Apr 4, 2014)

New Growth








Old Growth









The only other change was I got my co2 stable about a week or so ago. I'm am also combating a brown hair algae so I reduce my lighting 2 days ago. I saw results before that though so light probably wasn't the factor.

Both pictures are relatively new growth. The reddish brown leaves That are kinda shooting straight up is only a couple days old now. While the one in between the driftwood is a replant of a trim that had some twisting in it. For a plant that is said to have moderate growth it is growing like crazy now. 

Now just need to get the algae under control and I'll be good.

Full Tank Shot


----------

