what causes this?

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.

Fissure said:

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.

Click to expand...

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!

Those plants look like mine a few months ago. Some still get the same symptoms such as the Ludwigia so possible deficiency.

The Bacopa doesn't look perfect. The leaves aren't fully expanded so are kind of small.

S. repens lower leaves have fallen off. This may be a sign of excess phosphate and/or lack of zinc, symptoms similar to Ludwigia.

Hydrocotyle, same issue with S. repens.

R. macrandra loss of pigment in older leaves, necrotic holes; possible iron tox . Misshapen new leaves may be low boron but could have other causes. In my tank, this plant dies from micronutrient deficiency when i focus on growing sensitive plants. It may need more of certain traces but definitely not iron.

Anubias leaves are not fully expanded and bumpy. No clue what causes this symptom.

If it's phosphate tox, then reduce the amount to under 1mg/L and do not dose more. You should observe immediate improvement in overall growth. Since Fe is antagonistic to other metals, don't add more from the gluconate. The GSA is NOT caused by low phosphate but excess traces.

Lastly, I disagree that this is a low CO2 issue. I grew my tank under high, 100+PAR lighting and less than 10mg/L of CO2 for months without any algae outbreaks or plant melting. Any issues observed were a direct result of the nutrients I dosed or didn't dose during my experiments.

Also, are you sure that's R. "Green"? It looks like "Ceylon".

Thanks for the answer Sol. Not entirely sure what to make of this, the new pictures tells another story than the bigger overview. There is a lot of health issues with the plants and some look unhealthy all over. I just find it hard to belive it would be excess macros/micros due to EI dosing though. I personally dosed normal EI as daily EI due (TNC trace) to a brain error when calculating, did this for 3+ months and when I measured the iron content in the water after said 3 months (this is how I realized my error) it was of the readable end of the drop test kit (+2.0ppm FE) not sure how much over but it was seriously dark blue/violet. And this was after the weekly WC.
Did not see any such issues with my plants (had a whole branch of anubias (30cm+) with healthy leaves except for the usual bba on edges for some. Granted there were pinholes in my staurogyne repens as well though. Though this issue persist in my smaller 110L tank even though I changed the substrate to Aquasoil and only dose 1/4 EI macro and 1/4 EI Micros (0.05 PPM Fe as proxy). Not sure what the [censored][censored][censored][censored] it is with that plant... hate it.

The only thing I can remember that I noticed about plant health is that my cuba took a bad hit during this period. So there was surely some kind of tox from that mistake no doubt. Otherwise there was no fish or shrimp loss, only have amanos though. Even siphoned two batches of healthy Pelvicachromis pulcher fry during this period.

When it comes to phosphates how would you counter the loss of K from dosing less kh2po4 in the macro mix?

I might wonder what the lighting period/intensity is.
If a suspected low CO2 situation is present, and or I wanted more time to tweak /adjust other variables,I might first reduce lighting period/intensity.
this would immediately reduce demand for CO2 as well as slow down the growth, damage.
I might also wonder if source water contain's mostly calcium,,or magnesium.
Can have hard water with higher pH but test kit does not measure which (calcium/magnesium) is major contributer.
If one reduces micro's by 1/2 as reported,, that may be only source of magnesium (maybe a little in fish food's),then the lack of magnesium might be a consideration and addition of Epsom salt would be easy fix without increasing other micro's.
If one is dosing EI,then it is unlikely to be a deficiency of macro/micro's and reading's provided appear to be within EI ranges with current dosing.
If EI is being modified for particular tank/plant,then it is not EI any longer.
My two cent's.

Bump: I might wonder what the lighting period/intensity is.
If a suspected low CO2 situation is present, and or I wanted more time to tweak /adjust other variables,I might first reduce lighting period/intensity.
this would immediately reduce demand for CO2 as well as slow down the growth, damage.
I might also wonder if source water contain's mostly calcium,,or magnesium.
Can have hard water with higher pH but test kit does not measure which (calcium/magnesium) is major contributer.
If one reduces micro's by 1/2 as reported,, that may be only source of magnesium (maybe a little in fish food's),then the lack of magnesium might be a consideration and addition of Epsom salt would be easy fix without increasing other micro's.
If one is dosing EI,then it is unlikely to be a deficiency of macro/micro's and reading's provided appear to be within EI ranges with current dosing.
If EI is being modified for particular tank/plant,then it is not EI any longer.
My two cent's.

Fissure and roadmaster, thanks.

I do not use kh2po4, but instead i am using fleet anema. My mix to 500ml of water is KNO3 33gr, Feet Anema 36ml, K2SO4 35gr.
Lighting: I have it on 8-11:45 and 5-8:45. Using bml 35" at about 60-70%, already dimmed a little bit from the previous setting, also cut the photo-period by half an hour, since noticed this behavior. For several months.
I do not add any Mg, more precisely stopped adding it for last half a year, noticing stunt in the plan growth. According to the local water report (Lake Michigan, Chicago area) i should have 13ppm Mg and 35ppm Ca.
The current solutions i have is a combination of PPS-Pro and EI, or a lean version of EI, with micros half the recommended dose of EI, and more than recommended (current version) of PPS-pro.
Essentially I am dosing to target 20-30ppm of NO3, and micros I adjusted accordingly.

There is no error in dosing, since I am using dossing pumps, and everything is done automatically, and on schedule.

CO2 and flow: as i said, i think i have enough of both.

Bits me ...

Should I try to do some couple of heavy water changes to reset everything, and start dosing normally again? Of course, I would like to know the cause first, to avoid it in the future.