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Curling/crumpled leaves on a few species

1K views 10 replies 9 participants last post by  happi 
#1 ·
A few species in my tank are exhibiting this type of growth of new leaves. Nothing has changed.Its a 55 gal with 2x55w T5HO. CO2 is what its always been. Im dosing EI. I checked James' planted tank guide for deficiencies and possible causes could be CO2 (drop checker is yellow), Calcium (dose 3/4 tsp at water changes through GH booster, or Phosphorous (which is dosed 1/8 tsp every other day).

Anybody know of any other causes of this, or remedies?

Your help is greatly appreciated.
 
#2 ·
When I had this issue, it appeared to be a calcium deficiency. I know this has been debated here before and many people say that it's very hard to have a calcium deficiency. I can't say one way or the other, but what worked for me was a decent sized water change. The water down here is very hard and something in the fresh water corrected the odd growths on all the new leaves from that point. Maybe it was the calcium, maybe not, but it worked.

I should clarify a point. The leaves that are "funky" will remain like that but the newer growths will be back to normal after you correct the problem.
 
#4 ·
On a similar note......

I notice the same type of effect for some "frilly" type of plants in a couple of my tanks. Plants like R. hippuris, thailand and even Hydrox. Haven't been able to put my finger on it as yet but the crowns will pretty much just curl in and seems like that part of the stem just stops growing.

Like yourself, nothing has changed in regards to fert dosing or CO2. I'm very curious to find out what causes this.
 
#6 ·
I had similar issues with curling leaves until I discovered that my moderately hard water while rich in calcium,,contained next to no magnesium.
I started adding a bit of epsom salt each week, and no more curling of leaves.
Perhap's GH booster you are using has calcium and magnesium, in which case,,you can completely ignore that which I've submitted.
 
#8 ·
Likely CO2 or water movement issue but it could also be traces, Ca, Mg, too much nitrates and more. I prefer to do the shotgun method when problems arise. Dose everything.
 
#10 ·
You can EASILY rule out ferts, you cannot easily rule out CO2, that is the rule to go by. Water changes and dose thereafter, then the nutrients are a non issue. Simple and very very easy to rule out as a potential cause.

CO2?

Do not assume a drop checker is particularly accurate or correct for that matter, you can have a very very wide margin of error and I've seen enough issues with them to fill a 1000 Gallon tank 100Xs.

Also, the higher you go with CO2, the difference between 0.1 pH unit is much larger.

Example:

Also, as you depress the pH with CO2 gas, the concentration will increase a lot more(eg, it's non linear) for each 0.2 units of pH.

Say you have a KH of 3 degrees.

At a pH of 7.0 you would have 9 ppm
At a pH of 6.8 you would have 14.3 ppm
At a pH of 6.6 you would have 22.6 ppm
At a pH of 6.4 you would have 35.8 ppm
At a pH of 6.2 you would have 56.8 ppm
At a pH of 6.0 you would have 90 ppm

Differences between each 0.2 pH units:
5.3 ppm
8.3 ppm
13.2 ppm
21 ppm
33.2

So your pH measurement and observations need to be very good when you use more CO2. If you over do things at the higher ppm's, it only takes a little bit of change to dramatically increase the CO2.

This is one reason why many people fail when adding more CO2 and gas their fish instead. If each 0.2 pH units were only 5 ppm difference, then it would be pretty easy to adjust CO2. This is also a good reason to buy a nice CO2 regulator, needle valve etc.


It also helps to state which plants species are affected.
Some plants appear to have a higher ppm CO2 demand than others for the same light intensities.

Which makes sense.

So you might see some species doing very well and some not, but after addressing and learning how to correctly use CO2, suddenly all those issues magically go away. Even if the nutrients are well into the non limiting ranges.
Tip growth issues are classic CO2 problems. If large frequent water changes appear to fix many of the issues, then it's almost always a CO2 related issue.
 
#11 ·
lack of co2 and circulation can cause curly leaves, but there are other things which can cause the same effect, i have experimented it and i can support it even though many here will not agree with it.

Excess NO3 can cause curly leaves for some plant if not all.
Excess Mg can also cause the same issue, but in Mg excess leaves turn upward instead of downward.

not enough k+

Trace element causing this issue?? i highly doubt it.

not enough Mg and Ca or too much Mg compare to Ca.

i would try this:

increase the circulation and add some extra K+ and Mg, if you think you have enough Mg then don't dose any and only add extra K+. this has fixed many issue when my co2 was gassing my fish and plants were still suffering, but i also changed my dosing, i was adding Urea and Nitrate as a main source of N. if you lack fish in your tank then adding some urea will help the plants.

but overall i would look into the CO2 first.
 
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