Help Whats wrong with my stem plant? (Calcium question)

[qwedfg]

I hate for my first post on this new forum to be one asking for help but I am having a curious problem with my stem plants that has me scratching my head. I've been having an issue with rotala green's new growth being light in color and twisted. My other rotalas (hra and blood red) seem fine but grow for all the stems has been pretty slow. Here is an image of the R. green. I dose ei ferts at the recommended levels, have a wrgb2 at 35% power (on legs over 14 inch deep tank) and I have a 1.4 ph drop from degassed tank water to lights on (7.7 to 6.3ish).




I was having an issue with cherry shrimp so I ordered an ICP test to see what the problem was and it turned out I have low Ca and Mg in my well water. Since then I've started to add CaSO4 and MgS04 and my shrimp are molting fine now. The twisting of the leaves seems to indicate there might be a calcium deficency. According to the ICP (linked below) my tap water has 8.6 ppm of calcium and 3.2 ppm of magnesium. If 1 gh of calcium = 7.1 ppm of calcium and 1 dgh of magnesium = 4.3 ppm of magnesium I should have a dGH of around 2 if my napkin math is correct. I just took a reading at it came to a GH of 6 out of the tap. When I test the GH of my tank water it returns at 10! I add 1/4 of a tsp of CaSO4 to my water when doing my 50% water change (this is on a 16 gallon Waterbox same dimensions as a 60p).

Are there other things but calcium and magnesium that can increase gH? Is this a Calcium deficiency. Thank you for any help you can provide.

 

[Art]

Hey, welcome to ScapeCrunch and thanks for asking your question. No worries about the first post asking for help. I love that. I also love that you sent out for an ICP. Not many freshwater hobbyists are using it.

Few questions:

What is your KH?
What’s your substrate?
Are you supplementing CO2?

I’m always suspect of trying to point to a specific nutrient deficiency if well water is involved. Do you run any filter on your new water?

 

[Freshflora]

Hey welcome to the forum. Do you possibly have any rocks or substrate that could potentially be leeching Calcium and/or KH into the water column like seiryu stone? That’s what your high GH makes me think right off the bat. Moreover, if your KH is pretty high, which I think it may be due to your starting PH being 7.7, that would probably be the cause of the slightly odd growth of your Rotalas, especially given your dosing high in the water column with EI. Solutions would be to either lower water column dosing to around APT complete levels and do more substrate feeding with root tabs/fresh aquasoil and/or lower the KH. Rotalas belong to the lythracae family which are harder to grow the higher your KH is. You can get around this problem mostly by keeping water column nutrients on the lower side and feeding through their roots.

 

[BigWave]

I'm inclined to agree with @Freshflora about the kH. In most planted tanks we try to keep Ca : Mg in a 3:1 to 4:1 ratio. Typically about 24 : 8 Ca to Mg a 3:1 ratio or 24 : 6 a 4:1 ratio. Easy to fix, add Calcium Sulfate and Magnesium Sulfate and observe. Within days you should see results.

 

[qwedfg]

Thank you for all the responses.

1) I just checked my kH yesterday. Directly from the well it has a kh of ~2...in my tank it was reading 5ish if I am remembering correctly I can recheck both tomorrow. I have some seiryu stone in the tank which might be affecting some of my readings.

2) I am using the new amazonia (ver 2?) and inject co2. I have about a 1.3ish ph drop from degassed tank water to lights on.

3) I am a little confused about my kh/gh readings and what the ICP test showed me. Based on my GH from my well I shouldn't need to be adding any calcium or magnesium but the tests came back as showing very low readings for both calcium and magnesium.

4) I add 1/4 of a tsp of CaSO4 and 1/8 of a teaspoon of MgSO4 every water change to try to make up for the low numbers I got back from the ICP testing. I got these values based on what Rotala Butterfly was telling me. I have a 16 gallon tank (same dimensions as a 60p) and change 50 percent of the water every week. I estimate its about 7ish gallons every water change so I dose calcium and magnesium based on that volume.

I know my water is very high in iron and I have a water softening system on my well. I draw my water after the filter but before the water softener.

Should I be dosing 1/2 ei? I really would hate to have to set up my RODI again as that was one of the reasons I didn't set up another reef when I got back into the hobby this time after a 5 year hiatus. Making water is a pain and I don't have a drain in my basement so I would need to either put in a sink with a sump pump or try to use a saddle valve and tap into a waste line for the RODI to run near where my tanks are located.

 

[Freshflora]

Thank you for all the responses.

1) I just checked my kH yesterday. Directly from the well it has a kh of ~2...in my tank it was reading 5ish if I am remembering correctly I can recheck both tomorrow. I have some seiryu stone in the tank which might be affecting some of my readings.

2) I am using the new amazonia (ver 2?) and inject co2. I have about a 1.3ish ph drop from degassed tank water to lights on.

3) I am a little confused about my kh/gh readings and what the ICP test showed me. Based on my GH from my well I shouldn't need to be adding any calcium or magnesium but the tests came back as showing very low readings for both calcium and magnesium.

4) I add 1/4 of a tsp of CaSO4 and 1/8 of a teaspoon of MgSO4 every water change to try to make up for the low numbers I got back from the ICP testing. I got these values based on what Rotala Butterfly was telling me. I have a 16 gallon tank (same dimensions as a 60p) and change 50 percent of the water every week. I estimate its about 7ish gallons every water change so I dose calcium and magnesium based on that volume.

I know my water is very high in iron and I have a water softening system on my well. I draw my water after the filter but before the water softener.

Should I be dosing 1/2 ei? I really would hate to have to set up my RODI again as that was one of the reasons I didn't set up another reef when I got back into the hobby this time after a 5 year hiatus. Making water is a pain and I don't have a drain in my basement so I would need to either put in a sink with a sump pump or try to use a saddle valve and tap into a waste line for the RODI to run near where my tanks are located.

5 isn’t bad, @Burr740 has done some pretty awesome stuff around that level of KH. You may have the occasional odd growth or a little bit of stunting with lythracae, but other than that and not being able to grow Syngonanthus species, some Eriocaulons, and some toninas you can pretty much grow anything still.

Half EI would probably be more than enough. I’m assuming you’re dosing on the lower end of EI? Do you know your weekly ppms of NO3, PO4, K, and Iron? If you need more for certain plants, I’d recommend the addition of root tabs too. If you go the osmocote route, I’d suggest using the osmocote with only macros and no micros. Aquasoil has plenty of micros already and you could possibly run into substrate issues with the osmocote that contains micros.

 

[JPog]

When did you test your tank KH in relation to your water change? I don't know how much seiryu stone you have, but the KH will continue to rise until the next WC. In my last seiryu dominated tank my KH went as high as 16 from a tap reading of 4. The higher KH can definitely affect the Rotala especially with generous water column dosing.

 

[qwedfg]

Hello everyone,

I have been observing my tank over the past month and trying to put some new plans into action to see if I could solve my problems.

What I've done over the last month:

1) Increase CO2. I realize this is bad but my probe is uncalibrated but I've just been using it for a reference on a pH drop. Tank water which sits out has a pH reading on my pen of about 7.6-7.7....I have been dropping to 6.25-6.3.

2) Reinstalled my surface skimmer. Really like the eheim surface skimmer and it does a great job at aerating the water and removing the surface scum but I think it's too much flow for a 60p sized tank in conjunction with an eheim 2217 even though I have the flow turned down and inline heaters/co2. Just ordered the neo aquaria pipes with the outlet surface skimmer to see if this is a better solution.

3) Looked at my fert dosing. I found a thread by zorfox on another forum where he listed all of the dry doses and weekly doses for a EI fert routine for diffferent tank sizes and found that that I was underdosing micros significantly. I've been dry dosing my tank with this new fert routine for the past week - week and a half. I also purchased some DPTA iron and have been dosing that as well because my plants were looking pale.
- My micro dose is 1/8 a tsp of CSM+B, 1/32 tsp DPTA (11%) 3x a week
- My macro dose is 1/8 tsp KNO3, 1/16 tsp of K2SO4, 1/32 + 1/64 tsp of KH2PO4 3x a week

4) Increased my weekly dose of CaSO4 to 1/2 of a teaspoon up from 1/4 of a teaspoon. I bought an API calcium test and have been using 10 ml of water vs 5 to try to increase the sensitivity but found its not working for me (or im doing it wrong). I tested water before and the day after a water change for calcium. Both results came to 60 ppm which seems high considering how low my calcium is in my tap water and the 1/2 tsp should increase my calcium about 15 ppm according to rotala butterfly.

5) Increased my lighting. I was running my lights at about 40 percent power and had very little pearling and my stem growth was slow. I increased it to 55 percent and I have see a big increase in both pearling and stem growth.

So what are the results so far?
- I have had a big increase in green spot algae on the glass and some on one of my anubius petite (weirdly enough one that is lower in the tank the one that is higher seems fine). It doesn't seem like the increases p04 dosing has helped but its only been a weekish since the new routine.
- The black algae continues unabated for the most part. I believe it is staghorn algae. I had some bba from earlier of which most has gone but there are a few spots clinging on. Mostly on my glass in very small spots and on the drift wood in areas I forget to squirt excel on.
-Stem growth has improved and most of the deformities I was seeing are gone but I am still seeing some staghorn algae in lower areas of my stem mass. This includes areas of higher flow.

I am kind of at a loss of what to do next. I feel like I have taken a lot of the steps recommended online but haven't seem much success in removing my algae problems. My next idea is perhaps to switch to RO water and see if that helps.

Any ideas from the gurus here would be much appreciated.

edit for images: I apologize for the horrific algae images normally I cut the leaves or squirt them with h202/excel but I've been grading finals and too busy to properly deal with the algae menace!

 

[BigWave]

Dang... Staghorn is one of the most stubborn for alot of folks. IMO its related to high Mg in my experience. Remember any change in anything takes weeks to observe the results. Traces tend to show faster as in days. 1/2 Ei is a good starting point. GSA (Green Spot Algae) --> Too much light or lean PO4. It could be the substrate is absorbing po4 more, Plants are eating it better, or its reacting with Fe but I doubt this one. Its very very very rare. Keep a journal so you know if you did this it did this etc.

 

[qwedfg]

Dang... Staghorn is one of the most stubborn for alot of folks. IMO its related to high Mg in my experience. Remember any change in anything takes weeks to observe the results. Traces tend to show faster as in days. 1/2 Ei is a good starting point. GSA (Green Spot Algae) --> Too much light or lean PO4. It could be the substrate is absorbing po4 more, Plants are eating it better, or its reacting with Fe but I doubt this one. Its very very very rare. Keep a journal so you know if you did this it did this etc.

Thanks for the reply.

I believe the staghorn began when I had messed with my CO2 upon putting in a new canister filter and wasn't injecting enough. I was very busy with work and ended up realizing my problem far too late. I had very bad bba and some staghorn too. I have all but defeated the bba but now staghorn is being very aggressive, especially on my Buce. I have read that staghorn can be associated with low CO2, low flow, low nutrients or high light (never heard about the magnesium but I will try to reduce magnesium dosing from 1/4 tsp per week to 1/8 and see if that has any effect).

As I said earlier I believe that I have solved my CO2 issue. My pH drops about ~1.4 between degassed and lights on. I also think I have too much flow if anything so I don't believe that is an issue as well.

As far as nutrients are concerned many people have recommended reducing ferts as you have but from reading what Tom Barr has said dosing ferts at EI levels does not cause algae. Since one of the causes of staghorn seems to be limited nutrients I am hesitant to dose less. Especially since I also have GSA which can be associated with low PO4.

So the last parameter that seems like it could be a problem is light. I have dropped my lighting from 55% to 45%...I may decrease more in the future if nothing resolves itself.

As far as staghorn goes it seems once you get it, its not an algae that will self resolve once your parameters have stabilized? At least in my case I feel like I've made a lot of adjustments to my tanks parameters and have limited improvement in the staghorn situation. I also had a lot of green hair algae when I started making adjustments to my tank and that has all but been eliminated through manual removal and fixing some of the problems in my tank. I am not sure what to do about the staghorn and from searching the web it seems there are a lot of conflicting information on how to solve it.

Could this be something missing in my well water...or present in my well water...that is causing the staghorn algae? I would like to start a bigger tank but am worried that if I do this will just happen again in the next tank. I have learned a whole bunch since I started this tank and am wondering if I knew then what I know now would I have had all of these algae issues? Is the staghorn a residual effect of past mistakes or is there still an ongoing problem that I have not resolved?

At this point the last thing I can really think of doing is using RO water instead of tap and remineralizing using Seachem Equilibrium or a similar product. That would eliminate any possible problems with my water source at least.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Happy Holidays.

 

[Art]

Hi and Happy Holidays to you!

Again, thanks for posting this as it will help you to diagnose the problem and learn from it. It will also help countless others who experience the same problems.

So I think your issues are stability related. You don't mention how old the tank is but it seems to be behaving like a relatively immature tank. You've also made a lot of changes so that adds to the instability. Once the tank settles in and you stop making meaningful changes, you will win this battle. No question about it so stay positive and stay the course.

I hate to give you homework but I would highly recommend that you download and complete the worksheet we have that captures a lot of data about your tank. This will help you to keep track of what you're doing and will allow us to quickly get a summary of your tank and its parameters. You can download it from our Resources section: Aquarium Fertilizer Template. If you complete it and post it here, it will help us to continue to diagnose.

Fundamentals at work in your tank

In my experience, instability and resultant poor aquarium plant health are the two things that mainly lead to algae issues in the aquarium. You need to address each one and they both take time.

Instability comes naturally from an immature tank. It can also be from a change that impacts plant health/growth. Either will give algae the opportunity it needs to quickly grow as its simple system can get what it needs much easier than the more complex aquarium plants. However, this simple system is also its Achilles heel.

Part of this simple system is its ability to take up dissolved organic compounds (DOC) much better than plants. I've also read that algae colonize aquarium plant leaves because the plant is releasing DOC from that leaf that is intentionally decaying. This would explain the GSA and Staghorn you are seeing on your plants' leaves. The infected leaves are not doing well.

First step - stability

I would recommend that you methodically confirm that each system is working well with your aquarium and that it is as it should be. For example,

• Make sure you are providing enough light for the types of plants that you have. This can be enough PAR and enough photo period.
• Make sure the CO2 is optimized. Confirm your pH is properly calibrated.
• Change from DIY fertilizers to a good, complete commercial product and dose appropriately to your light and CO2.
• Do 50% water changes weekly and vacuum the substrate properly.
• Trim dying or dead leaves, turkey baste any hardscape, clean your mechanical and chemical filters.
• Surface skim.
• Make sure your temperature and water level don't swing too wildly.
• Stop chasing individual nutrient numbers. Use quality (and unexpired) test kits for the important elements (NO3, PO4, Fe).
• Make sure your makeup water is controlled and stable.

Honestly, I think your well water represents a variable that you can't control. It may or may not be causing an issue. We have no way of knowing. However, the only way to gain control over this is to use RODI and I've read it's a pain for you. It was for me too. I feel ya.

If I were you, I would make sure everything else becomes stable and at the right level. Give your tank time to stabilize and see how it's going with the well water. If the tank is still giving you issues, it may be something in the water otherwise your plants would have adapted to it. My thoughts would be to run the well water through a carbon filter first to see if that fixes the issue. If not, then and only then, would I be thinking RODI.

Second step - bring the hammer

As you've heard a million times, you have to fix the root cause of the problem and not just mask symptoms. By doing step 1 above, you are dealing with the root cause of the problem. Once that is done, then you can address the algae with the right hammer.

My philosophy is to bring the right tool for the job. You don't need a sledge hammer when a nail hammer will do just fine. Of course, don't bring a screw driver when you need a hammer! (Come on, we've all been there!).

For persistent staghorn, you either trim the leaf if you see that it isn't healthy and the plant is on its way to drop it or you spot treat it. I'm not a fan of whole tank treatments for staghorn as that is bringing the sledge hammer. Usually, staghorn will affect areas or just specific plants.

If you decide to treat the leaf, then get yourself some Seachem Flourish Excel and a plastic syringe from the drug store. During a water change when your flow is off, spot treat the leaf with the Excel. This works well for GSA also. Actually, any glutaraldehyde product will work (Turbo Plus, Phyton Git, etc). Even H2O2 will work but I prefer the Excel as it works better during the day. H2O2 should be dosed at night.

Over the next few days, you should start to see the staghorn turn white or pink. It will then disintegrate over time or can be more easily removed by hand. Sometimes, I've had to dose the Excel a few days straight to get the effect.

Looking forward to seeing how your tank starts to stabilize and turn around.