[Jeffww]

So I've got some L. brevipes with new curled leaves. Well rather, I had brevipes with curled leaves. But once I skipped my water change for a week (EI dosing blah blah blah) my deficiency went completely away. What in the water could have done this? Maybe some pollutant in my tap? Simply because building up pushed me over the deficiency gap? But then again what could the deficiency have been then since my tap is about 4ppm mg and 30ppm Ca (pretty optimal for plants). Boron did not rectify the issue. And dosing MASSIVE amounts of GH booster did not. Although in retrospect the boron may have had a slight effect on the leaves but the new growth was mottled and just not pretty as a result.

 

[2in10]

Sounds like something in the water or you need to dose EI heavier so you can make the weekly water change.

 

[Jeffww]

Oh belive me I dose plenty of fertilizers(spent about 2 months tweaking them). And the WC as I've experienced it isn't really necessary according the the tenets of EI. I guess I shouldn't really worry since the problem's gone but if it was something in the water I might be more worried about other things...

 

[OverStocked]

I doubt this is it, but one thing CSM lacks that I feel a little passion about is manganese.

It is "odd" that ei would be "lacking" but obviously it is possible.

Perhaps the issue is that the water change causes a fluctuation or deficiency in Co2. Speculation at best, on my part.

How long had this been going on? Always interesting to delve in to. Deficiencies are hard to pinpoint most of the time, but it is fun to try.

 

[Jeffww]

I would say a good month. I'll also say that the issue does not occur with the closely related L. arcuata or any other of my plants. The problem also seems to be most localized in axial shoots not the main shoot (which recovers as the day goes on). Perhaps plant hormones suppressing growth? The hell if I knew. I've tried upping a good 20% increase on macro dosing an I've been doing a 75% increase of micro as well. I'm going to do a WC this weekend and I'll see if it comes back the following week.

 

[JeffHB]

Consider the CO2 aspects involved...it may not be a deficiency of nutrients at all...as a matter of fact it shouldn't be if you are Ei dosing appropriately.

 

[150EH]

Why don't you just do your water change every other week if it's working well for your plants, as I understand EI is not written in stone and playing with the formula and water change frequency is encouraged.

I do it all the time, I just don't tell anybody, opps.

You can reach a limit of overdose where the plants respond by shutting down, but it doesn't sound like that's the case here. But I dose the macros full out and hardly dose the micros at all becuase my substrate seems to hold Fe very well, this is not fact but just observations of my own tank.

There was just a thread about someone dosing insane amounts of K2S04 until the plant leaves started to curl and contorte.

 

[plantbrain]

There is not rule about doing 50% weekly water change, it's just a starting point. I do monthly on a few tanks, others get them 2x a week. I just modify and adjust according to basic stuff: eg........I have mostly ferns and Anubias, and a high fish load, low light, high current. I'll typically do 60-80%, if I bother to change, I tend to go big. Does not take much difference in labor and no more motivation(the real issue).

If things improve without a water change, then perhaps the plants/sediment , wood etc is removing some of the KH? Sometimes adding new water adds a lot more CO2, we often see nicer growth the 1-2 days after a water change.

This can lead to good CO2 1 day a week etc, then poor CO2 the rest of the week. This is often enough to get folks through.

So you could do this: water changes 2-3x a week large %. Then try as suggested one water change once every 2 weeks. You might consider a different Fe chelator.

I had a lot of L acurata which is somewhat similar to L brevipes in real hard tap........it did great, but CO2 would cause issues, once that was adjusted correctly, then things went great.

The other possible issue might be something negative in the tap.
RO/Carbon filtering prior might resolve that question.

EI is useful as a standard non limiting reference, however, it is possible to exceed the non limiting values. In general, it is used to rule things out, not show cause. To find cause, you must rule out the other possible factors, of which there are MANY.

CO2 would be my suspect if I where you. I also would not change the water much and then watch closely after I did them. If 2 weeks works, stick with that for now, but watch closely, then move to 3-4 week ranges SLOWLY.