Looked around but could not find an answer.
The NEW leaves of anubias, and bucies, have holes (see pictures). Small 3 leaves are new (a week old maybe), the larger one are older.
Most of other plants are doing ok (ludvigia, rotalas - see picture for reference). Some gsa here and there. Did not change much in my dosing, but the symptoms started a month ago or so.

Water parameter:
5-6 dKH
10 GH
CO2 injected, drop of ~1PH
NO3- 25ppm
Phosphate 2.4 ppm

Ferts added per week:
NO3 7ppm
PO4 1.6 ppm
K 11 ppm
CSM+B Fe 0.2ppm
Flourish Iron Fe 0.25ppm

trying to match something around 20-30ppm nitrates. Occasionally i add some Phosphates to keep the GSA at bay.

WC once a week 30-50%

thanks.

anyone?

Snail's.?

unlikely. I have assassin snails (5-10) and some limited number of small pond (?) snails. no plecos or like.

What fish are in your tank?

Seems like you have potassium covered.

It's an issue with imbalanced micronutrients, excess phosphate, or both. If I were to guess, it's the excess Fe causing oxidative damage.

So you're say to do more water changes?

thanks! fish - tetras and guppies.
Excessive Fe. Interesting, maybe. I am already essentially half the dose of micros, but maybe i should cut on Fe for a while, and lower the Phosphates (reading now 2.4 ppm). btw, no readings on Fe, but given the hardish water i have, that probably is expected.
Could that be a deficiency of some micros?
I doubt is any sort of macro deficiency. My solution already has more K that usually, and enough Phosphates too. NO3 is always around 20+ppm (testing regularly).

The substrate is a mix of eco-complete, Seachem Fluorite, and regular small pebbles, set for 2.5 years.

I've experienced the same kind of holes in my Anubias a few months back as i was experimenting with different nutrient ratios. Even new leaves were affected. I'll have to look back at my data logs to know exactly what led up to it but IIRC, it was correlated with a high Fe:Mn ratio and low Zn. I haven't specifically experimented with Anubias since they are generally very tolerant of excess nutrients.

Fe tox symptoms appear first on the older leaves, not necessarily the bottom most. So even fairly new leaves can develop Fe tox. This will appear as necrotic spots, loss of pigment, and ultimately result in holes. Toxic concentrations of Fe will be exacerbated by high light intensities due to the increased rate of free radical species. The more imbalanced the nutrient ratios, the more likely Fe to will occur because the physiological mechanisms are impaired that handle these free radicals. Under low light intensities, the rate of free radical production is slow enough that the plant may be able to cope and no visual symptoms may be present. This phenomenon of light-induced toxicity isn't directly due to phototoxicity but a nutrient imbalance which results in toxicity.

But, it could also very well be a deficiency caused by excess phosphate. Excess phosphate will precipitate with cations rendering both unavailable. Precipitation occurs very quickly, even in very soft water. Higher KH will probably increase the rate of reaction due to the higher OH content. If this is the case, then more traces are necessary to overcome precipitation as well as more frequent dosing.

Nice tank!

Should not other plant species be giving him more issues than the Anubias if nutrient toxicities are the issue here?

On another note, kinda curios. How do you dose your tank, do you dose everything separately? You are on a lot about ratios and it seems to me that you think all (to this date) versions of micro blends, be it dry mixed or premixed are in ratios making them toxic to some extent? How do you combat this yourself. Do you have any recent pics of your tank? Your plants must look stunning considering the amount of precision you must apply when running your tank, sounds like a full time job tbh.

I'd need close-up pics of the other plants to determine if there are issues, but from far away, there are some growth patterns that look characteristic of EI dosing.

I'm still doing exploratory experiments to observe plant response to certain individual nutrients. So far, it's become apparent that it's very difficult to grow some very sensitive species alongside ones that have higher nutrient demands. Growing the sensitive species well resulted in nutrient deficiencies in others. Growing the higher nutrient demand plants results in toxicities of the sensitive species. Some of the plants grow very healthy until I change the dosing. I haven't yet been able to find a balance that suits all plants in my tank.

The only thing I know with high certainty is that a well developed root system is vital for plant health since it can acquire necessary nutrients in the substrate which may not be present in enough quantities in the water column.

In the pic below, the Rotala "Bangladesh" that had been trimmed and replanted in sand suffers from small new leaves as a result of a micronutrient deficiency while the stems that are still rooted in the Floramax substrate (above it in the pic) are still nice and full.


Here's how the same R. "Bangladesh" looked right after trimming and replanting:


So you can see that the stems were initially healthy when trimmed but due to low micronutrients in the water column, suffered from deficiencies and was not able to acquire any from the inert sand substrate.

I spend far less time observing and working on the tank than when I was dosing EI and had dozens of problems that could not be resolved no matter what I did. I actually have hours of free time each day to spend on my art which i didnt have when i was dosing EI. I no longer need to scrub the algae off the walls each week nor do i need to do weekly water changes or trimmings. However, I will do more water changes when it becomes obvious that I OD'd on a certain nutrient. The main question i ask myself now is "what deficiency am i observing?", which can actually be answered, rather than "what the f*** is wrong?" and have no idea what the answer is.

It's also becoming apparent that it's probably better to dose a comprehensive micronutrient fertilizer and adjust individual ratios than to dose individual micronutrients since it can quickly lead to nutrient imbalances.

thaks all fo ryoru replies.

here they are, more pictures.
Bacopa - doing good, no signs. Same with rotalla green, and staurogyne repens (was trimmed and thinned a week ago, it was a nice bushy carpet)

At closer inspection, same type of holes are found in ludwigia repens (old leaves, and upper one too), Hydrocotyle (minor, although), rotala macrandra (lower leaves; otherwise is doing ok).

PS: i have read before the topics on micro-toxicity, and i really hope this thread will not start a war here. please!

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How's your CO2?
They look CO2 deficient. Better circulation maybe.
Micro deficient or toxicity is the last thing you should look at.

CO2 is 1ph drop (from 8.2 to 7.2~7.1), on 1.5 hours before the lights on, off 45 min prior. drop-checker lime green. A little more, and the fish start grasping at the surface. DYI Rector.
Circulation on 46gl: one eheim 2215 and one 2217, and a skimmer (~100 gl/hour).
I would think i have both covered, but who knows.

Bump: btw, the anubias are getting the perfect best stream, both of CO2 and circulation - the canister output is pointed diagonally to them. Does this mean that the circulation probably is not the cause?