Very small new leaves on stemmies. What do you think is up?

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BryceM

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So, the question is why is my Bacopa colorata struggling? New growth is miniscule compared to the leaf pattern of regular Bacopa. I planted this several months ago and initial growth was regular. Not too colorful, but leaf size was big. I assume once the nutrients available to the plant were depleted, new growth was severely compromised.

I suspect a micro or macro deficiency, but I'm willing to entertain other ideas. Ca/Mg ratio and GH have also been on my mind.....

Here's the particulars:

180g aquarium
DIY reconstituted RO water. 50% changed weekly.
Chihiros WRGB II 60 Pro LED lights x 3, 10 hrs/day, 100% some days, 70% other days. Spectrum set to 93 R, 59 G, 88 B, 40 White
CO2 controller with reactor, pH currently set to 5.95 which is a 1.1-1.2 pH drop. Comes on an hour before lights and off an hour before lights out.
To each 80 gallons of RO I add:
CaCO3, 3 tbsp
MgSO4, 1.5 tbsp
NaHCO3, 1.5 tbsp
KNO3, 1 tsp
K2SO4, 1 tsp
KH2PO4, 1/4 tsp

Then I alternate 1/2 tsp KNO3, 1/2 tsp K2SO4, 1/8 tsp KH2PO4 on even days and 30 mL of CSM+B solution on odd days.

The tank was VERY old and badly neglected (no CO2, virtually total neglect for the last 5-6 years). The substrate has been in for maybe a decade. It was Amazonia, IIRC. I have tried root tabs around the B. colorata without much benefit.

When I started up again I pulled out the old T5s and 150W Metal Halides and installed the Chihiros. I got a new CO2 regulator and off we went.

We had some algae issues as expected. Diatoms, BBA, GSA, and now green dust that you can clearly see. On the older parts of the B. colorata, you can see what's left of the BBA issues.

Some species are doing great. The anubias are showing lots of algae, but that seems to be improving (slowly). Crypts are growing MASSIVELY. Regular Rotala macrandra is doing great and growing 1/2 inch per day or so, but old growth doesn't look very nice. A while back that plant exhibited some leaf drop and some leaves were white, making me think GH deficiency. Adding more CaCO3 seems to have fixed that.

All in all, something just seems "off" about the whole tank. LEDs are new to me and I'm suspicious my light is a bit on the intense side. But, node length of the R. mac is pretty big..... so, I dunno. A PAR meter would help.

Here's some photos. As you can see the crypts are going crazy. The C. wendti is probably 14-16" up from the substrate. Lots of algae still on the anubias, which I'll cut away gradually.

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Are the tips otherwise healthy and it's just that the size of leaf is smaller?
 
Not super healthy. The new growth is a little crinkled. I’m starting to wonder about Ca deficiency or possibly Ca/Mg ratio mismatch. Bacopa c. isn’t supposed to be hard to grow.
 
Not super healthy. The new growth is a little crinkled. I’m starting to wonder about Ca deficiency or possibly Ca/Mg ratio mismatch. Bacopa c. isn’t supposed to be hard to grow.
My initial though would be, if possible, to convert your **tsp quantities to ppm. I looked in Rotalabutterfly and although they list CaCO3, they did not offer a **tsp equivalent for a given dose.

In re-mineralizing my RO water, I am shooting for 22ppm CA and 8ppm Magnesium for roughly a 2.8:1 ratio
 
I’ll do that when I get back home.

I did have white new-growth leaves on the R. mac a while back & fixed that by upping the CaSO4. Maybe there’s still room to go.
 
I run into stunting like this when various nutrients are out of whack. Ca/Mg is a possibility. Also when my phosphates get high and I am in need of a water change I get bad stuff like this too.
 
To be honest, it could be quite a few things, IMO. When this happens to me, I take out a trusty, complete commercial fertilizer and use that for a couple of months. This ensures that my DIY calculation or formulation errors are not at play.

More often than not, this has corrected things provided everything else is spot on - CO2, light, maintenance.
 
Belatedly, I worked out my current dosing strategy for GH and KH.

According to the rotala calculator I'm adding:

21.5 ppm Ca
7.5 ppm Mg
total GH should be about 4.5-5 dGH
NaHCO3 to end up at about 2.2 dKH.

I have some GH/KH Lamotte test kits... but they're old enough I'm quite sure I don't trust the reagents at this point. I also have the option of just adding a known quantity of tap water (quite hard where I live) to the RO reservoir instead of reconstituting from scratch. I'm wondering if the CaSO4 is possibly not dissolving completely and just precipitating or falling out of out of the water column. It's not the most soluble stuff in the world.

Art, I'm not inclined to think this is an N/P/K problem (although I'm open to ideas) and I'm using a commercial micro mix. I tried the Seachem line of micros for a while with no apparent difference.

I do have a new GH and KH test kit on the way and I'm dying to see what's actually in the aquarium water column. If I can accurately gauge the GH and KH of my tap water, I'll easily know what ratio of tap water and RO water to mix to produce a desired KH. The GH will probably come along for the ride. I'll know in a couple weeks.

I'm not a crazy fan of testing, but I do like to check it to get things started.
 
An update.....

The GH/Ca/Mg test kit arrived today.

My tap water (well water, actually) comes out at 292 ppm total hardness, 240 ppm Ca, and 52 ppm Mg for a Ca/Mg ratio of 4.6:1

My reconstituted aquarium water is 84 ppm total hardness, 50 ppm Ca, and 34 ppm Mg. This gives a Ca/Mg ratio of only 1.5:1. This is quite a bit lower than I've seen anyone recommend for planted tanks. I've seen 3:1 and 4:1 recommended with some people going as low as 2:1. Years ago, when I was growing gorgeous Bacopa c, my aquarium ratio was usually between 4:1 and 6:1.

So..... for now, I think I'll cut my Mg dose in half, or a touch less and see what that does.

Once my KH kit arrives, I'll make a decision about mixing tap water and RO, or just reconstituting RO. Likely, it will be simpler to mix a bit of tap water with RO.

All of this is reawakening the fun, chemistry, botany part of my brain which has been snoozing for a while. :)
 
Possibly add root tabs under the plant. If anything I'd say increase CO2 quite a bit and possibly lower lighting intensity. I see some algae issues which means plants arnt happy for some reason. Have you measured your NO3 and PO4 through out the week? Eg consumption. Its possible your adding to much fertilizer.
Regular Rotala macrandra is doing great and growing 1/2 inch per day or so, but old growth doesn't look very nice.
This has me curious. Look up mobile vs imobile nutrients. Plants can and most will take the mobile nutes from the other parts of the plant. EG NO3, PO4, K, Mg. So in essence its sacrificing the lower parts of itself so as to grow new growth.
Oh boron plays a big role in leaf curling and small tiny new growth. What is your Micro Recipe?
 
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Thanks. I was looking for the mobile/immobile chart earlier today.

Already using root tabs. Crypts LOVE them, but Bacopa hasn't responded. CO2 is currently about 1.1-1.2 pH drop as I said before. I've tried to go lower, but the fish don't like it. I've recently checked calibration on my pH meter and checked outgassed pH levels. The last few times, the readings have been pretty consistent.

Algae issues, yes, absolutely. The overall look of the plants is clearly not super healthy, I agree. I'm familiar with what a "happy" tank looks like, and I'm clearly not there yet. The crypts are 80% happy. Anubias say 50% happy (you've really got to be dialed in to keep these leaves algae free). Java fern is fine, Bacopa very unhappy, R. mac 50-60% happy. I get some pearling, but not as much as I'm used to.

I also think this is maybe a mobile nutrient issue. Lower parts of R. macrandra are occasionally melting away, and a few stems break off low and the top floats around, the top 1/2 of the plant perfectly healthy.

For micros, I've tried both Seachem's Flourish and Flourish trace line and also a dry CMS+B mix (Nutritrace CSM+Boron). The last couple of months have been the CSM+B mix. I will have a Lamotte nitrate test kit in a few days. I can run the PO4 too. Haven't checked that in a while, but GSA went away when I upped PO4 a bit a month ago. I think I'm more likely to be overdosing N/P/K than under-dosing, but it will be interesting to check levels.

I've been of two minds about light. LEDs are new territory for me and it's hard to compare my experience with the T5s and Metal Halides I used before. Most likely, less light would be a better place to start than more. It would make EVERYTHING more forgiving. It is a 24" deep tank though, and it takes a lot to keep the short plants happy.

So the plan right now is to correct the Ca:Mg ratio and give it a week or two to see what happens. After that, I'll try less light, after that.... ????

Obviously it's something weird. R. mac is supposed to be hard and B. caroliniana is supposed to be easy.
 
Your on the right track for sure. Yes take a few weeks before you do any more changes.
I too have a 24" deep tank with 2x SBReef Lights at 100% and am fighting like mad to keep my plants happy. Tried everything but more light, because well $$$. I honestly dont really want to invenst another 2-300 dollars to upgrade lighting so i deal with what I have.
 
So, an update.....

Not there yet, but I was gone the last week, since making adjustments to the Ca/Mg reconstitution formula. I had a neighbor dose ferts and feed the fish.

A few observations:
- during that week, GDA has dropped off A TON. This was accumulating on the glass maddeningly quickly, and over the last week, there has been hardly any.
- BBA is giving way to diatoms, which I'll take any day of the week. In my experience, diatoms often mean that you are "almost there." BBA, BGA, and GSA are always a sign that something isn't right.
- Ludwigia inclinata meta is doing very nicely, and each stem grew 4 or 5 inches.
- R. mac continues to grow, with old growth not looking so hot, and new growth looking nice and healthy. At least old stems aren't completely rotting now.
- very minimal crypt melting.
- plenty of clean new anubias leaves, which is good, because anything algae-covered is getting chopped soon.
- Bacopa colorata actually looks like it's getting better, but new growth is still pretty small.
- Bacopa caroliniana is growing like crazy, with nice full new growth heads and plenty of side shoots.
Overall, plants seem happier and more vibrant, but not there yet....

Interestingly, dosing more Ca and almost no Mg the last 50% WC didn't help ratios much. I just tested (Lamotte kits) and found:
KH 3.8
Ca 40 ppm
Mg 32 ppm
NO3 18 ppm
PO4 0.6 ppm

So, I'm still leaning toward the aquarium being Ca deficient. With the 50% WC I just did, I added about 2X my previous Ca dose and only 0.25X my previous Mg dose. Eventually the ratios will have to come around. I'm not so sure where the Ca is going and why the Ca/Mg ratio isn't better, but eventually I'd expect that to normalize. I'm shooting for about 30 ppm Ca and 10-12 ppm Mg. NO3 and PO4 levels look OK to me.

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40ppm Ca should be plenty. I think the target people usually use is 20ppm.

I think general tank layout / plant selection is your big issue here. You are trying to grow delicate, demanding stems in the midst of all sorts of plants that don't want/need high light. Those broad leaves near the surface are getting blasted with light so I assume you are going to have a tough time with algae on the leaves for most of these plants. Your demanding plants seem to be <20% of your plant mass so biasing your light/nutrients towards them does not make sense to me.

Really big tanks are so hard to grow stems in because they will just race towards the light and kill off the bottom parts most of the time. The unhealthy bottom parts will need constant trimming and cleaning and they will produce waste that leads to algae. The high light that they require makes waste in the tank > algae a much bigger problem vs lower light setups

I know it doesn't answer your question but if I were you I would ditch all the stems, drop the amount of light by a significant amount, and focus on growing those beautiful crypts, ferns, anubias, etc. Your tank will be 10x easier to maintain, algae will be far easier to control or disappear entirely, and your tank will still look amazing
 
I tend to agree with @klibs above. Mixing stems that like more nutrients and light with a bunch of slower growers with less needs is going to be tricky. You are unlikely to make them all happy at the same time.

If you remove the stems you could turn the light WAY down and make things easy.

If you want to pursue stems that is another story. Some things I would consider.

Did you thoroughly clean the substrate after the years of neglect? Many sensitive stems are sensitive to the cleanliness of the substrate. They prefer it uber clean. If you didn't clean it well that could very well be an issue. Substrate cleanliness/health is under rated.

Many stems would also like more PO4 in the water column. If I had 0.6 PO4 in the water column my Pantanal and Macranda would hate me.

You said you are using CSM+B and add 30 ml every other day. How are you making your solution? Do you know how much Fe that adds weekly? Earlier you mentioned Macranda going pale. That can be a sign of overdosing on Boron.

You don't need 40 Ca in the water column. Less than half that is fine for anything you want to grow.

If you want to be put on a list to borrow a PAR meter message me.
 
First, to address the Ca/Mg points above, I agree that there is enough Ca now. I think there's way too much Mg though, and I seem to remember that too much Mg interferes with a plant's ability to utilize Ca. So, I'll get the Mg down, and then lower the Ca down too. I'm shooting for something like 20-30 ppm Ca and 10-12 ppm Mg. I'll force that to happen over the next few WCs.

Next, GreggZ and Klibs have raised really great points. Essentially, you've identified the crux of it....... "What is it I'm trying to accomplish?" The point about mixing low-light plants with demanding stemmies is well made. I've pulled it off before, but not without being pretty darn careful, and probably with less light than I'm using now.

When I set about trying to resurrect this aquarium, my initial goal was to go CO2 enriched, low to medium light, with mostly crypts, anubias, and such with a few non-demanding stem plants here and there. Years ago, In it's original iteration, this tank was full of Toninas, esoteric stemmies, dense carpeting foreground plants, and it was visually STUNNING. A really gorgeous 180g aquarium full of healthy plants is something most people have never seen. But, upkeep on that thing was a beast (literally, a 5-gallon bucket of trimmings every 2 weeks) and (along with being the admin at Aquatic Plant Central) I eventually burned out. Hardcore burned out.

During the reset, I did vacuum out the substrate pretty well, but admittedly not perfectly, as I didn't move around any of the large rocks and I didn't uproot the well-developed areas of crypts. I hooked up CO2, bought some LEDs, and started experimenting without a perfect plan. Initially, the goal was to build up enough healthy plant mass to get the aquarium stabilized, and then start moving to a desired goal. And, alas, I've succumbed to the temptation of pretty stemmies, again, for the millionth time.

At this point, it seems quite likely that I'm running the lights high enough to manifest all sorts of nutrient, algae, and plant problems. The good news is that with LEDs, it's simple enough to dial it back.

So, where does that leave me?

Ultimately, my best plan is to stick to the original idea of a 180g community fish aquarium with lower-demanding plants. That would be realistically sustainable for the long haul, and done correctly, can still be an enormously visually interesting tank. Don't even get me started on Bucephalandras, LOL.

My other tank is a low-tech 46g bowfront with nothing special going on. I'm not in love with the bowfront look, and I'm thinking of replacing it with a new ADA rimless tank in the 40-75g range. I could either run that one as a high-light, high-tech specialty stem plant tank (to keep scratching the ritzy plant of the month itch), or run it as a planted discus tank, which is another project that I've always wanted to try. If I do say a half-dozen discus, a 120P would probably be a better size.

Much thinking and planning to do...... It's got to be well thought-out, because I'm in no mood to go back to hauling buckets of water around.

No worries. It's intellectually fun to re-learn how to grow plants again, and so far it's been enormously enjoyable. Right now there are two separate spawns of baby kribs in the aquarium.... right there in the midst of full-grown angels and sundry other fish. Only in a big jungle can you pull that off. It is such an incredibly fun hobby!
 
I agree with the others, In terms of planting hi light/nutrient demanding stems with slower growing epiphytes is harder, but it definitely can be done and done without algae growing on the slower plants. Three things for me that help a lot besides the obvious like 50%+ weekly WCs and keeping things clean are:
  1. Limit peak lighting period to 2-3 hours
  2. Have a few thickets of fast growing stems
  3. Add carbon/purigen to the filter
These will help increase uptake, remove waste and limit the effects of high light on algae growth.

This tank below has Buces, Java Fern, Bolbitis and moss with a peak PAR of 160 and you'll be hard pressed to find any algae on the slower growers.

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Gorgeous!

Yesterday evening I was musing about lighting. Before, I was using T-5 lighting with a 2-hour noon burst of 150W Metal Halides. That seemed to be enough to keep even finicky stemmies and the foreground happy without causing huge algae issues. That would be easy enough to emulate with the LEDs. I also had plenty of Anubias and crypts in that setup without big algae issues (once I had it dialed-in). When I compare photos over the past few weeks, even the crypts and anubias are demonstrating explosive growth.

I want to wait another week to see what effect the current changes are having, and then I think I'll dial back the lights a bit, maybe keeping it at 100% for 2 hours and much lower for 6 of the 8 hour photoperiod. I want to make the move over a month or so to avoid melting the crypts.
 
Gorgeous!

Yesterday evening I was musing about lighting. Before, I was using T-5 lighting with a 2-hour noon burst of 150W Metal Halides. That seemed to be enough to keep even finicky stemmies and the foreground happy without causing huge algae issues. That would be easy enough to emulate with the LEDs. I also had plenty of Anubias and crypts in that setup without big algae issues (once I had it dialed-in). When I compare photos over the past few weeks, even the crypts and anubias are demonstrating explosive growth.

I want to wait another week to see what effect the current changes are having, and then I think I'll dial back the lights a bit, maybe keeping it at 100% for 2 hours and much lower for 6 of the 8 hour photoperiod. I want to make the move over a month or so to avoid melting the crypts.

Thanks and sounds like a good plan. Good hungry stems definitely help a tremendous amount with higher light IMO, since uptake of waste is continuous. In the setup above the Pogo Erectus is a good healthy grower with stems growing 3" across from leaf tip to leaf tip.
 
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