Help Dosing Pps Pro Based On Water Chemistry

[Sarah Par]

Hi!
So I have two tanks, one is 130L one is 70L. Medium to heavy stocked with anubias, hygrophilia siamensis, val and some other plants.

I have been (double) dosing PPS. At this amount per week for PPS pro:
8.61ppm N
0.861ppm P
11.452ppm K
1.722ppm MG
0.861ppm Fe

My tanks water parameters:
5ppm N
0.5ppm P
Tester wasn't working for K
Tester not yet come for MG but tap has 5ppm.
0ppm Fe (apparently 0.861ppm a week ie double dose wasn't enough).
0 Ammonia
0 Nitrite
7 ph
Tap water has gh of 60ppm/3dgh?
Kh about 3-4

My issue is some old growth (a few leaves of anubias) has tip yellowing and necrosis. A few have pin holes. Anubias new growth comes in mutilated looking (unsure if straightens out).

So my question is what is likely to be causing these issues? The potassium? The magnesium? The low gh? Or even phosphate?

Thanks

 

[Phishless]

Welcome Sarah !!!!

Mobile nutrients include: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and zinc.
Plants can produce new leaves by mobilizing these to new growth.

Issue sound like an immobile nutrient problem but maybe not.
Ton's of info on the web, here are 2 charts from a quick search.
I would recommend further investigation, I don't believe everything I read on the web!

Some things in your post are puzzling.
Dosing .861ppm of Fe and reading "zero" is something to investigate.
I've been measuring Fe uptake from the water column for about 1.5 years and the highest average daily consumption I've captured is .015ppm
I only dose about .14ppm Fe per week.

Where is your iron going?

What type of fertilizer are you using? Especially Fe & PO4

What is your water change schedule?

How are other micronutrients dosed, are they included in the Fe as a micro mix such as CSM+B ?

What's your source water and what's in it?

 

[Sarah Par]

Hi!
Thanks so much for your reply.

I baught the PPS fertiliser premade from aquarzon.com
It listed how much iron 1ml would be dosing. I double dosed though since I am also double dosing macros.
I don't know honestly. All I can assume is the plants consumed it or the soil did.
I dosed even more iron from ultimate aquacare in a 1 off dose then did my daily dosing and it went from just readable iron to 0 (unreadable) in a week or two. It seems going from triple dosing to double dosing wasn't enough iron.
I barely do water changes. Maybe once every few weeks.

This is my worst leaf. Though I think that stem is dying.

This is what the tank looks like. Im not sure if the deficiency is over or still occuring. I should probably remove all bad leaves and see what happens.

New leaves for the hygrophila siamensis look good. Tbh its growing kinda too fast. Val is ratty as.

 

[Phishless]

This is Edward's most recent PPS Pro recipe.

Does this match your dosing @ present???

 

[Sarah Par]

Hi thanks for your reply.
Yes my dosing was with that exact recipe except I double dosed both micros and macros because nitrate was stuck super low near 0 for quite a while.

I have been (double) dosing PPS. At this amount per week for PPS pro:
8.61ppm N
0.861ppm P
11.452ppm K
1.722ppm MG
0.861ppm Fe

Turns out my nitrate is climbing and the double dosing at the above amount is now uneeded.
I tested the magnesium and it is super high off the charts (above 10ppm) so yea think Ill dial back dosing the pps pro macros to half a dose daily.

The phosphate however is low so Im thinking ill dose that with ultimate aquacare P. I think it is either phosphate or potassium causing the deficiency. Just have to isolate which.

 

[Deanna]

Be careful with the assumption that your iron test kit is reading iron correctly. It is very difficult to get a good reading on iron. The only test kit, that has satisfied me, is the Nutrafin kit. I've tried many and some, Seachem for example, can't read chelated iron very well and, I think, PPS applies chelated iron, which is the most commonly dosed form (I don't use PPS). Additionally, I believe that PPS iron dosing is actually a proxy for all traces, i.e.; as you dose iron, you may also be dosing all other traces. If this is correct, then you could be overdosing traces and this could create havoc with your plants as the traces accumulate.

Since you are having difficulty with this specific fertilization approach (PPS), I suggest that you email the creator of it at his website: https://sites.google.com/site/aquaticplantfertilizer/home. you can also reach him through https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/ by either posting or contacting him there (@Edward). He is very responsive and will be happy to help you.

 

[Sarah Par]

Oh thanks so much!
Yeah Im not really sure what is causing the tip yellowing in anubias. My magnesium is high so can't be tha. So is my nitrate. May be too much of a certain trace, unsure. Though the phosphae tends to be kinda low so may be that. Gets a bit tiring testing all these nutrients so frequently. Im just trying to dose more potassium now and work on lowering the magnesium a bit.

 

[Deanna]

As much as possible, try to stay with the regimen you’ve selected, in this case it’s PPS.

If it were an iron deficiency, I would expect yellowing in new growth, not old growth. So, I would return to the recommended iron dosing. The concept of mobile nutrients, mentioned by @Phishless, is that plants can rob certain nutrients from older leaves if the new growth isn’t getting enough of what it needs. This causes old growth to show signs of deficiencies. Iron cannot be moved, which is why only new growth would show iron deficiency.

So, we want to focus upon the mobile nutrients as the cause, IF it is a nutrient DEFICIENCY issue (I don’t think it is a nutrient toxicity issue). If the former new leaves were good and then worsened, it’s a very good indication that it is a mobile nutrient that is involved. These are N, P, K, Mg, Cl, Mo, Zn. Now, we focus on the symptom: yellow (maybe some white?) tips and pinholes. This points mainly to N for the color and K for the pinholes, which may need to be supplemented, separately from your all-in-one dosing.

Deformed/new growth is typically Ca, but micro toxicity can also cause it. I can’t tell if your double-dosing of iron also involved all traces. The effect on new growth would have occurred within a week of the double dosing. I’m going to assume it’s Ca. Your GH tap starts at 3.3 and Mg tap is 5 (is this from a water report?), indicating an initially good ratio of Ca: Mg (3:1), but you are adding Mg and I don’t see how much Ca is in your PPS mix. Can we get a GH reading on your tank water? GH/KH kits are cheap. We will combine that data with your Mg reading (how are you measuring Mg?). Also, do your older leaves have darker veins than the surrounding leaf structure between the veins? I can’t quite tell from the pictures because Anubias can appear that way normally.

Depending upon how far along the deficiencies are, the old growth may not recover, meaning that you may have to focus upon new growth and eventually trim the old growth.

We haven’t even mentioned light and CO2. Are those balanced? Do you inject CO2? What is your light?

 

[Sarah Par]

Hi!
Thanks so much for your reply. Yeah I tested iron and its fine and probably maybe going to be too high dosing the same rate I was dosing so Im dialing that back same with macros. I think what is probably deficient is potassium.

N is not deficient. Phosphate around 0.25-0.5. Is that low enough to cause deficiency symptoms?

The magnesium was over 10 so dosing the macros made it too high. The tap water magnesium is 5. 15.6 calcium in tap water.

The symptom is yellow tips on anubias and the yellow slowly spreads and the whole leaf sometimes dies. Unless that plant is just bad. Unsure. Also noticed yellow patching/blots of yellow that grow on anubias.

The light is finnex 24x7 v2 the 3 foot version.
I don't add co2

 

[Deanna]

Your N and P might be deficient. What test kits are you using? I’d be concerned that your kits may be measuring more than is actually there and, when you get below 5 ppm, there is a chance that you could dip to zero for a time and not be aware of it. Until you solve your problem, you may want to target measurements of 1-2ppm PO4 and 5-10ppm NO3.

So, your light to substrate distance is about 12-14 inches? I have a new problem that may be contributing. With a Finnex 24/7 Planted, the PAR at the substrate should be about 60 at 100% power. This puts it in the high light category and generally demands injected CO2 in order to prevent plants from suffering. You may want to reduce light intensity by about 20-30% of maximum intensity at your peaks and have no more than about a 6-hour photoperiod to see if that helps. Once you are happy with your tank, you can start expanding the photperiod.

Additionally, adding a product such as Seahem Excel can help quite a bit as a carbon supplement in low tech tanks (non-CO2 injected tanks). However, this product can cause a temporary decline in Vals. If you decide to use it, start with half the recommended dose for a few weeks to allow the Vals to adjust, then gradually raise it to recommended levels.

 

[Sarah Par]

Hi thanks for your reply. Yes the light is not on max its quite dim.

So massive changes happened.

The ph is crashing because there is low kh in the tap water its about 3kh but in tank close to 0 and ph is crashing to near 6. I have crushed coral to help stabilise it tha ill add. The ph should be 7.3. This may explain why a few snails died and why a fish got ich. Had to turn temp up to 29 to ward it off.

The phosphate now reads 3ppm but now the nitrate is close to 0. So much swinging. I can't believe it went from 5 to almost zero so fast.

I'm thinking of just dosing the normal amount of pps pro per day plus some additional potassium

 

[Phishless]

With an alkalinity of 3-4dKH I doubt this is a true pH crash.
There is something lowering your KH such as Aquasoil?
During photoperiod my tanks are in the 5's pH with CO2.

If you really want to add KH, I'd recommend CaCO3 or KCO3 or KHCO3.
Only raise 1dKH at a time, the crushed coral will be an unknown dissolve rate and not very predictive.

 

[Sarah Par]

Hi thanks for your reply.

I am using some Oliver knott aquasoil yes. Also drift wood.

The kh starts at 3 from tap water then goes down to basically 0. The ph starts at like 7-7.3 from tap water then goes down to near 6.

I have seachem alkaline but issue was I had added it too fast and I think shocked my fish and had many die. Idk something terrible happened like 6 or so weeks ago and I had half my fish die. It was either that or the General cure I put in.

 

[Deanna]

Lots of things can lower your pH. The change in pH isn't worrisome, but you should try to figure out why it's happening. Your substrate is contributing to the drop, and may be the main reason. If you try to counter it with bicarbonate, you will drain it's intended nutrient design. BB will eat the bicarbonate over time and things like organics and driftwood can also drop pH. Healthy plants will gradually acidify water.

If you have a TDS meter (they are cheap), that is a better indicator of the overall changes in your water and a better guide as to whether the potential to kill your fish is there (you don't want more than about a 10% swing in a day). If you medicated, that can throw a lot of things out of balance. What is the medication that you used? Seachem Alkaline Buffer is just, basically, baking soda and would mainly raise your pH, via KH. However, a lot of it might move your TDS enough to cause problems, but a 10 point pH move wouldn't be that much in a TDS test.

How are your plants doing now? A drop in the NO3 to zero (would still like to know what test kit you use) might indicate a surge in plant growth. If so, all of your other nutrients may be dropping as well. How is your PO4 doing? Although I'm not that familiar with your substrate, I believe that it is active and, therefore, loaded with nutrients.

Generally, I think you need to stabilize your approach. Stay on the PPS system you are using as much as possible. Keep your filter and tank clean. Follow w/c recommendations for the PPS system. Monitor your NO3, PO4 and GH to be sure your dosing is right. Then, sit on your hands for a month and observe,

 

[Sarah Par]

Hi thanks so much for your reply.

The phosphate went up soo much probably in part because I was dosing just that for about 5 days.

Thanks yeah I will try to remain consistent I was just adjusting my dose because magnesium is far too high and Nitrate was getting too high