Whats happening to my Alternanthera reineckii?

Ammonia =0, nitrate =0, nitrite =0

Click to expand...

This is likely exactly the problem. Eco-complete is basically 100% inert and should be thought of as providing no nutrients to your plants. Flourish Comprehensive is also extremely dilute and you'd likely need to overdose it by quite a lot every week in order to supply enough nitrogen. Your best bet is to order some KNO3 from an online store, ebay or http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/index.asp?Option1=cats&Edit=2&EditU=1&Regit=2

The first photo the holes are probably from nerite snails, potassium deficiency holes have yellow chlorotic boarders and are generally not jagged holes with sharp edges.

The second photo shows a really good example of nitrogen deficiency symptoms. Notice how the tips of older leaves are starting to turn clear and die back? That is exactly the place nitrogen deficiency symptoms start. The leaf will die back tip towards stem on old leaves. When the deficiency becomes severe new leaves will grow out progressively smaller until the plant stops growing entirely. Some species may also show twisted new growth as well as progressively smaller leaves.

Have a look at other nitrogen deficiency symptoms in the database:
http://deficiencyfinder.com/

In particular look at the Rotala macrandra entries, there are some pretty good photos of classic nitrogen deficiency in those two links.

To solve this problem you'll need to start dosing KNO3 (potassium nitrate), try keep the concentration between 15-25 ppm at any given point.

I'd like to confirm that nitrogen deficiency is the problem, so add the nitrates then in a week take some more photos and see if the old leaf damage has stopped (already damaged leaves will not heal, but no more leaves should die).

Can you take a few more photos of the plants? New growth and old growth?

Are any other plants in your tank showing problems or just these?

Hi Zapins

Thanks for weighing in on this. It is so sad to see my leaves starting to disintegrate.

I already have a pound of KNO3 that I bought a year ago but never saw anything that looked like a nitrogen deficiency so I never dosed it. That was back when my plants were in a different tank with different substrate.

I will start dosing KNO3 after I figure out how much (I will check the fertilizer calculators). I will also take some additional photos of old and new leaves. I see the issue occurring on "newer" leaves too that have formed since moving to this 75 gallon tank with ecocomplete.

I see others in this forum posting nitrate readings of 0. I figured this was normal - boy was I wrong!

I'll feed more cucumbers and hopefully keep the nerites off my plant leaves. I'll update this in a few weeks.

BTW - nice database! I looked at it the other day and unfortunately I was looking at all the photos trying to figure out the deficiency. Maybe not the right way to use the database. I probably should have first figured out what I was NOT dosing, and see if that was a potential deficiency then look at the photos.

Here are more photos of old and new leaves. Geez this plant is looking terrible.

I can't say I see the new leaf growth being stunted, but regardless, I dosed 1 tsp of KNO3 tonight in the 75 gallon tank. I'll use my API test and take a reading during the week and dose another 2 times during the week.

You asked about my other plants. My jungle vals and nano vals look fine. Gold nesea sometimes has new leaves that look rather small and grow slow - might be nitrogen deficiency showing up and I just never figured it out. It also has a bad case of BBA for some reason (maybe because the growth is so slow?). Tiger lotus, S. repens, B. japonica looks ok but not great. Everything is growing slower than they did in my old tank. Maybe nitrogen is the answer.

I will post more photos in another week or two. I'll take a bunch tonight (time 0) and use it as a comparison.

Thank you again.

My sediment is pretty rich ADA Aqua soil, a bit aged now, so little N.
I typically dose 2x a week, 15 ppm of NO3 as KNO3.

But let's get real here, this is a new plant that's still adapting, they can take some time to settle, but once they do, they look nice:




I do not uproot or move them around.
I'll top and pinch the ratty lower leaves, then nice new healthy growth fills in.
The plant requires good CO2.
Otherwise you get crinkly leaves and tips.
It does pretty good in non CO2 tanks with moderately low light if you just leave them alone for a few months, they will adapt.


Low NO3=> you will get holes in the older leaves. I left for a few days, the NO3 dropped, the K+ and the other ferts other than the traces, were fairly high, dosed heavy, but I forgot to dose enough KNO3. GH booster and the PO4 has K+ as well, and you need roughly 4X more NO3 to each K+ used by weight for KNO3 before limitations can occur.

Most of the other plants I have were not effected.
This was a milder N deficiency and at high light but only for maybe a couple of days.

Zapins said:

You won't need a month. 1-2 weeks tops to know if its working or not.

Click to expand...

+1, maybe even 2-3 days for some plants, but 1-2 weeks max for this one.

As new growth comes in, be careful to nip off those ugly older leaves. The plant will become much more bushy. I do this like cleaning a hedge/Bonsai tree of old dead leaves, takes a little bit of time, not critical to do EVERYTHING asap etc, just pick at it. the new growth looks excellent after the recovery. An algae covered leaf, a crinkled twisted leaf etc, that's never going to recover or look nice, trim it and cut cut cut.

Something like Rotala Wallichi, uproot and cut off the ratty bottom and replant the tops.

Under lower lighting, A reineckii does pretty well with plain sand and rich water column ferts, but I have to say most will have the best results with clay based soils and topping, not uprooting. I've tried few methods for a few years, this one seems to work the best. Preening/trimming leaves post issues/stunting/algae is a critical horticultural element to restore the nice looking group.

Ferts/CO2/light are part of it for recovery also, but doing both will take some messed up nasty stunted sorry looking A. reineckii and make them into the pic I post.