The Planted Tank Forum banner

New growth looks good, old growth looks raggedy. Any help?

2K views 18 replies 7 participants last post by  streeker02 
#1 ·
I've had my 10 gallon planted tank running really well for ~6 months now, which is right around the time I started a full fertilizer routine, along with 2x Excel daily. I have a Finnex Stingray light, an AC20 filter...2 snails and a betta. Everything has been constant, no changes in dosage or life.

My old growth is looking really ugly where this hasn't been a problem before. The leaves start to wrinkle up and change color a little bit. If I trim, I get good growth that looks nice. But is there some kind of deficiency I might be having to have my old growth looking so bad?

I notice it most on my Water Wisteria, the leaves that have reached the surface and those a node or two down look kind of ugly and unhealthy and those are the bettas favorite lay around spot (23.9 hours of his day).

Any ideas?
 
#2 ·
What ferts are you currently using? Might have to double up on the dosing.
 
#4 ·
Liquid NPK+M that I purchased from user nilocg. Macros day of wc, micros day after, daily excel until weekly 50% water change.

Bump:
Plant list would be helpful as well. Usually if your old growth is having troubles it's a sign of a mobile deficiency, meaning the nutrients which are deficient are mobile throughout the plant, moving what's needed towards the new growth, sapping life from the old growth.
Water Wisteria
Anubius (?)
Java Fern
Narrow Leaf Chain Sword (which has carpeted the entire tank and exploded, but even some of its old growth is looking suspect)
Jungle Val (this actually is the newest plant, I don't think it likes the double dose of Excel though)
 
#5 ·
Just using my phone for pics, but it kind of shows what I'm talking about.

Old growth on the Water Wisteria, this is a couple nodes from the top (right side, mid photo, it's a little dark...but the leaf is weak looking and a little brownish)


New Water Wisteria growth
 
#7 ·
A picture of the whole tank will help. And perhaps a closer picture of each half of the tank.
Looking at the problem is better than hearing about it.
So far it almost sounds like you are describing normal plant growth. Older leaves do
eventually die, but get ragged before that is a perfectly regular growth pattern.
" Macros day of wc, micros day after, daily excel until weekly 50% water change."
One dose per week ? Haven't read it recently, but fairly sure that fert is meant for injected CO2 tanks.
IF that is the case I'd think two doses might be in order in your tank.
I have two 10g tanks, one of which right now is mostly a scud culture tank.
But the other has one T5 bulb and 2x Excel doses and a modified EI fert(dry) so it's
not grossly different from yours in equipment. I used to use one dose per week of the ferts.
But just started using two of them(Macro one day then micro on the next but now x 2).
My growth is very slow in there but I have virtually all slow growing plants.
But I will say this....not all plants will like the environment in there either.
 
#8 ·
The ferts I got were recommended by the person I bought them from, and everything has been great. Maybe a second dose is needed throughout the week.

With adding another dose of ferts I worry that my nitrates might get too high. I haven't tested the water in quite a while, but my nitrates were always in the high range when I was testing (~60).
 
#9 ·
To add to this discussion. I've made another thread on a Betta focused message board about the fact that my Betta never swims, unless it's to see someone that came up to the tank or eat.

At the end of the week on water change day, I end up with pretty high nitrates (60-80 range), which seems odd with just a single squirt of each fertilizer a week, double dose of excel and a fairly large plant load. I know that the nitrate tests can be totally inaccurate, but there is a good difference in nitrates according to the test between the end of the week nitrates, and a fresh water change.

....

Ok, so I took a reading of the nitrates before the water change and after. Nitrates before look to be anywhere between 40-80.


I waited about 30 minutes after a 50% water change and checked again and the nitrates are ~20. With freshly treated (Prime) tap water and nothing else added.


I add 1 squirt (5ml) of liquid NPK today, tomorrow I'll add 1 squirt of liquid M. I add ~1.5x dose of Excel daily, and feed the betta ~4 pellets a day of food which he eats excitedly. This is the extent of what enters the tank throughout the week.
 
#10 ·
Hmm, the vagueness of the test color chart isn't being helpful here..


In theory if you do a 50% water change, you should see almost exactly a 50% drop, slightly less as the change water contains some amount of nitrate.

So if you went from 40 to 20, it suggests your test is accurate

If you went from 80 to 20, it suggests your test is inaccurate, and likely reporting double actual levels.

It does however bound the amount of error.. your test isn't going to be off by more than a factor of 4x (one could argue the post-change is closer to 10... I'm taking extremes here).

But knowing your test is somewhere between accurate and 4x too high isn't really much help... :/
 
#11 ·
Is there a reason that the nitrates would be so high with the large amount of plants and such a low bio-load? And could it be a factor in some of the bad growth I'm seeing?

I will get my actual camera out and get some shots of some trouble plants later.

I had Cabomba in there not too long ago, and it started out responding to the ferts great, tons of growth and good color and then they slowly started dying off...they got real leggy and started turning an ugly color before I pulled them out. I wonder if my light isn't somehow putting out as much light as it was before (only had it like 6 months).

I just don't want what happened to the Cabomba to happen to the rest of the plants...though Cabomba from my understanding prefers high light and I'm not providing that so that may be the cause of that plant.
 
#12 ·
I saw one picture that had a translucent leaf. It could be one of the macro nutrients. Since this does not look like potassium. nitrogen or phosphate then it could be the macroish nutrient which is magnesium.

I would try dosing magnesium (MgS04) to get to 10 PPM for your tank size and check in a week if things get better.

Better yet if you have GH booster which is a combination of K,CA and Mg then I would dose that to get a dGH of 5. Since the 3 nutrients have a relationship and using GH booster makes it easy to rule out all 3 since it has the right nutrient ratio already.

FYI Your nitrate reading also look more like 40 PPM and not 80.
 
#14 ·
Thanks! I have a GH Booster, and I did stop dosing that for probably 2 months. Just started back dosing it the last 2 weeks, ~1/8 tsp

I assumed that the Liquid NPK + M would have covered that?

I am getting some translucent leaves, I'm also getting some black specks all over the narrow leaf chain sword that is carpeting the bottom, doesn't appear to be any kind of algae as it doesn't come off the leaf.
 
#15 ·
No, calcium/magnesium are usually handled separately. Folks with hard water don't need calcium, and often don't need magnesium either. For them adding those to the ferts will just make the water harder for no reason.
 
#18 ·
Are those spots just on the top, or do they go all the way through the leaf?

If just on top, it is probably algae growing on the leaf.

If it goes all the way through, it is probably potassium defficiency, which tends to show up as "pinholes" in the leaves..

But just based on where it is located, only on the leaves with the most light exposure, I'm leaning more towards algae...
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top