Plant answers

[suphew]

Noticed a few people asking questions regarding holes in leaves etc so decided to post some information, once you have identified your deficiency, look for a suppliment that contains it. IMO Iron and Potassium are the most common deficiencies.

Iron, New growth is yellow from a lack of chlorophyll, growing tips sometimes appearing pinkish or white. The new leaves are small with green veins. Shows up first in rapid growing plants such as Echinodorus tenellus. Leaves may become brittle and transparent.

Potassium, Yellow or dead patches, on old leaves, making small spots and holes, the veins don't stay green. Leaf margins wither, and the leaves may curl.

Calcium, New leaves are small and distorted, with white or yellow margins. The whole leaf can become white. Root tips may be blackened and die.

Magnesium, Yellow to white patches on older leaves, but the veins will stay green. Leaves may become transparent.

Boron, New growth is small and distorted. Shoot tips start to die; side shoots form and then die. Roots are short and distorted, the root tips start to die.

Manganese, Yellow patches between green veins on older leaves. Tissue between veins die out leaving elongated holes. Can also be caused by excess iron, which blocks the uptake of manganese.

Molybdenum, Yellow patches between veins on older leaves, followed by brown areas along margin.

Sulphur, Yellowing of new leaves at first, may be pinkish with high light levels.

Phosphorus, Plant stops growing with premature leaf loss. Some plants become darker green, others purple.

Zinc, Yellowing areas between veins of older leaves, starting at leaf tip followed by margins, and then rest of leaf.

Copper, Mainly new leaf tips die and leaf margins wither. Excess copper will kill many species including Vallisneria and Sagittaria.

Nitrogen, Older leaves turn yellow first; occasionally in high light levels they become reddish. The old leaves tend to perish. Plants will become small and stunted, but still have large root systems.

[jude]

Interesting post, thanks Suphew

Now, do you have the remedies as well? :lol:

[Melanotaenia]

Suphew,

what do you base you information on? eg personal experience? book? research?

[suphew]

Research, and then results from correcting deficiencies.

It is possible to make up your own trace element mix, but unless you have access to chemist or uni lab its difficult to get the stuff you need in the very small volumes required. I meet a guy with a hugh hydoponics green house and he made up his own, but he had 10000 odd liters of water in his system.

What I do is figure out what I am missing and look for a suppliment that contains it. Commomly it is just Iron and Potassium that is a problem, as most of the others are replenished when water changes are done. When I can avoid it I prefer not to add stuff to the water because this gives it to the Algae to, so for Iron I add clay under the gravel when I set up a tank or push in clay balls if I need to add it later, for Potassium I do add Seachem flourish but use highish doses and only dose for a few days, am then fine for 3-4 months. I dont know if dosing like this is a good idea but I'm lasy and forget to dose if I have to keep doing it and it works for me, Ive stopped using CO2 cause the plants grow too fast, but still pull out a pile each week.

[DiverJohn]

Would you mind having a look at these pics and make some suggestions...

http://photobucket.com/albums/v626/DiverJohn/

The grass / rush at the end is developing yellow tips? (Photo 2 & 4)

Thanks...

[Alan]

I think a good reason for this is because it is not an aquatic, and is drowning.

Try growing some in a pot out of the tank and see what happens, if it isn't too late.

Alan 104

[suphew]

Agreed, I have even seen this (or looks like this, Japonise Rush or something??) for sale in plant shops as a house plant. A lot of so called aquatic grass/rushes, are actually marginal or bog plants, which means they will only survive short periods under water.

Another thing to note is that a lot of commercial plant growers grow the plants out of water because it's faster, easier, and when they get to the shops they aren't covered in algae (I wondered for ages why shop plants always looked so good and free of algae). The down side to this for us is most plants have different leaves out of water than under water (usually far larger under water). So firstly it's hard to judge what a plant will look like and secondly often all the leaves will fall off or die down leaving only the roots or stem which with luck will then grow under water leaves.

[DiverJohn]

Yes the plant is either Japonise Rush or Zealandia.

I posted last week some comments re a "sword" that developed holes and went yellow after only a couple of weeks in the tank (photo3 on photobucket).

When the plant looked really scummy i cut back the long stems and left a couple of leaves. As you can see from the pics the new leaves are coming on strong and do look to be developing nice colour and size.