A person from one of Ukranian forums sent me an attached picture.

What do you think is wrong with these plants?

Regards.

Vladimir.

Low/No Phosphate perhaps, but I suspect it is a combination of symptoms. HTH Prof M

Low CO2/NO3.

Regards,
Peter Gwee

ya it looks like low phosphates to me.

CO2/NO3.

Otherwise this plants grows fast.

I've done a number of stunt test on Ammannia. CO2 is a bad one as is low N.
It's not excess K nor Ca, that's what many claimed and I did the test they suggested and had no such issues.


Regards,
Tom Barr

Everytime that happened to me it was Fe.

Kekon over at APC have made the conclusion that this can be caused by too much nitrogen in low KH all other things in unlimited supply in certain plants:
Ca, Mg, K, NO3, PO4 - mysterious summary - Aquatic Plant Central- aquascaping...a living art

I have followed Kekons progress since I have the exact same problems as him, and a copule of other low KH-people in Swedish and international forums.

I have killed all my fish with CO2 and all my snails with iron and all my shrimp with KNO3 and the pearling was close to none until I made a couple of 95% water changes and stopped dosing altogether. Then the pearling came back, until started dosing 10 ppm NO3, 1 ppm PO4, 0.1 ppm Fe where the curl-symptoms came back and the pearling stopped.

Low light, KH of around 2.5, insane amounts of CO2 (4 bubble/sec in 60 liters with mist and low pH - drop checker always very yellow).

The curling effect is less with large pieces of driftwood (other kind of buffering capacity?) and carbonate dosing...

Kekon also had some issues with the dosing and other test involved.
You may read my response on Plantedtank.net among others.

If you are trying to revived a plant that is already stunted, that is very very bad test subject also!

If you have a tank that you can grow the plant well over time in, then alter that, to produce the stunting, then that's better.

If you stunt this species, it takes a long time for the new growth to reappear. So you also need paitence after you stunt it.

This plant is rapid growing and uses a lot of nutrients.
TMG would help vs say CMS etc.

I've stunted the plant when I neglected things.
I've seldom had any issues otherwise.

Low KH business, that's not the issue. I've had excellent, as good as anyone's growth at 5-6 degrees. GH about 9 etc.

Huge monster stands.
PO4 was 1-2ppm, NO3, 20-30ppm etc.

When I tried to maintainj the NO3 low over time, not one discrete NO3 test as done here(or not? We really do not know, but it seems that way).

Such nutrient test need done over time, several weeks and you need to test a lot and often, other wise you miss a lot.

Because thwen you get folks that do the bandwagoneering and me too effect, then a myth is born.

One person that does some work needs to make sure all that work is decent and they have looked at the other factors and issues that might be at work there.

What might the most likely conclusion be drawn based on the test and methe methods used? What was the question Kekon hoped to answer? Was his test set up able to answer it to begin with?
I do not think so based on what he said prior.


Regards,
Tom Barr


Regards,
Tom Barr

He wanted to get rid of stunting and curling of specific plants. He found that lowering the NO3-dosing made it.

Was he wrong? You can't explain this by saying "it never happened to me".

Me personally can fix it by stop dosing KH2PO4 - always when I've tried to up the PO4-dosage some plants curled up (L. glandulosa, L. inclinata, A. reineckii) and ran EI all the way and the tank looked good enough to give me placing in contests. But those curled and stunted new tips on those plants are going to make me crazy.

EI clearly is not the way for those plants for many people with low KH.

The answer I guess is to get some bicarbonate (I'm using dolomite which clouds the water).. Would *love* to know why low KH and inert substrate cause this..

Yes, about that "myth-busting-thing" everyone seems to be so much into...

When a bunch of people starts to listen to one single individual and not question anything he/she says, alot of myths can be born.

How many doing EI by the book with lethal CO-levels does it take until this get's a little more attention?

I'm the good guy here. He who stands before the tank about to be run over =)