[alinahardt]

so i have had a 30 gallon planted tank setup since august. the substrate was originally all UNS xs controsoil with a sand path. I had it on the lowest light setting out of 9 and started dosing 1/3 EI low light towards the end because my plants were dying. i had some BBA but used hydrogen peroxide and liquid co2 and never let it get out of control. I concluded that although there are so many good reviews there is probably something wrong with that aquasoil. so i decided to redo my tank only because my boyfriends 10 gal dirted tank had been doing better than mine and he set it up a while after me. so i redid the tank doing a dirted tank with a sand cap and a container inside that had aquasoil to try again because this is supposed to be a farm tank. I left all the plants i had in the old setup in a tub for like a week while redoing the tank and unfortunately some melted and died. Now i have had this redone tank setup since beginning of November as a high tech tank. i put about 4 homemade root tabs in spread out. dosing dry ferts 1/3 EI because of plant mass. i turned my light up to the 3rd setting out of 9 and have had co2 running with a ceramic diffuser. My plants are not doing well, they are all deficient and/or melting and not growing so i turned my light back down. There is brown algae on the substrate surface. The new growth has wholes in it, also some of the growth is curled down. I am aware of csmb having edta. My ph is 7.2 offgassed and is like 6.5-6.6 at peak co2. does it matter the kh or do you always go for a 1 ph drop. could any of this be caused by iron deficiency or csmb issues? i dont know what to do. i just want everything to thrive but it is all doing the opposite. I didnt immediately take out all dying plants but ammonia never spiked. my carpet of baby tears slowly died from the bottom after it was looking okay for a bit. i developed brown string algae after i turned up the light so i turned it back down to the lowest setting. im still dealing with it all over. i have a JC&P aquarium light and an eheim cannister filter.

 

[mistergreen]

Very strange. CO2 always makes it better. Pictures might help.

 

[alinahardt]

Very strange. CO2 always makes it better. Pictures might help.

 

[mistergreen]

Poke around the substrate and smell if the bubbles smell like rotten eggs. Your substrate might have gone anaerobic and that hurts plant growth.

 

[alinahardt]

Poke around the substrate and smell if the bubbles smell like rotten eggs. Your substrate might have gone anaerobic and that hurts plant growth.

no rotten eggs were smelled. every now and then bubbles come up from the sand

 

[alinahardt]

this is my second time buying erio. i dont know if it just comes in dead or my tank is killing it.

on this anubias i have discoloration. not sure why i have this.

heres pic of the brown string algae and white string algae as well.

 

[mistergreen]

Oh, too much H2O2 and Excel can melt plants. I'd stop using those.

 

[alinahardt]

i dont even use them however i did dip my erio before putting it in my tank because it had algae on it.

Oh, too much H2O2 and Excel can melt plants. I'd stop using those.

Oh, too much H2O2 and Excel can melt plants. I'd stop using those.

 

[mistergreen]

i had some BBA but used hydrogen peroxide and liquid co2

This is what I mean

 

[alinahardt]

this was before i redid my tank. if it counts for anything the API liquid co2 did help when i was using it before i had my co2 system.

This is what I mean

 

[Steven F]

I am aware of csmb having edta. My ph is 7.2 offgassed and is like 6.5-6.6 at peak co2. does it matter the kh or do you always go for a 1 ph drop. could any of this be caused by iron deficiency or csmb issues?

EDTA is not your issue. Your PH is an issue. CSM+B has Fe EDTA as one of its ingredients. As a farm fertilizer this is OK. But in an aquarium it is sensitive to PH. If the PH is above 6.5 iron separates from the EDTA and oxide. When this happened the iron is no longer available to plants. Your pH withoutCO2 of 7.2 or 6.5 to 6.6 with CO2 is simply too high.

The best iron ingredient for aquariums is Iron DTPA. measure 3.44grams of iron DTPA and place that in a 100 ml bottle. Add 1 ml of distilled vinegar and 99ml of distilled water. once everything dissolves 1ml of this solution will dose after a water change to 10 gallons of water to 0.1 mg per liter (ppm) which is enough for most tanks. I used Rotalabutterly fertilizer calculator to make the calculation.

Also how often are your dosing CSM+B and what is the dose each time I am concerned that you might not be dosing enough.

The new growth has wholes in it, also some of the growth is curled down.

Thiscould be an indication of a calcium or magnesium deficiency. The person that came up with the EI method apparently didn't know that calcium and magnesium are macro nutrients plants need. Most fertilizers don't include Calcium because it doesn't dissolve well when mixed with the other ingredients in the fertilizer. And most fertilizers don't have enough magnesium. Most aquariums rely on tap water having enough of these two nutrients. i you think you have deficiency in these two nutrients using a GH booster to increase your water GH (General hardness) to Dose to 1 degree after a weekly water change should supply enough for plants.

 

[alinahardt]

Yes I know about the pH. Im adding RO to lower my kh.

i was dosing csmb 1/4 ei. last week i upped the dose to full ei daily for csmb. but i now suspect K deficiency due to having only been dosing 3-5ppm.

i should have enough. my gh is 4.
Maybe CaCl2 would be more soluble with the other fertilizers.

EDTA is not your issue. Your PH is an issue. CSM+B has Fe EDTA as one of its ingredients. As a farm fertilizer this is OK. But in an aquarium it is sensitive to PH. If the PH is above 6.5 iron separates from the EDTA and oxide. When this happened the iron is no longer available to plants. Your pH withoutCO2 of 7.2 or 6.5 to 6.6 with CO2 is simply too high.

The best iron ingredient for aquariums is Iron DTPA. measure 3.44grams of iron DTPA and place that in a 100 ml bottle. Add 1 ml of distilled vinegar and 99ml of distilled water. once everything dissolves 1ml of this solution will dose after a water change to 10 gallons of water to 0.1 mg per liter (ppm) which is enough for most tanks. I used Rotalabutterly fertilizer calculator to make the calculation.

Also how often are your dosing CSM+B and what is the dose each time I am concerned that you might not be dosing enough.


Thiscould be an indication of a calcium or magnesium deficiency. The person that came up with the EI method apparently didn't know that calcium and magnesium are macro nutrients plants need. Most fertilizers don't include Calcium because it doesn't dissolve well when mixed with the other ingredients in the fertilizer. And most fertilizers don't have enough magnesium. Most aquariums rely on tap water having enough of these two nutrients. i you think you have deficiency in these two nutrients using a GH booster to increase your water GH (General hardness) to Dose to 1 degree after a weekly water change should supply enough for plants.

 

[EDGE]

What is your water like coming out of the tap before the R/O? TDS? gH? kH? Ca ppm?

Calcium binds with Phosphate and or Sulphate to form undissolavable solids - which is what most premixed fertilizer is comprise of. hence why you rarely if ever see Calcium in premixed all in 1 ferts.

Excess K can cause Ca and Fe deficiency symptoms. Dosing all in 1 micro nutrients to compensate for the Fe symptoms can lead to other metal toxicity.

This is not based on 3 to 5 ppm being small amount but how 5 ppm of K vs the other amount of (N and P + other things) can start causing deficiency symptoms. Symptoms and not actual deficiencies.

Toxicity is not caused by high ppm per se but an imbalance of ratio.

For example with terrestrial fertilizer 10-10-10 vs 20-20-20 different is the strength. They both work; the different is 20-20-20 will give a faster growth rate and go out of balance faster from accumulation in a closed system. There are obvious exception when plant species cannot tolerate strong fertilizer, but this is fertilizer burn and not toxicity in itself. Now if we go 10-10-20, then there is an imbalance of ratio for general purpose growth. high potassium is usually meant for fruiting crop.

Note: I do not recommend using terrestrial fertilizer for aquarium. They are formulated with a lot of ammonium and urea to bind to soil. excess of whatever is flush out into the groundwater.

The commercially made product for aquarium with high potassium is designed to compensate for fishload / fish waste and or new substrate high in Nitrogen and phosphorus (i.e. ADA)

Hard to know what is going on without knowing how the substrate is affecting the overall scheme of things. You may be getting enough potassium from the substrate.

How long did you have the tank running before symptoms started to appear and then started dosing? timeline is good. Hard to know from the photos because they seem to come from different timeline of running the tank.

The new growth looks ok reineckii 'mini'. I don't think you have a Ca or Fe issue. Fe causes veining in new growth. pale new growth is low sulphate. Reineckii 'mini' has neither.

I think you have an imbalance PO4 issue on the low side and or potassium on the high side.

Try dosing only KH2PO4 as a macro.

The photo with the eriocaulon, the plant behind Hygrophila difformis(?) looks to be high on Potassium. there isn't much leaf and a lot of rib.
The pinnatifida behind the recneckii 'mini' looks quite leggy (stretched out) which is usually sign of high potassium relative to N and P.

Add:
From the photo, I don't see any fish in the tank. The reineckii 'mini' leaves look kind of small . You probably need nitrogen but not directly from KNO3 - preferably from another source without potassium since you don't have much fish if any in there to produce nitrogen.