GH Booster Melting Elatine?

[AaronT]

I'm stumped on this one. I've been adding calcium sulfate, potassium sulfate and magnesium sulfate to my tank after doing water changes with RO water to bring the KH down to where I want it. I add these to a jar, shake vigorously and dump it in. Not all of it disperses and "chunks" rest on the bottom of the tank and various plants until it is all dissolved some hours later.

In the course of a day this happened to my Elatine, where coincidentally a lot if the undissolved solids lay during the day.

Is it possible the sulfates could have "burned" the plants? It's not phosphate, I does plenty of that and the temp is a steady 75 degrees.

Rhetorical Question: Why does this sort of thing only happen to the cool plants?

[HD Blazingwolf]

weird... that sould not have burned the plants

i've left those chunks on plants before with no ill effects

[Diana]

I do not know if the chunks did that, but here is how I dissolve those materials:
1) Put what I want in a jar with a tight lid (canning jar, for example) with water.
2) Shake a lot.
3) Pour off just the water, retaining the undissolved chunks.
4) Add more water, repeat the shake and pour.

Alternate method:
Put some water in a bucket, and a small pump. Add the minerals/fertilizers/whatever is hard to dissolve. Run the pump until the minerals have dissolved. This may involve stirring by hand, too. Sometimes a current gets going in the bucket leaving a calm area where some of the minerals accumulate.

I use this last method to dissolve the salt and mineral blend that I use for my brackish water tank.
I use the first method to dissolve Equilibrium.

[plantbrain]

I've not seen GH booster burn any plants.

Some die back of emergent grown leaves and subsequent allocation to the root system(far more is allocated vs Gloss) will occur from what I've seen submersed transitioning.

It should bound back, if this happened rather quick in 2-3 days etc, then is seems similar to what happened with mine when I heated the tank up to 88-90F for 2 days. Initially I sort of thought the same thing, but with adding too many algae sticks over the plants that rotted etc or something.

I've seen that with Starougyne in one tank.
But the temp thing is off the table, your tank is cooler.

I add GH booster the overflow or sump or a back corner, I add about 1 table spoon per 100 Gal 1-2x a week. Tap water: GH is around 30-35ppm(mostly Ca, very little Mg), KH is 20ppm.

I add about 1 Tablespoon of MgSO4 to my trace mix per liter.
You should use hot water to dissolve the GH booster faster(if you bother) or just place in the rear corn or somewhere else etc.

[plantbrain]

Happens to cool plants because it's Murphy working against us.
At least you did not cook the plants and had ick and then got algae like myself recently.

Careful when whining, it can always get much worse in this hobby


Something like KCL, or MgSO4 might cause issues directly on plants.
MgSO4 is a component of GH booster. I cannot deny that it did not burn the plants.

There is some chance.

[AaronT]

Originally Posted by plantbrain

Happens to cool plants because it's Murphy working against us.
At least you did not cook the plants and had ick and then got algae like myself recently.

Careful when whining, it can always get much worse in this hobby


Something like KCL, or MgSO4 might cause issues directly on plants.
MgSO4 is a component of GH booster. I cannot deny that it did not burn the plants.

There is some chance.

Yeah, I'm pretty convinced it was the MgSO4 then. I'm using Epsom salts from the grocer and the granules are large. There are a couple of melted Sag subulatas next to it that got cooked too and everything else everywhere else in the tank looks fine and the spots that aren't "burnt" are still fine.

This isn't the hydropiper, it's gussonei, making Murphy that much more of a jerk. Okay, that's the last whine.

[150EH]

I have even used a kitchen strainer to remove the chunks from gH booster but there is still a small amount that just won't dissolve without letting it sit in water for a couple hours minimum.

[JoraaÑ]

I dose 2 way...either I dump booster while refiling the tank and water from hose blows away all over..if I remember...or I pour over power head (Hydor Koralia) once tank is filled and it blows away all over.

[AaronT]

Well, I think I know what happened now. I tried to soften my water too quickly in the essence of time and perhaps a bit of arrogance.

I did a large pure RO water change and then added the GH booster to the tank. I hadn't realized that my CO2 was nearly out so the remaining KH likely got used up quickly and the pH crashed. I know I know, it's not real the pH crash isn't real, but Elatine and Sagittaria took a hit and both don't like super acidic water so it makes one suspicious that it might actually exist.

Because of the very acidic water I suspect I had some hydrogen sulfide pockets develop on the Elatine at the base of the stems because it was pretty thick and the sulfates where just sitting there on top of the plants.

Lesson learned, add the GH booster to the filter, sump, change water, etc...

One of these days I'll set up two farm tanks, one with plants that like a little KH and one with ones that prefer it not be present at all. It's hard to balance the two.

At the end of the day sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves, fix it, and move on.