1 week no easy green

[Ryan1988]

Hello All,

So it has been one week since i have stopped using easy green liquid and root tabs. I did this in order to hope that the plants absorb the nitrate. So far i don't think i've seen much improvement though my wife says i am color blind so hard to tell. I think the nitrate has remained at 50. But I have noticed that the plants themselves are starting to get wholes in them. The hair algae I had hasn't expanded but hasn't gone away either but because i've used the easy carbon it hasn't kept growing. I'm considering adding root tabs back in the hopes of the plants regrowing without holes and wanted to get everyone's thoughts. 

[Pepere]

I would root tab the root feeders.  And I would water change to reduce nitrates and pull out dissolved organics, 

do you use Easy Iron?

If not have you measured tap water for iron levels?

If you do use Easy Iron, you might want to hold off for a while.

[JoeQ]

Your nitrates are most likely 'stuck' at 50 on account of you having a growth limiting deficiency (either potassium or phosphate) once you raise that single nutrient the plant will resume consuming nitrogen but in this case I'd add a good amount of root tabs and do a big water change as stated above.

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 3/22/2023 at 6:36 PM, JoeQ said:

Your nitrates are most likely 'stuck' at 50 on account of you having a growth limiting deficiency (either potassium or phosphate) once you raise that single nutrient the plant will resume consuming nitrogen but in this case I'd add a good amount of root tabs and do a big water change as stated above.

@Ryan1988 , sorry if I'm telling you what you already know, but what @JoeQ is describing is Liebig's Law of the Minimum, which basically says that a plant's "growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by the scarcest resource (limiting factor)" (from Wikipedia).

So if your plants need something else, they'll stop taking up nitrogen (in the form of nitrates) because they basically can't use it.

That said, I agree that fairly frequent, consistent water changes will likely help and definitely won't hurt. I also like floating plants because they export nutrients quickly and easily. How's the flow? Dead spots can make algae more likely, too.

[nabokovfan87]

What is the stocking in the tank?

[knee]

If your substrate doesn't have CEC the root tabs will just leech into the water column which the plants can still absorb. The only problem with that is you can't really put a number on how much the root tab is leeching into the water, especially if you put several in the tank. It could be more or less of what the plants need. I suggest dosing easy green for now and observe the plants. As mentioned above it looks like you have a potassium or phosphate issue which Easy Green provides

"Root feeding" plants also feed through the water. 

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 3/22/2023 at 7:07 PM, knee said:

If your substrate doesn't have CEC the root tabs will just leech into the water column which the plants can still absorb.

Isn't this only true if there's enough water flow through the substrate? Because otherwise sand or gravel caps over nutrient-rich layers wouldn't work, right?

[Rube_Goldfish]

I've been thinking about this some more. Sorry if this has been asked already, but do you have nitrates in your tap water?

[Ryan1988]

@Rube_Goldfish

There are 0 nitrates in the tap water. 

[knee]

On 3/22/2023 at 5:13 PM, Rube_Goldfish said:

Isn't this only true if there's enough water flow through the substrate? Because otherwise sand or gravel caps over nutrient-rich layers wouldn't work, right?

You'd need a really good cap to keep the nutrients in if you're using inert substrate only, but that can still leech into the water. Slow release root tabs will work better for inert substrate. If you cap aquasoil or any substrate with good CEC, the root tabs will be utilized better through the roots.

Plants with bigger roots don't have big roots because they prefer feeding from the substrate. The roots were used as an anchor and the plants with bigger roots were common in areas with fast flow or seasonal waters. There is very little correlation between the size of a plant's root system and preference to take in nutrients through the substrate or water.

 

[Darax]

Potassium is a relatively safe suppliment that my plants respond well to. I've recently added Seachem flourish advance once or twice a week as well. In both cases I use far less than recommend (I use a capful for each tank, a 55 and a 75 gallon tanks.) I get transparent leaves if I stop the potassium suppliment. I'm associating the flourish advance with some new anubais growth, but could be confirmation bias. 

In the past I've also tried very modest amounts of iron and phosphate suppliments. They both corellated with algae, but I did it before I added CO2. 

Edited March 23 by Darax