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Problems with Rotala Rotundifolia

6K views 6 replies 3 participants last post by  Zapins 
#1 ·
Hello,

I am having problems with my rotala. Some of its leaves are colorless, while others have some dark discoloration. The leaves are rather small as well. However, my rotala grows like a weed. It quickly reaches the top of my tank, and sends out branches fairly quickly.

They are in my high tech tank, under very high light, pressurized Co2 and EI dosing. The rest of my plants are growing really well, including my dwarf hairgrass, HC, and hydrotocyle Sp. Japan.

Am I doing something wrong with my rotala rotundifolia?

Thanks for your advice!
 
#2 ·
Can you post a photo? Also, where are the leaves in question? like their position on the stem? Have you tried gently rubbing the leaves with the dark discolouration? It may just be some type of film algae. Lastly, what are the specs of the tank, lighting levels, CO2 levels, substrate, exact dosing. water change regime, photo period, tank size etc?
 
#3 ·
The leaves are at the top, nearest to the tip of the plant. I noticed while taking the pictures that the dark spots I see are actually transparent. I could see my finger on the other side, so probably not an algae problem. I have root systems forming at the lower levels of the stems, and new side shoots everywhere but at the top of the plant. It seems as if the side shoots are stripping the top leaves from nutrients.
Terrestrial plant Non-vascular land plant Moss Green algae Conifer


This is a 7.3g tank, with ADA Amazonia, PAR of 105 dimmed 50%, 8h photo period. I can't tell you exact Co2 levels, but drop checker is consistently at lime green and 3 BPS.

I have a very relaxed IE dosing regime at one week cycles. 50% water change on Sundays.
1/4 tsp of K2SO4
1/4 tsp of KNO3
1/4 tsp of KH2PO4
1/4 of plantex CSM + B

0 ammonia
0 nitrites
40+ nitrates by the end of the week. My tap water is particularly heavy in nitrates (Farmland all around me)
PH of 7.5

Thank you!
 
#4 ·
Can you post a few more photos of the rotala? Pictures of the growing tip would be helpful. Try get pictures as focused as possible, the more detail the easier it will be to tell what is wrong. Are any of your other plants doing something similar?

Do you have snails? What kind?

How long ago did these symptoms show up and how long did they take to happen?
 
#5 ·
Finger Skin Green Adaptation Nail

Green Food Soup Ingredient Dish

Nature Liquid Vegetation Organism Blue

Nature Liquid Organism Vegetation Blue

It seems like I only have trouble with stem plants. My limnophila aromatica are doing fine. My DHG and my HC are doing fine.
I do have some hitch hiker pond snails hitch hiker pond snails and some very small ramshorn snails.

As you can see, one of the pictures shows a new branch coming out near the top of the plant. I noticed this about a week ago. They are toward the back of the tank where the substrate is deeper. I checked their roots, and I didn't see rotting. I also poke the substrate to release trapped bubbles just in case.

Thanks
 
#7 ·
The symptoms of the Rotala do not match with any one deficiency. This means it is almost certainly a toxicity. Macro fertilizers don't usually cause issues, but micro fertilizers do and the symptoms are similar looking to what you see in the Rotala.

This is a 7.3g tank, with ADA Amazonia,
By adding 1/4 tsp of each of those fertilizers in your 7.3g tank each week you are adding: 28.85 ppm NO3, 35.36 ppm PO4, 58.73 ppm K and 2.54 ppm iron. The recommended dose is 0.1 ppm iron so you added 25x more iron than is recommended, and roughly 35x more phosphate than is recommended (1 ppm is the normal).

When I dosed about 1.5-1.7 ppm (DTPA chelated iron) iron I saw signs of toxicity in my plants. This is backed up by several research papers which found 1.1 ppm iron is toxic (non-chelated iron). Furthermore, there are other more toxic metal nutrients in CSM+B that were also added at 25x the recommended doses. Some of the micros like copper are toxic at 0.15 ppm and should be dosed at less than 0.015 ppm.

Basically, you need to stop dosing CSM+B and phosphate entirely and let the plants recover. For that matter why are you dosing the water column with fertilizers anyway? You are using aquasoil which should have all the nutrients in it. You only need to dose the water column if you have plants that are not rooted in the aquasoil, and even then dose sparingly.

If you still really want to dose the water column then I recommend you first wait 3-4 weeks and let your plants recover then start dosing but use the fertilator on APC to calculate how much of each you need to add, it shows you the recommended amounts at the bottom of the calculator box. You'll also need to buy a digital jeweler's scale from ebay (about $15-17), it should be accurate to 0.01 grams since you are dosing a tiny tank. Otherwise you can buy the 0.1 gram scale and then mix a larger amount of fertilizer with some water and do a dilution until it is diluted to the correct amount (ex: if you add 1 gram to 1 cup of water, then take half of the water out and put it into a new cup, then add fresh water until you fill the cup you'll have 0.5 grams in the cup, keep doing that until you get down the the # of grams you need).

Link to the fertilator:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fertilator.php

If you need any more help with anything let me know.
 
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