Plant Advice Please

[Akasha72]

Hi all,
 
Okay, so I have a well planted 240 litre tank. I have sand substrate. The plants I have are Amazon swords, red tigar lotus, anubias of various varities, crypts, java ferns and two differing echinodorus (one is an ozelot but I can't remember the name of the other)
 
In July/August I had to strip this tank to move it and so my tigar lotus and crypts took the brunt of being ripped up. The crypts are starting to bounce back slowly but the lotus has lost it's 'fullness'. It's growing but I'm getting holes in the leaves. I don't think it's got over being ripped up but I'm trying to persevere with it.
 
Since ripping everything out my swords began to suffer too. Growth isn't a problem and recently one of them sent me a shoot with new plants on it so it would appear to be happy but it's leaves have pale brown spots on them.
 
A couple of days ago I decided to go in and remove any sword leaves that looked 'ropey'. A few were turning black (I have a BBA problem which is kept at bay by phosphate remover and 3 SAE's) and had holes in them and I decided to remove those older leaves with the brown spots to expose new leaves.
I was hoping that the new leaves would be nice and green but I'm just seen that one new leaf has brown spots and reddish lines running through the veins.
 
My tank is looking quite bare right now as I filled an enitre bucket with old leaves. I know in time it will bounce back but I want the plants to bounce back with healthy green lush growth.
 
I add around 4ml of easylife Profito fert every evening and two pipettes of easycarbo too (it's about the max I can add for the tank size) As I know there will be questions about why I add fert daily rather than weekly I'll answer them now. It's more about remembering to add them. I calculated the weekly amount and devided it by 7 (days) and I add 3 pippettes of fert daily when I add the co2 .... that way I don't forget to add the fert too. 
I actually think it's more sensible to add it this way as the plants get fed daily rather than one large dose once a week and then nothing the rest of the time. I makes sense to me anyway!
 
So. Are the pale brown spots a sign of the plants missing out on something? Is it that they are still recovering from being torn up? The most sickly looking sword is the one that 'flowered' recently so could the leaf discolouration be down it recovering from that?
 
I have two T8 light tubes both are Aqua-glo's. One is a specific plant growth tube and I believe the other is just a daylight tube. 
 
Tank has been running over 2 years. I have very soft water naturally from the tap with a very low gH and kH
 
 
 
Hopefully I've covered everything you might need to know. I'll go get some photo's now 

 

[Akasha72]

some photo's
 
Amazon sword leaf

 

 
 
The echinodorus I can't remember the name of. I believe the marks on the leaves are natural patternation and not discolouration?
 

 
 
And the ozelot - the only plant that seems to look really healthy!
 

 

[Byron]

The brown blotches on the Echinodorus grisebachii [E. bleherae commonly, the basic swordplant] is probably iron excess.  This can obviously occur if too much iron is being added and the plant exceeds its storage capacity, but it can also occur due to a deficiency of calcium, which is perhaps more likely here.  It occurs on older leaves because the plant is using the calcium it assimilates to promote the new growth first.   You will also see this first in faster-growing plants like the swords, as opposed for instance to the crypts, because slower-growing plants require less than faster-growing plants.  I have the same situation, with very soft water; Diana Walstad led me to the solution.  And, Echinodorus grisebachii will still send out one (or more) inflorescences even when this calcium deficiency is manifesting itself in older leaves.
 
I had a look at the EasyLife website to see the ingredients of Profito.  In the text it mentions several nutrients, but not calcium.  I would suspect that this is not included, because most of the preparations take into account that most water supplies have sufficient calcium.  This is one thing I like about Flourish Comprehensive, it has calcium although not much, but my issue with calcium deficiency is kept minimal thanks to the calcium in Flourish Comp.  I did use Seachem's Equilibrium for nearly two years, and all signs of this disappeared.  I have discontinued this as of this past July, and am monitoring the plants' response; so far there are a few older leaves showing this, but not such that I intend re-starting the Equilibrium.  [I had a reason for this experiment, not related to the plants.]
 
As for the name of the spotted leaf sword; this is of course a man-made cultivar.  I have a couple of these, and I dug out the tags [I keep these, sometimes they come in handy as here], they are listed as Echinodorus "Ozelot."
 
Byron.

 

[Akasha72]

thanks for your reply Byron. I use the Profito as it was the only fert I could find available in the U.K that didn't contain Phosphate. As you know I have this in excess in my tap water and so the plants (or the tank) don't need any more added.
 
I did look at Flourish but from what I could see it did contain some po4 and so I discounted it.
 
I have no idea how much calcium is in my tap water but I'll have a look on my water companies website later and see if they can tell me.
 
Is it possible I'm adding too much - or not enough - fertilizer? I can increase or decrease it if you think it might help. Is there a root tab available that just contains calcium?
 
If that smaller echinodorus is an ozelot I need to consider moving it. I've put it near the front of the tank but I'm aware that Ozelot's get really big eventually and so it could well be in the wrong place.
I have got a few of the plants cards somewhere. I'll see if I can find them today. A lot of my tank stuff got 'scattered' when I had to move the tank and I'm not even sure where I put the plant cards. I'm one of those people who puts things 'somewhere safe so I don't lose them' and then completely forgets where that 'somewhere safe' is! 

 

[DerpPH]

Try using flourish excel on your tank. It can help your tank grow back. I am having the same issue amd excel is helping quite a lot

 

[Byron]

thanks for your reply Byron. I use the Profito as it was the only fert I could find available in the U.K that didn't contain Phosphate. As you know I have this in excess in my tap water and so the plants (or the tank) don't need any more added.
I did look at Flourish but from what I could see it did contain some po4 and so I discounted it.
 
I have no idea how much calcium is in my tap water but I'll have a look on my water companies website later and see if they can tell me.
Is it possible I'm adding too much - or not enough - fertilizer? I can increase or decrease it if you think it might help. Is there a root tab available that just contains calcium?
 

 
Yes, the Flourish Tabs contain calcium.  Also phosphate, but here it is in the substrate and according to Seachem the nutrients in the tabs are only released when taken up by the plant roots, and they specifically state the nutrients do not get released into the water column and thus do not encourage algae.  So this might be worth it.  Here's the data on the tabs:
http/www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/FlourishTabs.html
 
If this is the calcium as I suspect, it is not too bad, and the tabs might be just enough to handle this.
 

If that smaller echinodorus is an ozelot I need to consider moving it. I've put it near the front of the tank but I'm aware that Ozelot's get really big eventually and so it could well be in the wrong place.
 

 
My plants that certainly look like these have not grown much larger than what yours seems to be.  I would wait a bit, it may stay much as it is now.

 

[Akasha72]

Try using flourish excel on your tank. It can help your tank grow back. I am having the same issue amd excel is helping quite a lot

 
As already stated Flourish products contain phosphates and I can't add phosphates to my tank due to having it in high doses in my tap ... I so wish people would read properly.
 
 

 

thanks for your reply Byron. I use the Profito as it was the only fert I could find available in the U.K that didn't contain Phosphate. As you know I have this in excess in my tap water and so the plants (or the tank) don't need any more added.
I did look at Flourish but from what I could see it did contain some po4 and so I discounted it.
 
I have no idea how much calcium is in my tap water but I'll have a look on my water companies website later and see if they can tell me.
Is it possible I'm adding too much - or not enough - fertilizer? I can increase or decrease it if you think it might help. Is there a root tab available that just contains calcium?
 

 
Yes, the Flourish Tabs contain calcium.  Also phosphate, but here it is in the substrate and according to Seachem the nutrients in the tabs are only released when taken up by the plant roots, and they specifically state the nutrients do not get released into the water column and thus do not encourage algae.  So this might be worth it.  Here's the data on the tabs:
http/www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/FlourishTabs.html
 
If this is the calcium as I suspect, it is not too bad, and the tabs might be just enough to handle this.
 
If that smaller echinodorus is an ozelot I need to consider moving it. I've put it near the front of the tank but I'm aware that Ozelot's get really big eventually and so it could well be in the wrong place.
 

 
My plants that certainly look like these have not grown much larger than what yours seems to be.  I would wait a bit, it may stay much as it is now.
 


 
Many thanks again Byron. Just here briefly, I've got a banging headache at the mo so keeping screen time to a minimum, but I'll have a look at that link later once this headache calms down