Pests or lacking in dosing schedule

Hi all

I have had my planted EI dosed tank set up for around a month now and all my plants seem to be doing pretty well, except for my Hygro cormbosa angustifolia and Hygro polsperma.

My cormbosa seems to be the worse off of the two with semi transparent leaves where the veins can clearly be seen and pinholes in the leaves which develop into larger holes with the surrounding leaf dieing back too. My polsperma has similar problems however it seems to be affected to a lesser extent. I am unsure whether the problem could be due to pests, something I am lacking in my dosing schedule, or another factor.

My CO2 is around 25-30ppm which I am still tweaking, the light is on for 10h a day, I dose 1.5ppm KH2PO4 and 7.5ppm KNO3 every other day, Epsom salts 1/3 teaspoon 1 week, trace TMG 5ml every other day for my 120l, 3.5w tank. Tap water and latest test results of tank water below. I am currently still changing the water a couple of times a week and have activated carbon in the filter, however the water I put back into the tank is quite cold and I wondered if this could possibly have something to do with it.

I have also have noticed I have a few snails in the tank, which I am removing as I find and what appears to be a little brown mite of some kind on the damaged leaves. I have also recently added some Malaysian trumpet snails to the tank however I encountered theses problems before I put them in the tank.

Any suggestions welcomed
Regards.

Tank water today, light on 6h,
Dosed KH2P04, KNO3, Last water change sun.
PH- 7.0
NO2- 0.1
NO3- 5
NH3- 0
GH- 14
KH- 8
P04- 1.0
CA- 100ppm
FE- 0


Tap water
PH- 7.5
NO3- 5
PO4- 0
KH- 12
GH- 20

 

Hi aquabillpers and Bhornsey

I am supplying 10h of light a day; 6h was just how long the light had been on when I carried out the tests on the water. My KN03 dosing is 7.5ppm every other day, would you suggest increasing this as my tank is quite heavily planted.

I am measuring my CO2 through the use of a drop checker, I recently tried turning up my CO2 however I managed to turn it up too high and lost some of my fish while I was at work, so I am slowly turning it up at the moment until I find the middle ground (however I experienced the problems with my Hygros before this.) I have the CO2 coming on a couple of hours before the light, however I find my plants don’t really start pealing until the end of the day, and my ricca appears not to pearl at all.

I believe the lower GH in my tank water may be due to the fact I am only dosing Epsom salts 1 week and doing water changes 2 a week, would you suggest dosing more often? Also I have ADA aqua soil in my tank and bogwood which I heard can lower the GH.

My lighting is 2x 36w Interpet daylight plus and 2x 24w Interpet triplus in an over tank light, giving me a total of 3.5w. I have retaken my FE test a few time and always seem to get the same result 0, so I am unsure of these results are accurate or not.


Thanks for your time
Regards.

 

Hi Tom and Aquabillpers

Thanks for your replies. The worst off of my Hygros seem to be those planted next to the intake valve of my filter, is it possible with them being at the furthest point from the outtake flow of my filter, that they are not getting the same supply of nutrients, could the intake valve be taking nutrients away form them before they get a chance to absorb them?

I am running my CO2 into my external filter too, could this be affecting the growth rate if they are furthest away from the filter flow and CO2, or would the fact the CO2 is being absorbed in the filter make no difference to this?

Would you suggest that I carry on with the water changes 2 a week with the dieing plant matter I am getting, can I risk starting to slacken off to 1 a week instead?

Perhaps Aquabillpers I also share your problems of bad karma as I have always struggled to grow stem plants, or maybe you have passed your bad karma on to me, either way at least it takes off some of the blame on me!

 

Hi all

I feel like I have started a bit of a debate here!!

I am still slowly increasing my CO2 levels (fish appear fine at the mo.) I found that the problem I am having with my hygros occurred almost immediately after I set up my tank (however they have become noticeably more damaged recently) so CO2 could be to blame. I also heard that Hygros tend to be grown emergent in nurseries, so they probably were used to more atmospheric CO2 before I got them. I will have to watch them over the next couple of weeks as I settle my CO2 down to see if I notice an improvement.

Hi BHornsey I do have 3.5wpg so I will try upping my KN03 to 10ppm as you suggest to see what effect that has on overall growth. I see what you are saying regarding my hardness readings, I believe that certain objects i.e. substrate and wood can leak into the water of new set ups creating a different water quality to that of the tap over time, I also tend not to do a water test (which are not all that accurate) of the tank water straight after a water change, giving the leaching more time to take effect I believe, may be wrong though, I’m not all that experienced either.

I understand what you are saying aquabillpers, some people do seem to have the Midas touch. I have always struggled to keep aquatic plants in the past (due to my complete ignorance and trying to combine techniques over the years.) To anyone just starting out it must sometime feel that people like Tom (who have years of experience) that something mystical is taking place. It is only as we learn through our mistakes that we realise perhaps there is a science to it after all, and a lot of hard work. If this were not true I imagine people would be queuing up to be in the presence of Tom so some of his Karma would rub off on them!! (Perhaps I am just being silly now though!)

Thanks for your time Tom.
Regards.

 

Hi Aquabillpers

I know this isn’t a debate (long day at work! ), in fact I visit this website based on the quality and experience of its posters and the value I put on the advice I constantly learn from them. I have also found so far the E.I method of dosing (although I am still smoothing out initial set-up problems- reason for my original post) to have given me the best start off growth in my tank so far and so I am constantly looking for ways to improve my set-up to reach my goals of a decent looking planted tank (something which is made infinitely more achievable through the knowledge and help of Tom and his website.)

I appreciate all your time and input
Regards.

 

Hi BHornsey

My light is an over tank luminary so is not directly on the surface. Unfortunately it is not a great make, so I planed to try to replace it once I felt comfortable with the set up I have now, perhaps I can go for something with less wattage then, unless changing it would have an adverse reaction on the plants ability to adapt? I cannot however reduce the wattage at this time with the lighting I am using, only reduce the hours it is on for and perhaps grow more floating plants (have already increased KNO3 to 10ppm.)

Regards.

 

Hi all

I believe I have reached a level from which I can no longer increase my CO2 levels, this still appears to be at PH 7, (PH 6.5 & 6.0 leave my fish struggling even with good surface movement) my drop checker is green though, would this reading be considered acceptable? as I was under the impression that with drop checkers 6.5 indicated the ideal levels of C02.

Is it possible since I am dissolving my CO2 through my external filter, some of which seems to build up in my filter after the C02 has been on a number of hours and bubble out, that I am not dissolving my C02 in an efficient way, which could be leading to large amounts of C02 in the water at once (and adversely effecting my fish and plants?)

I have also still found that many of my plants seem to pearl very little until the evening, the ricca not at all. Am I expecting results too soon since the plants have not yet had time to adjust to my current CO2 levels, (could my method of C02 dispersal be related to this), or is pearling a direct reflection of C02 levels on a day-to-day basis.

Would it also be worth increasing my dosage of TMG to increase my FE levels which always appear to be low or adding another more iron based fert. Would it also be worthwhile adding K, is there anything else I could be adding to my dosing schedule to help, if C02 is not a limiting factor, or is there something I am missing?

Thanks for your time and interest, advice welcomed.
Regards.