Why Are My Plants Dying?

[Jen]

I have an amazon sword that isn't doing to well. The leaves seem to get very thin in spots, and sorta disintegrate. I have also noticed a bunch of my echin. agustafolious has been doing the same thing. I just trimmed a bunch off, so I can't take any pictures. I'm thinking a potassium deficiency. Any thoughts on what it could be?

 

[kenneth_kpe]

might be ? what are you dosing ? and how much ?

 

[Jen]

I'm dosing:

every other day
KNO3 - I'm keeping it around 20ppm
KH2PO4 - around 2ppm.

7.5 mls of trace days im not dosing ^^

 

[zig]

It sounds like a potassium deficiency to me, use chucks calculator to work out how much you dose each week, if you only do small topups on the KNO3 to keep it at 20ppm you probably are not dosing enough K, you should be able to find some potassium sulphate (sulphate of potash) locally in a garden centre or somewhere like that.

 

[Jen]

I did get the K2SO4 when I ordered the other 2, I just didn't start dosing right away... I think George said to wait to see if I get any deficiencies. I just wanted to make sure that's what it was first. Would you like me to get a picture if I can to make sure?

 

[zig]

I would just work out if you are dosing enough between the KNO3 and the KH2PO4, if you are dosing about 25ppm KNO3 per week plus 2-3ppm PO4 you are dosing enough any less and you are probably deficient, but im just noticing how much trace you are dosing, it seems quite low for a 90 gallon tank, the only other times i get this sort of melt and disintegration is when i am lacking co2, my ludwigia repens is a good indicator for this, it will usually start to drop leaves and get symptoms like a potassium deficiency.

 

[Jen]

I dose the nitrate and phosphate every other day... So I am adding roughly 10ppm nitrate and 1ppm phosphate each time to get them up to the ideal. For my trace, the bottle states to ad 5 ml for each 60 gal which is 7.5 ml for a 90. I dose that every other day as well... should I up this?

Oh, and my co2 is steady at 38... ph is 6.6, kh is 5.

 

[zig]

Well then it probably isnt a potassium deficiency, it sounds like you are dosing sufficient quantiities.

For the EI method we normally dose 5ml trace for every 20 gallons, so for a 90 gallon you would need to dose 22.5ml each time, on my 40 gallon i dose 10ml trace 3x per week (i use CSM+B from Greg Watson, its cheap doing it this way) so maybe this is where the problem lies, although im surprised it hasnt shown up as algae by now, it might be worth increaseing the dosage and see if that helps at all, i would give it at least a couple of weeks before you make a judgement call on it as it can take this length of time to see improvements.

Whatever type of trace fertiliser you are using are just giving you dosage guidence for an averagely lit tank, they are not taking into consideration co2 injection and higher amounts of light etc which will require higher amounts of ferts more frequently.

I would try that and see if it helps at all.............but it definatly seems very little the amount you are dosing right now IMO.

 

[Jen]

Hmm. Dosing that much with Flourish will be a bit costly. Is the csm+b just a trace? I was a bit confused on their site when I was reading it.

 

[zig]

Hmm. Dosing that much with Flourish will be a bit costly. Is the csm+b just a trace? I was a bit confused on their site when I was reading it.

Yes the CSM+B is a dry trace mix that you make into a solution just like KNO3 etc. it would work out very economical for a tank your size, 1lb of the mix would last you at least a couple of years dosing 3x per week, i have been using it for months now and have had no problems with it, you mix up small quantities of it at a time, enough to last maybe for a month or so, i too was useing liquid store bought ferts for trace but i found it to be expensive, i would definatly give it a shot it works for me anyway and will save you a lot of money, it would basically pay for itself within a few months.

 

[Jen]

Cool. I have ordered it. It's about 20 shipped to my house, but buying flourish is about 13 a bottle, and I get about 2 months out of it, so this is much more economical.

Hopefully this will eliminate my problems, but it not, i'm saving money anyhow.

Thanks Zig.

 

[zig]

Cool. I have ordered it. It's about 20 shipped to my house, but buying flourish is about 13 a bottle, and I get about 2 months out of it, so this is much more economical.

Hopefully this will eliminate my problems, but it not, i'm saving money anyhow.

Thanks Zig.

1lb of CSM+B will make 8 litres of solution, so if you were paying 13 C Dollars for 500ml of flourish this would mean 16x13 = 208 Canadian Dollars so you will save quite a bit, over here i was paying about twice what you are paying for the flourish so it was definatly the way to go for me.