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EI doesn't work and is killing my plants

37K views 273 replies 33 participants last post by  BOTIA 
#1 · (Edited)
Click-bait title but it may be true. I've posted a lot on this forum over the past few months and I've repeating dosing with I'll effect. I've read and watched guides for AGES it feels. It's time to get to the bottom of this. Following EI has done nothing but ruin my plants and I need help to figure out what is causing this. Either I'm missing something stupid or I have a variable that is messing with a common and trusted fertilization method. PLEASE HELP!!

My current tank and close ups of all of the issues: https://imgur.com/a/DwrAsR0. What you see is basically what I saw when I started down my quest of fertilizing correctly over four months ago. I went through MANY issues and am now starting back at square one with pictures and logging because it didn't work. I'll probably copy this to a log and keep that going. For now, I ask the community: do you know for certain if I'm missing anything weird right now?

As you can see, there are issues all over the place:
- My plants in the front left have their bottom leaves constantly dying. This is the most common shared issue between all of the plants.
- My plants in the back left have holes and lightening (see-through) of the leaves.
- My red plants in the back middle show the common sign of old leaves dying as new ones arise. Same for the baby rotala to their left. The older leaves turn yellow too.
- My java moss seems to attract hair algae unless I have a powerhead on right side of the tank (opposite lilly pipes)
- If I don't overdose phosphate by about 3-5x I get green spot algae on the glass.
- My carpet grows slow as hell or simply shrinks.
- I have BBA everywhere, even after I destroyed its presence via hydrogen peroxide two months ago.

Dosing (3x a week each):
- Nitrate - KNO3 - 7.5ppm
- Phosphate - KH2PO4 - 1.3ppm
- Potassium - K2SO4 - I don't dose this due to the two above
- CSM + B - 1/64 tsp or 0.1ppm Fe
- Fe - Flourish Iron - 0.15ppm
- Magnesium - MgSO4 7H2O - 5ppm once per week after water change
- Calcium - From Seiryu rocks - Don't need to dose and hovers around 50ppm as long as I keep up with water changes

Parameters as of 4 days ago when I reset with water changes:
- Nitrate - 10ppm~
- Phosphate - 1ppm~
- Potassium - Likely greater than 30ppm, possibly 50ppm (read Unique Things below)
- Ph - 6.6 with Co2 is on, 7 or 7.1 when it's off
- Kh - 5
- Co2 - Around or slightly above 30ppm via drop checker and ph/kh readings
- Gh - 8
- Calcium - 50ppm
- Magnesium - 12.5 ppm
- Fe - 0.05ppm
- TDS - 257

Parameters today, as of dosing twice since hard reset: (COMING)

Tank setup:
- 22 gal long tank
- RO water
- Permanent temperature monitor connect to heater, heating at a constant 78 degrees Farenheit
- Permanent milwaukee Ph probe.
- 12 neon tetras, 4 scarlet badis, 1 pea puffer, 12 amanos
- Current LED Plus Pro light at 100% (60-70 par at bottom measured with par meter)
- Lights on 8 hours a day
- Injecting Co2. At max level before lights come on for the day. Turned off when lights go off
- Eheim pro 4 canister filter. No carbon pad
- Lilly pipes
- Vortech MP10 powerhead for opposite side of tank
- Rocks are Seiryu and bleed calcium
- Amazonian aquasoil substrate

Unique things:
- Seiryu rocks had my GH at 16 at some point and calcium at 100 ppm. It was probably like this for months but I did 5 water changes over a few days to get it down to 8gh and 50 ppm for calcium.
- For some reason I need to overdose phosphate by about 3x to get it to constantly measure above 1ppm and not get green spot algae
- I've been seeing the pinholes and lower leaves dying for months and I haven't been able to figure out the issue. Adding extra potassium directly related to more bubbles appearing but that meant my tank had over 50ppm of potassium in it. I've stopped doing that but the tank is worse now.
- Almost all of the original plants have been removed and replanted due to the point above.
- Hair algae will grow on the big rock with java moss if I don't have a powerhead on the other side, but this also means plants right under the powerhead do not grow much
- I murdered the BBA with back to back mass dosings of hydrogen peroxide over two days but it also killed a few shrimp and both of my snails. This was two months ago. The BBA is still coming back.
- Co2 is always light green and I measure the Ph and Kh every once in a while, especially after I got my calcium ppm down.

Update-------------------------------------------------
Lots of discussion. The key points that some people can agree on are:
- Lights and ferts are simply too strong and high for the lower plant mass
- Flow may not be strong enough, especially with the rock on the right. (I have a powerhead on the right pushing water back but it may not be getting down in the middle)
- High calcium may have been messing with the other ferts before I got it under control
- Substrate is too deep in some areas without something like powersand under it

Tank in the state it was in before I removed most of the plants: https://gfycat.com/remorsefulhorribledesertpupfish. If you look closely, you can see holes in the leaves of the red plants in the middle right once the camera pans down. This was happening on ALL plants but was most obvious on those. This was taken AFTER my initial issues of older leaves having pinholes, yellowing and algae appeared. The plants you see here were recently trimmed and stayed stunted. It's bubbling so much because I just added the daily dose of 1/8tsp of K (because that's what I thought my deficiency had been). Again though, they were still growing slow.

My plan forward is to simply reset as best as I can with water changes and peroxide doses to kill the algae, while going back to 4 hour light periods or less until the new plants I get grow out. This time I'll be better prepared to deal with unforseen issues.
 
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#4 ·
It is late and I may have more to say but.

This makes me wonder, what is your de-gassed pH reading?
Ph - 6.6 with Co2 is on, 7 or 7.1 when it's off
This is not a full point pH drop, how is 30ppm CO2 justified?
Please don't answer the pH vs. KH chart.
Drop checker and ph/kh chart. I'll have to double check the ph tomorrow morning before the co2 turns on. It's always fully degassed by then.

In my experience full EI dosing requires a lot of plants a lot of light and alot of co2. If any of these are lacking EI would be too much and would cause more ill effects than positive. With your ph drop and plant load I would decrease the amount your dosing. Goodluck and enjoy the ride
Yes, its not heavily planted. How much should I dose then? I've tried laying off or adding more but I still have random ass issues that seem like every deficiency in one.
 
#3 ·
In my experience full EI dosing requires a lot of plants a lot of light and alot of co2. If any of these are lacking EI would be too much and would cause more ill effects than positive. With your ph drop and plant load I would decrease the amount your dosing. Goodluck and enjoy the ride
 
#5 ·
Hate to be cliche but everyones tank is different and I or anyone here could tell you how much you should actually be dosing. I would suggest, finding an accurate ph drop. If you aren't achieving atleast 1ph drop without fish stress, that typically means circulation is an issue. Lack of co2 will/could/can show the same fert like deficiency symptoms. The amount of co2 will typically be judged by the amount of light your pushing. Sorry if my reply is of no help
 
#6 ·
I appreciate the co2 concern but I was getting 1 ph drop for months when my gh
(and kh) was high. 7.6 down to 6.6. Same issues. I also have a powerhead to make sure there is strong flow even at the opposite end of the tank's outflow


As for recently, the drop checker is always a light green after a few hours of my ph sitting at 6.6.
 
#7 ·
Yes, Seiryu stone alters water parameters. I have some in my tank, but they are small stones that were sold for a nano tank ( I have a 40 breeder) so they haven't caused problems. Since you knew these stones were causing a problem, why did you keep them? Keeping for the sake of not having to dose calcium while they are reeking havoc on the rest of your water parameters is not a good idea. It is easy enough to remineralize RO water and for a small tank, it will cost next to nothing to do so. Planted tanks like stability.

As for the green spot algae, this isn't always a phosphate problem. If you have high organics in your tank from dying plants, that too can cause green spot.

While it is true that plants melt and go through awkward phases as they adjust to new environment, sick plants are algae magnets. Mosses in general tend to be algae magnets because they collect stuff that is floating around in the water column. Vacuuming them or using a soft toothbrush to remove the detritus they collect once a week during a water change keeps them algae free. Some mosses also need to be trimmed as the base layer will die off without light which causes more problems with organics in the water column.

What does your tank maintenance schedule look like?

As for EI itself, I'm not willing to go into that rabbithole, but I will say that it is meant to be modified. My bottle of orange water from Tropica is also EI, but it doesn't contain nitrates or phosphorus. I don't dose my tank what Tropica recommends as I don't use CO2, I don't have stems to feed and my fast growers Vals and Giant Hairgrass are given root tabs which contains some phosphates, but most of the phosphates in my tank comes from fish food.

There is no true definition of 'heavily planted', but usually that means more than 75% of a persons' tank is covered with plant mass. Your tank does not meet that so-called standard.
 
#10 ·
Seiryu - ita not cuasing problems anymore now that I do more water changes throughout the week.

Green spot and maintenance - Water change used to be 30% a week but now it's definitely 50%. I scrub the glass clean as well but explicitly didn't scrub the tank for my pictures so people could see what it's like at the end of one week cycle.

Amazonian sucks up PO4, among other things.

10 ppm NO3 and 1 PO4 my tank would crash.

60 PAR is on the low side for fast growing flowery stems. And light spread/PAR drops off quickly off center with LED's. PAR at edges might be significantly lower.

CO2 still seems on the low side.

BBA usually related to high organics, not enough maintenance, and unhappy plants

I would find journals of tanks you want to emulate that started up with Amazonian.
PAR has shown it can grow plants just fine so I'm not sure it's that.

I can turn up my co2 but it's already near the point where it makes my fish grasp. My puffer will start gasping when he starts running around chasing bloodworms.

As you saw, TDS was o ly 257 and I'm doing at least 50% water changes each week to keep the calcium at 50ppm and gh at 8.

I'll have to check out journals that use this substrate. I thought amazonia was the too tier substrate that everyone wanted to use.

If you want to eliminate that it's EI dosing just use some K and micros for the next few months and see what happens. Every tank I started with aquasoil that's all I did for the 1st 6 months and everything started up clean. Granted all tanks are different but the AS is so loaded that you don't really need much else in the beginning.

If your getting BBA that quickly to me that's an organic / light / co2 imbalance.
So I had stopped dosing everything except co2 out of frustration and what you're seeing is what happened. Holes came back and lower leaves died within a week. Before, I had to dose 4-5x phosphate and potassium to get the tank to bubble.

I thought me overdosing compared to EI was way off, but from what people are able to tell me so far in this thread (basically nothing, sadly except I have calcium rocks and aquasoil) the extra dosing may have been warranted.
 
#8 ·
Amazonian sucks up PO4, among other things.

10 ppm NO3 and 1 PO4 my tank would crash.

60 PAR is on the low side for fast growing flowery stems. And light spread/PAR drops off quickly off center with LED's. PAR at edges might be significantly lower.

CO2 still seems on the low side.

BBA usually related to high organics, not enough maintenance, and unhappy plants

I would find journals of tanks you want to emulate that started up with Amazonian.
 
#9 ·
If you want to eliminate that it's EI dosing just use some K and micros for the next few months and see what happens. Every tank I started with aquasoil that's all I did for the 1st 6 months and everything started up clean. Granted all tanks are different but the AS is so loaded that you don't really need much else in the beginning.

If your getting BBA that quickly to me that's an organic / light / co2 imbalance.
 
#13 · (Edited)
You have a host of problems the major one being Algae.
Your secondary one is old leaf loss in Ludwigia(?).

You are too focussed on ferts, yes you don't need 'Classic EI' or anything close to that level of dosing, but you have to deal with Algae first.

I would start with good husbandry. Scrub glass, take out all stone and scrub it. Remove the worst algae infested leaves/plants and then do 3X 50% water changes in succession to reset things as best you can.

Then I would stop dosing for a week, lower light duration to 4 hours/day and see if your tank adjusts and algae stops growing.

I would do that first before considering any other changes. The substrate may be loaded with ferts and this excess may take a long time to deplete so I wouldn't worry about dosing for a while. Even afterwards with your hard water I would favor Osmocote plus sparingly near hungry stems over caking on ferts in the water column.
 
#14 ·
I suppose I could try this as I have nothing else to lose. It doesn't necessarily help me understand what has been going wrong though. My best guess right now is that EI is causing all of the issues because my tank isn't planted heavily.

Also, I've been performing your suggested cleaning and husbandry for months now. What you see is what I get after 5 days after cleaning with the current setup and plant mass.
 
#15 ·
If you believe that your substrate is depleted than not dosing anything and doing big water changes will surely deprive the plants more than the algae. It's pretty much impossible to rid the water of all nutrients that algae won't grow. I think there's still some life in the AS after 4 months so I would at least dose K and micros which you would not be getting from the substrate or the tank.

If you started the tank with 8 hours light that would have been a problem, so I would definitely reduce that or if reduce your peak lighting to 2-3 hours and doing regular large water changes.
 
#18 ·
It'a no secret that the easiest tanks to startup clean are low stock, high plant mass with co2. You have good uptake with little organic waste, but it's certainly not a requirement if the husbandry is there. People have been using EI type dosing for iwagumi and other minimalist type setups for decades. They don't always add stems and them remove them once the tank matures. They manage the startup with short light cycle/ or short intense cycle, regular large water changes and a just good over maintenance by removing any dead plants/leaves etc on a daily basis.

If you look at most iwagumi type setups (or an ADA journal) where the plant mass is lean your notice above average water changes for that particular tank to make up for the lack of uptake by plants.

As I mentioned I'm dosing regular EI dosing in my newly setup 3-Ft and the plant mass is extremely lean. How is this possible that I don't have any nuisance algae from the excessive ferts?
 
#21 ·
It'a no secret that the easiest tanks to startup clean are low stock, high plant mass with co2. You have good uptake with little organic waste, but it's certainly not a requirement if the husbandry is there. People have been using EI type dosing for iwagumi and other minimalist type setups for decades. They don't always add stems and them remove them once the tank matures. They manage the startup with short light cycle/ or short intense cycle, regular large water changes and a just good over maintenance by removing any dead plants/leaves etc on a daily basis.

If you look at most iwagumi type setups (or an ADA journal) where the plant mass is lean your notice above average water changes for that particular tank to make up for the lack of uptake by plants.

As I mentioned I'm dosing regular EI dosing in my newly setup 3-Ft and the plant mass is extremely lean. How is this possible that I don't have any nuisance algae from the excessive ferts?
This is very good advice.

When I was dialing in my system trying to rid my tank of algae that seemed endless, I tried everything you name a method of getting rid of algae and I tried it over a 2 month period.

Lowering fert levels just made my issues worse.

What finally worked to kill the algae was keeping my EI dosage high, Co2 high, but messing with my photoperiod.
I have my lights on for about 8 hours total, 4 hours of low light fading into 30 minutes of really high light burst fading into 3 hours of medium-high light fading into 30 minutes of low light.

After dialing in my photoperiod I only get negligible amounts of algae, and my plants are growing very well.
 
#19 ·
Thank you everyone. What I'm thinking now is that my EI dosing is just too strong for my tank in its current state. I didn't clearly state this but the tank was at least 33% covered in plants before.

I think I will try reducing the ferts and light while keeping the co2 going. I need to replant though because my amanos tore up all of my rotala (two cups!!).

What I'm most afraid of is getting it in balance and the holes and old leaves dying again, but I'll have to deal with that when I get there.

As for inert substrate - what are people using?
 
#24 ·
If you are using aquasoil there is a lot of leeway with regards to dosing.
Read this :
https://www.advancedplantedtank.com/fertilisers-how-to.html

If you have light plant load, a less heavy dose is actually much easier to control. This is why most hardscape focused lightly planted competitions scapes never use EI - even the competition folks from the US that started with EI moved away from it due to control issues (they always get dust algae on their hardscape/walls). Nutrients are just one angle though, CO2 control - overall tank husbandry are much more important factors.

My farm tank that uses aquasoil doses 1/3 EI or less - and that is with a lot more light than most of the folks here. Best thing is, I can get away with doing water changes once every 2 weeks even.




and for my hardscape focused scapes I can get away with 1/4 EI or so. Still much higher density compared to many EI tanks. Plants don't really uptake all that much - or rather they can down regulate their uptake to grow on much leaner levels than people on this forum would have you believe. Look outside at the rest of the world (where most of the competition scapes come from) - most folks don't use EI at all... and we all grow plants just fine
 
#26 ·
If you are using aquasoil there is a lot of leeway with regards to dosing.
Read this :
https://www.advancedplantedtank.com/fertilisers-how-to.html

If you have light plant load, a less heavy dose is actually much easier to control. This is why most hardscape focused lightly planted competitions scapes never use EI - even the competition folks from the US that started with EI moved away from it due to control issues (they always get dust algae on their hardscape/walls). Nutrients are just one angle though, CO2 control - overall tank husbandry are much more important factors.

My farm tank that uses aquasoil doses 1/3 EI or less - and that is with a lot more light than most of the folks here. Best thing is, I can get away with doing water changes once every 2 weeks even.
SNIP

SNIP

and for my hardscape focused scapes I can get away with 1/4 EI or so. Still much higher density compared to many EI tanks. Plants don't really uptake all that much - or rather they can down regulate their uptake to grow on much leaner levels than people on this forum would have you believe. Look outside at the rest of the world (where most of the competition scapes come from) - most folks don't use EI at all... and we all grow plants just fine
SNIP
This is interesting.
If you had to guess, what level or how much ferts are you getting from the aquasoil?

I'm asking because if I do this with inert substrate I would expect 1/3 EI dosage to be much too lean.
 
#35 · (Edited)
You need to read Dennis’s substrate pages, paying special attention to layers and microbial section and how the warning about avoiding organics in really deep anaerobic layers pertains to your tank.

https://www.advancedplantedtank.com/defining-good-substrate.html

Your setup also ignores everything about setting up a good, brisk buffeting current across substrate bed using a pump/circulator to create a good high>low current flow.

This pic of your I’ve marked up shows problem area in red. Blues is your circulation pump and where you should have it placed and pointed.

 
#46 ·
You have verified your lighting and CO2 and you are suppling all the needed macros. So that leave one thing left. Your micros.

CSM+B is a good fertilizer but like most is missing some plant nutrients (nickel) and it is not balanced for an aquarium. Most fertilizers have little to no copper and zinc in them. CSM+B has 0.001ppm of zinc and 0.006ppm Tap water is typically very rich in these nutrients due to leaching from metal pipes. I could not get reliable growth in my aquarium with the fertilizer I purchased, RO water, and inert substrate. Now I am making my own micro fertilizer a I keep my zinc levels at 0.020ppm Zinc and 0.010ppm copper and have reliable plant growth.

I think this might be your problem. Some people including myself are now making their own micro fertilizer rather than buying it. The links below are about making your own micros. They are long but contain a lot of useful information. i also think you might just want to use an inert substrate in the future. your nutrient rich substrate only lasted a few months. Meaning in the future you may have to replace the substrate as soon as your plants get established. Also if you make your own macros you wouldn't need the extra nutrients from the substrate.


https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/11-fertilizers-water-parameters/1221018-custom-micro-mix-thread.html

https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/11-fertilizers-water-parameters/1288329-share-your-dosing-thread.html
 
#52 · (Edited)
Whichever method of dosing you choose your always providing ferts in excess, otherwise something would run out. What is EI? Your dosing Macro/micro. As many experienced aquarists on this board have mentioned you tweak things for your setup. You don't blindly dose regardless of what the tank is showing you.

With that said most systems I don't believe will suffer by some movement in dosing I'm not talking about extremes just within normal range.

These excerpts are from advancedplantedtank.com:

"While the growth rates on the EI system are considerably faster, especially if higher lighting/CO2 levels are used, most plants can adapt to either a fat or lean nutrient dosing system."


In regards to Tom Barr (EI):

"His success is more closely tied to good maintenance, quality of lighting and upkeep than on the actual nutrient ratios used, but people tend to get caught up with the nutrient angle.

In regards to EI and ADA:

"Looking at these two popular methods show just how large the differences between dosing levels can be and both systems can produce great planted tanks."
 
#56 · (Edited)
@Ddrizzle,

create a clickbait title, get a clickbait discussion. As always, discussions go on all sorts of tangents with no real resolution. What about YOUR tank? Don't really know for sure. Take all the guesses that came before me. However, I will impart upon you something I live my planted tank by.

"Think of light as a gas pedal of a car. The harder you press down on the gas pedal (the more light you have), the faster your car will go (the faster your plants will grow). However, the car will require more regular maintenance (your plants will require more maintenance, i.e. fertilizers, CO2, etc)."

Quoted from Darkblade's primer : https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=107303#2

The phrase has been rephrased. quoted. paraphrased. but it holds true.

Whatever ails your tank right now, be it fertilizers, co2, etc, the easiest solution is also the simplest solution right now, but probably one of the hardest to do because we're mentally blocked from doing it. You have no business going fast on a car that doesn't have all its cylinders humming or wheels balanced. So, I echo the posts earlier to reduce your lighting levels and/or amounts. A Satellite Plus Pro at 8 hours full intensity sounds like a little too much. Too much gas.

If you have algae at the level you're having within 5 days, cutting light levels can only help you. A plant in the darkness can't even die in 5 days or else how would we ship plants? Try it for the next 5 days. Something significant. Like half the lighting period or half the intensity.

What do you do if it makes a difference? Try to run at that reduced level for a while as you figure out all the other issues. Flow, co2 injection, saturation, everything mentioned before me. All good ideas in their way. Pick a method of fertilization and stick with it for a while. Shouldn't matter in the short term. Less light lets you run slower and buys you more time to think about your problems. Can't think about issues if you're scrubbing down a tank every 5 days.

Who am I? Probably a noone. I can't claim any famous publications or fancy award winning tanks. I can only claim that I'm some regular hobbyist that went through what you are going through many years ago. Ecoxotic E-60 (Current Satellite Plus Pro's predecessor) at full power for 8 hours. and before that some T5HO Coralifes at full power. Just trying all sorts of stuff but always algae farming. Finally got smart and cut that light down.

When you get things right, I promise, you CAN run high light to your hearts content without triggering significant amounts of algae. I now can push 2X Satellite plus pros at their full power. But even then, I only do it for 4 hours and drop it to 30% or less for the rest of the time (the other 4 hours). You give plants that short burst and they can be happy enough. Back then, I was baffled myself when I saw tanks running lights way higher than me and not getting algae. To the point of disbelief. But you know what? At the time, my tank just wasn't running properly. Except, the hard part here is not knowing what the problem is. So what do you do when your car is acting weird on the highway and it doesn't match up with what you understand is wrong with it? You drive slow, pull off, stop and take a look. Either way, you let off the gas.

Good luck and I hope you find your way!
 
#60 ·
I honestly don't understand what the major problem is here. Yes in a perfect world the communication on what to with certain setups could be better, etc.but EI last I checked is not a company It's guy who developed a dosing method. In contrast ADA is a company. Now I love ADA stuff I obviously use their AS (which is probably what 99% of the people in the US use and not much else), but how many people come on this forum and don't know what to do with it? They don't follow any of the guidelines set out by ADA in terms of water changes, lighting and planting and usually end up with a mess. Some even have rinsed the stuff and then call it the product from hell.

This is going back to Dennis's thread on over thinking ferts. There is a fairly wide margin of error if your take care of husbandry, co2 and lighting as he even describes on his site. Dennis doesn't even contribute Barr's success to fert dosing, but to the other aspects mentioned. If you have algae growing everywhere I'm very confident it's not because you provided a little too much of this or that or forget the nickel.
 
#63 · (Edited)
Just an fyi, Here is my tank before I ripped out the plants in the back due to stunting/holes/dying (right after the daily 1/8 tsp of K). I kept the light and ferts where they were and my initial pics is what happened: https://gfycat.com/remorsefulhorribledesertpupfish . I ripped them out because the plants were growing extremely slow and dying from the bottom up. This is the problem I've yet to understand or solve from my main post, even after everyone's help.

Anyways, thanks for the posts. I DO understand the light vs co2 vs ferts thing. I bought a book called Sunked Gardens that explained it. Three months into my tank, my plants were stalling so I read the EI method and thought "ok, these people have success and I know I need more ferts because my plants are suffering even though I have adequate light and co2". However, I think EI, with what the current plant mass was, ruined my plants. Otherwise it was potentially my insanely high calcium.

Either way, I now realize I don't need a ton of ferts. Plants won't die when the nitrate isnt sitting at 20ppm, but it can die if it's way too high.

Now that I'm comfortable with my understanding of all of the parameters, my plan is to reset with water changes, lower the light time to 4 hours a day and replant. Basically reset. I'll be keeping co2 where it is as well because I havent read that it will make a negative difference.

If I run I to the same problems of old leaves dying, expect another thread. I simply cannot remember what exactly my maintenance or ferts were at after my initial stunting three months in. My hope is that I missed something obvious then.
 
#64 ·
Now that I'm comfortable with my understanding of all of the parameters, my plan is to reset with water changes, lower the light time to 4 hours a day and replant. Basically reset. I'll be keeping co2 where it is as well because I havent read that it will make a negative difference.

If I run I to the same problems of old leaves dying, expect another thread. I simply cannot remember what exactly my maintenance or ferts were at after my initial stunting three months in. My hope is that I missed something obvious then.
Sounds like a decent plan. If you could get your hands on a PAR meter(Seneye?) I would want to check PAR in the corners and at the back of your tank just to be sure you really do have 60 par at substrate as you beleive from extrapolation.

If you can keep up with water changes 2X per week that will help you keep Calcium levels in check (just in case that is a problem). While not definitive or conclusive look what excess Calcium could inhibit (K, Fe, Mg, P, Mn, Zn, B).

 
#65 ·
Okay- not pejorative- but, "set apart". Does this positioning of yourself as an "outlier" indicate you are in a position of neutrality? I wonder...
So, philosophy is not your thing.
From what I gather, this is most important to you :


"... this place needs to feature more scapes that run on leaner ferts to demonstrate that it is also a viable method and educate more on the proper selection and starting point which in the vast majority of cases should have been leaner in the first place. Leaner ferts, less light, and slower and more controlled growth initially with a slow ramp up with increasing plant mass."

Education. I think this is important myself. Thats why I spend a lot of time-daily- helping others, answering questions on fish health, husbandry, illnesses...

Seems far more productive- being that you value the education of others in broader terms than what ( you feel) is being offered currently- to help beginners get off on the right foot. Be an alternate voice in the community by helping those that need your help.

Believe me- I have some alternative views that are not part of the consensus- given opportunity I express them. When beginners ask a direct question in relation to these views- I give them my take. Inevitably, the detractors then give theirs- but, I can at least give that beginner something to weigh when they are first making important choices. This is where your knowledge can make a difference.
 
#73 ·
Education. I think this is important myself. Thats why I spend a lot of time-daily- helping others, answering questions on fish health, husbandry, illnesses...
I may regret replying to the thread that will never end. :|
@Discusluv good point made on the "Education" front.
When searching the web one must also have the ability to determine fact from fiction.
Everything on the web is of course absolutely the truth! >:)

To add to this, in a planted tank world "Experience" is also key.
So many species of plants are available these days.
Last time I checked there are no courses on trimming and propagation of aquatic plants.

This journey takes time, I'm 5 years in on heavily planted tanks.
Some days I feel like I've only grazed the surface.
 
#67 ·
OP;

The other unlikely, but possible scenario is that you hit a bad batch of aquasoil. Recent batches have been more inconsistent - enough that I stopped using ADA soil myself.
If plants are rotting at the roots even as the tips are growing well, this may be it.
Easy way to test this is have a cup of another substrate in the same tank and see how plants grow in it.

Bump: OP;

The other unlikely, but possible scenario is that you hit a bad batch of aquasoil. Recent batches have been more inconsistent - enough that I stopped using ADA soil myself.
If plants are rotting at the roots even as the tips are growing well, this may be it.
Easy way to test this is have a cup of another substrate in the same tank and see how plants grow in it.
 
#80 ·
Hi @Ddrizzle,

With Pogostemon erectus and Rotala 'Vietnam' it is not possible to see any pinholes in the leaves with my old eyes. I can tell you that most of the other plants in the 45 gallon are doing fine with the exception of my Hygrophila which does show good new leaves but leaf deterioration as the leaves mature.....likely potassium in my case.
 
#90 ·
Yea, some long standing crown plants like swords, especially if you get ones tall enough that tips emerge from water or even a Anubis lancefolia mounted to rock and give the roots time to work their way down into deep depths of that substrate would bring co2 down via roots and release oxygen as part of uptake of nutrients.

There’s a fine line between desirable anaerobic activity and a sour, putrid, stagnant lower layer of organics leeching sulfide and other noxious substances back into your water.
 
#91 ·
Im curious to how common this anaerobic scenario happens- where leaching of sulfides actually leaks out into the tank at such a level that it is toxic or detrimental? Ive heard it can happen and dont doubt it does happen, but haven't seen it myself in my tanks in 3 decades of fish-keeping. And believe me, I stumbled along the same path of mistakes and mishaps that every other beginner has to navigate.

My tanks did not have plants up until a few years ago and have always had a depth of 3 inches of substrate because it appeals to me.
 
#99 ·
Hi @cl3537,

Only time will tell, I plan on maintaining this tank 'as is' until I move out the Melanotaenia lacustris fry to a larger tank, probably a month or two and will try to do a periodic update so folks can see the progress (or lack thereof).
 
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