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Nitrate thieves?


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Posted (edited)

After taking it's sweet time transitioning to submerged growth, i noticed what looks like intervenal chlorosis on the wisteria's rapidly growing new leaves. (I removed all the dying emersed leaves). Not a great pic but visible on left & righ hand shoots.

IMG_20240521_133003515.jpg.20a22df09eb2d4a7c209a87ab7a16d8c.jpg

After starting an Equilibrium dosing a few weeks back to address very soft water, I've only added two things while maintaining the usual low tech weekly EI dosing (minus KNO3) & 50% water changes. 

1. Added .2ppm weekly 11% DTPA iron to usual csm+b micros. Usable Fe should be in the .8-1ppm range at my Ph. 

2. These guys: 

IMG_20240521_133010585_HDR.jpg.3027efcf6592d06b80a1276e5d2bddaf.jpg

That's about half of the current growth after only a couple weeks. Total covers about 1/6th of a 100ga tank. They exploded in numbers with flowers everywhere. 

Pre-floaters, Nitrate was consistently in 20+ppm range (creeping towards 40) from just tap water & fish waste. It tested at 5ppm (both salifert & api liquid tests) before Sunday water change. Looks like these guys are pretty good at their intended purpose of dropping nitrates naturally. 

With what should be adequate Fe, could this development be nitrogen related? 

Edited by Beach Cruiser
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Oh good... another test kit!😆

Do they test for total iron...or usable to plants? If EDTA/DTPA sources are an undetermined % of it's total at any given PH (sloped graph), a test for total iron is just an upper end ballpark number.  Not sure getting .05ppm accuracy in usable Fe is really feasible without a pretty sophisticated test. 

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Posted (edited)
On 5/21/2024 at 2:38 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

I would not test. What’s the tank pH?

pH : 7.0-.2

gH: 6

kH: 2

No CO2. 

Fe sources are NA csm+b (EI light/weekly per rotala butterfly), Equilibrium (to raise gH 3 points) & 11% DTPA (per RB dry dose). Approximate usable .4 + .23 + .2 = .8ish

Edited by Beach Cruiser
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On 5/21/2024 at 12:56 PM, Beach Cruiser said:

pH : 7.0-.2

gH: 6

kH: 2

No CO2. 

Fe sources are NA csm+b (EI light/weekly per rotala butterfly), Equilibrium (to raise gH 3 points) & 11% DTPA (per RB dry dose). Approximate usable .4 + .23 + .2 = .8ish

If .8 is correct, that’s more than enough.

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