[mrtank50]

Hello friends.

All my 3 aquariums have head shrinkage. What could be the reason?

I use mgso4 and caso4 as re-min.

Tank: 125 liters
KH-0
GH-5
PH-5.5 -6
Fertilizing daily

no3: 3ppm (kno3)
po4:0ppm
k:1.5ppm
fe:iron gluconate 0.1 ppm

Soil: island amazonia 6 months old

co2 indicator yellow color

Light: osram 865 and 830 39*4

I am severely iron deficient.

 

[mistergreen]

How often do you change the water?
Try dosing micronutrients and phosphate.

 

[mrtank50]

How often do you change the water?
Try dosing micronutrients and phosphate.

I don't dose phosphate because I have never observed GsA. I always have GDA problem and I attribute it to high phosphate. Because when I cut phosphate, GDA stops.

I give 8 ml of seachem florush twice a week as a micro.

 

[Steven F]

I don't dose phosphate because I have never observed GsA. I always have GDA problem and I attribute it to high phosphate. Because when I cut phosphate, GDA stops.

I give 8 ml of seachem florush twice a week as a micro.

You probably have a zinc deficiency. The visual symptom of zinc deficiency is smaller leaves. Flourish has only about 1/20 of the zinc and copper your plants need. Seachem is expecting your Water pipes to supply 90% of the zinc and copper your plants need. however now in some places utilities use plastic pip and many new homes also use plastic.


Also iron gluconate doesn't last long in water. sometimes iron gluconate needs to be added daily. bacteria consume the gluconate the iron rusts or bonds with phosphate resulting insoluble iron phosphate and can cause a phosphate deficiency even if you are dosing phosphate. Use iron DTPA instead. Bacteria will not touch it and it is usable up to a PH os 7.5. A iron DT{A dose of o.1Fe once a week is sufficient. You can use this nutrient calculator to determine how much iron DTPA to add to your tank.

I use mgso4 and caso4 as re-min.

These ingredients supply fare more sulfate than your plants need. The excess sulfate is pushing your PH down and will destroy any KH in your tap water. use the minimum amount needed to minimize the excess sulfur. And do weekly water changes.

 

[Steven F]

As to solutions for a zinc deficiency that is difficult because most fertilizers on the market are low on zinc and copper. you could try Flourish trace it is rich in zinc. The fertilizer calculator I linked to earlier has all premixed flourish products in it. And it will tell you how much of each nutrient you are adding for a specific dose. A 9ml dose once a week might work better then flourish comprehensive for micro nutrients. But Flourish trace doesn't have iron. So you would need to use flourish iron or switch to Iron DTPA. With your current PH and KH you might be able to do a one dose right after a water change. This would also resolve your iron deficiency issue.

Seachem uses mainly sulfate ingredients and these will react with KH making them unavailable to plants. For tanks with higher levels of KH more frequent dosing is required. or you use Chelated ingredients. but with Your KH a dose once or twice a week should work.

There is one other solution available and that is to buy all the flourish ingredients separately and make a custom fertilzier. Which I did and using Iron DTPA (0.1ppm), Manganese sulfate (0.05ppm), boric acid (0.02ppm0 and zinc sulfate 90.02ppm), and copper sulfate (0.01ppm) and nickel sulfate (0.005ppm). It is a very good fertilizer for low KH water. you can get these ingredients here and at many other places. For Iron DTPA you can get that here and here. You can dose these ingredients dry or make a solution with distilled water and 1ml of distilled vinegar (the water must be acidic PH6 to preserve it) This will supply all the trace nutrients except Molybdenum.

Most fertilizers use sodium Molybdate to for Molybdenum. Unfortunately when Imade my fertilizer I found it reacted with the sulfates and became unavailable to plants and I ended up with molybdenum deficiency (I use RO water so my fertilizer waste only source). Most of the time tap water has enough molybdenum. But there is no way to know for sure if your water has it. I solved this problem by dosing molybdenum separately or with my macros. The only pace I could find it was on Amazon.com. Dose Mo to 0.005ppm. Or you could assume you water has it. but if you see all the lower leaves die and fall off you might have a molybdenum deficiency.

Again you can use this fertilizer calculator and a small Digital scale capable of reading milligrams, to accurately measure out the ingredients.