Yellow leaves with holes ... dose more iron ?

[cichlidicted]

Hello

So I have a 90g planted tank with a 100% plant load ... all plants seem to do fine, well some loss of colors in red plants but this is mainly due to light not being strong enough .... anyways i have 2 large sword plants that the leaves seems to turn yellow with some holes ... i believe this is difficiency of Iron, the problem is last time i dosed more trace it caused hair algea to grow.... can someone advice ?

90g, 4x54w T5 HO, EI dosing every other day, not on saturday, 50% Water change on Sunday. Eco-complete substrate.

thanks in advance. 

[fischkopp]

Does this happen in old leafs or newer leafs?

Iron deficiency is first seen in new leafs. If older leafs are turning yellow, it's most likely a nitrogen deficiency (but it can also have other causes).

[magnosis]

That's interesting, fishkopp

I have Java Ferns, all older leaves (from the moment I bought them and introduced in my tank) have almost entirely turned brown.

All newer leaves (there's quite a bunch) are very healthy green.

What's a good way to measure nitrogen, and what concentration should I have ?

[cichlidicted]

its the big old leafs .... i echo magnosis question on how to measure it ...... am not so familiar with the technical names now  .... so if someone can tell me what to do in terms of the EI dosing ... more dosage of what ??

Thanks in advance..

[charlie]

I don`t subscribe to the theory you posted  -

all plants seem to do fine, well some loss of colors in red plants but this is mainly due to light not being strong enough

The 4x54 watts T5 fixture you have on that 90 tank would pretty much grow anything, so i think your red plants not having good colour is a sign of something else .

With out knowing your tank contents & nutrient levels, i would probably be inclined to suggest you put a root tab under these swords & see how they do, since swords are largely heavy root feeders , it is likely it`s not getting enough food. They are some arguments that root feeders will try & adapt to foilage feeding when they can`t get their nutrient uptake from the substrate.

i believe this is difficiency of Iron, the problem is last time i dosed more trace it caused hair algea to grow.... can someone advice ?

What traces are you dosing & how much, we as hobbyist tend to try & eliminate nutrients when we have a algae outbreak, mostly due to the fact that in a non planted tank, that is the way to control algae, this approach in planted tanks can have the reverse effect by causing a unbalanced environment via limiting 1 or 2 nutrients which will stop the plants from growing or slowing down it`s uptake, this will create excess nutrients in the water column for the algae, so we come away with the conclusion that it is the dosing of X nutrient been responsible.

You may also try focusing on you CO2 levels, what is it now & how did you measure it?
Regards

[fischkopp]

Amazons sword shoot out A LOT of leafs (it should in your conditions), it can be more than one a day. If the sword would have more than 10 leafs I wouldn't hesitate to remove the older ones that don't look well anymore. As long as no deficiencies are discovered in other plants, I wouldn't worry much about it and leave the dosing as is. Older leafs can die at some point.

The same applies for java fern: having a couple of leafs dying doesn't necessarily means the plant is missing something. Especially fern is growing quite slow and barely shows nutritional deficiencies. More likely is that other leafs shaded it so much, that the plant saw no point to maintain it anymore.

Most nitrogen is present in the water column in form of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. You can get test kits for these. Assuming a cycled tank, ammonia and nitrite will measure zero, so all you need is a descent nitrate test kit. I believe the Salifert one can be somewhat trusted.

[cichlidicted]

The only reason i asuumed its the light .. is because as the plants grow and get closer to the light, they get the darker red color while other leaves at the bottom still have the fade red/green color .... here a picture of my tank showing the red plants ... http://ovas.ca/index.php?topic=42465.0

You can see the rotala macrandra on the left side of the tank versus the Limnophilia aromatica in the centre, but still i have lots to learn and the lights might not be the case, ... my co2 is 112 bpm... its been a while i haven't tested the co2 in the tank, but i usually follow the water sample and 1 day change of ph, (i dont  know the method's name)..... i see no difficiency in any of the plants.... I will use the root tabs to see what happens, and will remove the yellow leaves as well ...

Am not familier with the specfic elements am using since am currently in classs lol. but i use the trace mix container from B&B, 1/4 tsp 3 days a week...

thank you robert and charlie

[magnosis]

Most nitrogen is present in the water column in form of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

I should've known this by now... 
All three are have been reading zero since I finished cycling and introduced fish (2 weeks ago). Despite much algae (I'm working on it) all of my plants are growing and my fish look happy.

Sorry I didn't mean to hijack this thread.
Back to you, cichlidicted !