[Justinkscott]

Hi everyone, I grow plants for my LFS. The plants in MY tanks grow well, no problems.

However, when I take my plants to the LFS and they display them for sale they quickly degrade in quality. Many are looking pretty ragged after only a week or less.

LFS tanks are 55g, he has two T5HO bulbs over each of them. I give him my fertilize and I believe he uses it diligently. He has no CO2.

The ferts I give are a diluted form of what I use on my high tech tanks. Primarily KNO3, kh2po4, k2so4, csm+b; on the EI system.

I ran water tests on his tanks today and found:

--Last day before water change--
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrate: 20-30ppm
GH: 16dGH
I'll bring my phosphate test kit tomorrow when I visit his shop.

Please look over the photos and tell me what you see. I'm stumped. I can imagine he has any nutrient deficiency because I don't in my tanks.

Perhaps it's his VERY high GH hardness? My GH is pretty low, so there is a difference.

The ludwigia & the nymphs have only been there for 6days. The water sprite 2 weeks. The swords have been there much longer.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Hoppy]

Two T5HO bulbs over a 55 gallon is very likely to be high light, assuming reasonable quality reflectors, and true HO ballasts in the lights. Your plants have been grown with high light, full menu of nutrients, and CO2. Those plants are adapted to the good availability of CO2, but in their new tanks at the store, there is no added CO2, so they have to adapt to that condition as best they can. At best they won't grow very well because they do need CO2 for the carbon to build new tissue at the high growth rate the light drives them to. The store needs to add a CO2 system, or limit themselves to plants that don't need high light and CO2, or sell their stock within a week of getting it.

 

[GuppyGuppyGuppyGuppyGuppy]

Algae

 

[Justinkscott]

Thanks Hoppy, I thought some of it looked like a nutrient imbalance...

But I can't figure out why my leaves look brown & 'burnt'. It doesn't seem to scrape off. If it is an algae, it's not something I've encountered in my tanks before.

 

[Hoppy]

The "brown and burnt" leaves look like a beginning BBA attack to me. And, that is also often a result of inadequate CO2 for the amount of light you have.