S Repens Issue

[yes_i_like_pie]

Howdy, 

I have a 12 gallon long tank with Co2 and lights for 8 hours at 30% intensity.  All my plants are doing great except for the S Repens. It’s getting more and more yellow and as of this week is starting to break apart. see attached picture.
 

Could you help me diagnose the issue/deficiency? I looked at the aquarium co op deficiency chart and my guess might be iron or nitrogen. Any help in diagnosing and treatment suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 
 

Nelly

[nabokovfan87]

I've had similar issues with mine.  It's basically melting away every time. I have some new growth now but it's such small growth.  It might just be an issue of not enough light at that level in the tank.

Does this tank have CO2?

[yes_i_like_pie]

@nabokovfan87 yes same! My tank does have CO2. I think there is enough light, my worry is actually that it might be too much tbh.

[nabokovfan87]

I posted a lot of stuff in my journal and I posted some details in the fluval 3.0 schedule thread.  I ended up having to go from a 24" light (20" led strip) to a 36" light (30" LED strip) on my 29G aquarium to be able to give the plants more PAR at depth. 

I am still trying to get it to take hold....

I had it in a sand substrate tank and it worked so nicely!  Now that I have better substrate for the plant, more difficult, LOL.

What is your setup, schedule and all that?  You can see mine in the latest post on the fluval thread and/or in my journal with a video of what my plants have done over time.  I don't know if it helps, but at least it's something.

Sorry, I totally missed the CO2 in the OP.  😕

 

[Mmiller2001]

What are your dosing and when did you add them? What is your GH and KH? What ppm of CO2 are you at?

[yes_i_like_pie]

@Mmiller2001 great questions. I just did a water change so I’ll let things settle and test tomorrow and answer the questions. 

[yes_i_like_pie]

@Mmiller2001

Some more information and pictures from the tank: 

• Tank: 12 gallon long with lots of plants
• Live stock: 10 exclamation point rasbora, 4 orange shrimp, 2 amano, 2 mystery snails, 1 ember tetra, and 3 otocinclus.
• Light – Fluval 3.0 at 30% intensity for 8 hours with an added two hour ramp up/down before and after
• Co2 – 1 bubble per second comes on an hour before lights turn on and turns off an hour before lights turn off
• Water Change – 30% weekly
• Temperature – 79.5 F
• Fertilizers
  • Aquarium Co Op Easy Green – Once a week after water change
  • Root tabs too but it’s been several months since I last added some
• Parameters – water was changed last night 
  • Amonia - 0 ppm
  • Nitrate - 5 ppm
  • Nitrite - 0 ppm
  • Hardness (GH) – 196.9 ppm
  • Buffer (KH) – 89.5 ppm
  • pH – 6.4
  • Chlorine - 0 ppm
  • Copper – 0 ppm
  • Phosphate – 0 ppm
  • Calcium – mg/l 60 ppm
  • Iron 0 – 0.1 mg/l
  • CO2 ppm – I just have a drop checker that is mostly green. It’s the fluval one so it’s a lil yellow on top and blue at the bottom. I just replaced it with a better CO2 drop checker today so I will have a clearer answer in roughly 6 hours.

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/3/2022 at 1:51 PM, yes_i_like_pie said:

Light – Fluval 3.0 at 30% intensity for 8 hours with an added two hour ramp up/down before and after

I know others will disagree, but I think minimum for that light is going to be 50%.  for my repens I have it cranked to 80% (29G tank).  For this one, because it's a lot shallower, as long as the light is over the repens, I would think 40-50% "works".  Of note, you're also gettting some loss due to the light being far away from the surface of the water.  Even though it's a shallow tank, there's some refraction loss going on.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/snells-law (This might be a fun tool to play with)
 

To be clear, I say "others will disagree" because there's a lot of people that run the lights very low to avoid algae.  I totally understand it.  I've had major plant loss due to running the light too low. Height of the tank issues, etc.

Edited June 3, 2022 by nabokovfan87
added detail about light height.

[yes_i_like_pie]

@nabokovfan87 Thank you for your feedback. I already have a battle with algae. When I lowered the intensity to 30% made it stop accumulating as quickly. Over the next month I may slowly increase the intensity of the light incrementally to see what happens. 

[nabokovfan87]

It could just be the lighting / camera showing things in a certain light, but it seems like the plants are having some struggles.  The mass of plants in the middle seems yellowish, in general. Same with the plants on the left. The anubias on the right looks good to me.

When you do play with lighting, I think there's more going on (and I don't know the solution to these issues, but it looks nutrient based).

Washed out colors (in general) and dark veins on the leaves with yellowing leaves.



The ones with green look to be doing ok.  Red, I think people may want to see the leaves and view for any issues with nutrients.

Your algae issues might just be that the plants aren't growing fast enough to out compete with the algae. I've had some success with dosing more often, but also providing cleaner water at the same time. I would change water and then dose right after to ensure when I'm seeing nitrates on a test, it's purely the dosing chemicals and not bioload issues.

Green veins with Pale leaves could be:
Magnesium: If leaves are cupping
Iron: If leaves are not cupping

Edited June 3, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Mmiller2001]

You are definitely low on CO2, fertilizer and light.

Not to get too long winded, but I recommend doubling everything and that's just a start. Go 50% on the fluvial, 3 pumps on Easy Green a week and increase water changes to 50% weekly. Bubbles per second is meaningless,.you need to get that drop checker yellow green. So try 4 bubbles and watch the tank for stress. But I suspect you will be way higher. 

Your calcium is high as well. I would look to lower overall  GH if your livestock are soft water fish. 

Fe is low, so probably all Micros are low. Increasing EG dosing will help, but you will probably need to add additional Fe. I would look to raise Fe to .4ppm

Edited June 3, 2022 by Mmiller2001

[yes_i_like_pie]

On 6/3/2022 at 4:29 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

You are definitely low on CO2, fertilizer and light.

Not to get too long winded, but I recommend doubling everything and that's just a start. Go 50% on the fluvial, 3 pumps on Easy Green a week and increase water changes to 50% weekly. Bubbles per second is meaningless,.you need to get that drop checker yellow green. So try 4 bubbles and watch the tank for stress. But I suspect you will be way higher. 

Your calcium is high as well. I would look to lower overall  GH if your livestock are soft water fish. 

Fe is low, so probably all Micros are low. Increasing EG dosing will help, but you will probably need to add additional Fe. I would look to raise Fe to .4ppm

This is soooo helpful. I have made the recommended changes suggested  by both you and @nabokovfan87. The plants look more yellow in the pic, but if I am being really honest with myself I do think they should be more green and I agree there is likely more than a simple light issue. 

Light is now at 50%, CO2 output is doubled, I'll do bigger weekly water changes and up Easy Green dosing. I have two questions about your advice: 

1.  You mentioned my calcium is high and to lower overall GH. Do you have advice on how to do that? 

2. To boost Iron, do you think Easy Iron will do the trick or should I get some fertilizer that increase several micros at once? If so, is there one you recommend? 

Again, thank you both for helping me out. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/3/2022 at 5:14 PM, yes_i_like_pie said:

2. To boost Iron, do you think Easy Iron will do the trick or should I get some fertilizer that increase several micros at once? If so, is there one you recommend? 

Easy iron works. If you're seeing more deficiencies than you'd want to look into something like dosing more easy green or specific instances where you need to dose a specific micronutrient.

On 6/3/2022 at 5:14 PM, yes_i_like_pie said:

1.  You mentioned my calcium is high and to lower overall GH. Do you have advice on how to do that? 

Usually going to be RO water or running your tap water through something like the zero water filter.  You can do a portion of it and re-test to see what you need to "condition" your water to for WCs

 

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/3/2022 at 6:28 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

On 6/3/2022 at 6:14 PM, yes_i_like_pie said:

1.  You mentioned my calcium is high and to lower overall GH. Do you have advice on how to do that? 

Usually going to be RO water or running your tap water through something like the zero water filter.  You can do a portion of it and re-test to see what you need to "condition" your water to for WCs

This is just creating an ideal world, but lower Calcium will be a good idea and lowering Calcium will drop GH. Are you using crushed coral or anything?

I will post my stats that I'm running from April, I have recently made a change but it's still very similar. I run 21ppm Calcium.

[yes_i_like_pie]

@Mmiller2001 this is so cool!! How

do you even measure and track all this? Amazing!

no crushed coral. I was actually thinking of adding some since I noticed some holes in the shell of my mystery snail.

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/3/2022 at 10:08 PM, yes_i_like_pie said:

@Mmiller2001 this is so cool!! How

do you even measure and track all this? Amazing!

no crushed coral. I was actually thinking of adding some since I noticed some holes in the shell of my mystery snail.

I build from zero up. I start with RO water.

Definitely don't use crushed Coral.

[JoeQ]

As far as the mystery snail shells, I'd buy calcium powder and add it to a snello (

On 6/4/2022 at 12:08 AM, yes_i_like_pie said:

@Mmiller2001 this is so cool!! How

do you even measure and track all this? Amazing!

no crushed coral. I was actually thinking of adding some since I noticed some holes in the shell of my mystery snail.

As far as the mystery snail shells, I'd buy calcium powder and add it to a snello (snail jello) recipe. You can find tons of recipes on youtube, another option would be to add some calcium powder to a gel food such as Repashy Soilent Green 

Edited June 4, 2022 by JoeQ

[yes_i_like_pie]

@Mmiller2001I just tested my tap water for GH and KH to see if RO is necessary. And I found something interesting. My tap water isn't that hard at all, something is happening to it when it's in my tank. There is no crushed coral or anything like that. Any ideas what could be causing that? 

I added a pic of the comparative test strips but the below measurements were taken using using the GH and KH specific testing kit. 

• Tank GH - 196.9
• Tank KH - 107.4
• Tap GH - 35.8
• Tap KH - 35.8

[nabokovfan87]

Potentially from the large rock in the middle.

Seiryu will change your water chemistry.

[JoeQ]

Testing your water after being airated for 24h will change its properties. 

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/4/2022 at 3:35 PM, yes_i_like_pie said:

@Mmiller2001I just tested my tap water for GH and KH to see if RO is necessary. And I found something interesting. My tap water isn't that hard at all, something is happening to it when it's in my tank. There is no crushed coral or anything like that. Any ideas what could be causing that? 

I added a pic of the comparative test strips but the below measurements were taken using using the GH and KH specific testing kit. 

• Tank GH - 196.9
• Tank KH - 107.4
• Tap GH - 35.8
• Tap KH - 35.8

Rocks, substrate or some types of decor.

[Beng]

You've mentioned that it's been a few months since you've put in root tabs. S. Repens are root feeders so a liquid fertilizer won't be enough.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Beng

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/4/2022 at 9:47 PM, Beng said:

You've mentioned that it's been a few months since you've put in root tabs. S. Repens are root feeders so a liquid fertilizer won't be enough.

This is commonly misunderstood. Water column fertilization is all that's needed.

[JoeQ]

On 6/6/2022 at 5:14 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

This is commonly misunderstood. Water column fertilization is all that's needed.

Isn't this providing you are fertilizing properly? I've always liked root tabs because I felt the plant had a backup food source in case my fertilizing plan was lacking something. 

[Mmiller2001]

On 6/6/2022 at 3:36 PM, JoeQ said:

Isn't this providing you are fertilizing properly? I've always liked root tabs because I felt the plant had a backup food source in case my fertilizing plan was lacking something. 

https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/fertilize-planted-tank/root-feeders-fertilization?_pos=1&_sid=b218f76d2&_ss=r

The problem I see most is new comers, more often than not, over use tabs. This common theme sends the tank into disarray.