[gpodio]

It's probably a shortage of traces or something similar. I use a mixture of substrate and liquid fertilizers and when I see the cuba or stellata doing this I know it's time to add more tabs to the substrate. So far it has worked well for me. Don't know about the pantanal, you'd have to send me some to try ;-) (hint hint.....)

Hope that helps
Giancarlo Podio

 

[gpodio]

You have obviously tried bringing your nitrates back up without success correct? If not that's what I would do first. I too prefer daily doses compared to weekly.

Giancarlo Podio

 

[gpodio]

Re: I'll get the exact doses for you when I get home,..

I'd say the Eusteralis Stellata is 100% affected. It grows great for about 8" then it stops growing and starts branching. On the plus side, I started out with about 3 stems and I now probably have 25. On page 292, Kasselman mentions this "peculiar behavior", but offers no explanation for it. I had accepted that this might be "normal" for this particular plant. Have you found otherwise? A side note here: Everytime that I've topped the Eusteralis Stellata and replanted the tops, the tips have never grown without branching first.

This is quite normal for stellata, 80% of the time I replant the tips it will branch out. They do however all branch out at the same time, regardless of being individual stems/plants. So the possibility that nutrient levels may be causing it to branch is likely. Even when they branch without having been replanted they seem to all do it at the same time. I can tell you for sure that when I replace the tabs under this plant it grows like crazy without branching but I no longer worry about it when it starts to branch again. The difference between stunted growth and the weird way this plant branches out is slim, they both look the same however new growth when stunted is usually very small or in bad health.

Giancarlo Podio

 

[gpodio]

My Cuba does the same when it's time to replace the tabs. At one stage the plant looked terrible, I thought I was going to loose it:

I placed some extra tabs under it and it came back to life:

There's nothing to say that liquid ferts alone won't fix the problem but my routine has grown somewhat dependant on substrate fertilization, the effects are quite obvious with several of my plants when the tabs run out. It's worth a try.

Hope that helps
Giancarlo Podio