# deformed/non-flat plant leaves..



## fisherman

i didnt think it was a big deal at first, but now most of my plants leaves are not growing perfectly flat anymore... i would of thought it was from dosing ferts but i only put in flourish comprehensive like once a week with W/C usualy... for these past 2 weeks i stoped dosing the stuff but still new leaves on the barteri have been growing deformed or should i say not perfectly flat... the plants that are effected by this are anubias barteri, most of the crypts(some leaves stay perfectly flat, some dont), the bulbitis fern... it doesnt seem to effect the anubias nana though, or the other unknown plant i have in the tank... could it just be the plant it self? ever since i put in the anubias barteri it has never grown flat leaves and i would have to trim them off...tank is low light, diy yeast co2... help please...


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## ubr0ke

how long has the tank been up?
you say low lights but what type of fixture and how many watts.?


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## davej

Quite often new leaves growing in deformed are a sign of calcium deficiency if I remember right.


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## fisherman

tank has been up for about a year now i think, i had the original lighting up befor which i think was 30watts... i just put up a 1x39w t5ho that i got recently on boxing day... so thats been about a month... but even when i had the original 30watt lighting i still get the same problem... tank is a 46 gallon bow front... i can try to get a pic up if needed...


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## fisherman

bump still need this problem solved... i dont think it could be calcium defiencey cause i do keep my gh at 4 drops of the tester... wouldnt that be enough calcium??? just had 2 more leaves pop up and they are ugly... i always have to trim these new ugly leaves...



going to take a pic now


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## fisherman

ImageShack Album - 4 images

cant realy see the 2 new leaves on the anubias i was talking about because of the brightness... dunno why the cam did that... but u can see one of the leaves on the anubias, its clearly not flat as the others...


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## EDGE

Typically, when leaves curled upward, that means there is too much fertilizer in the aquarium. But I don't know this hold true for cupped anubias leaves. If the leaves are curling downward or all twisted, then low Calcium. but I wouldn't add Calcium without adding Magensium and Potassium 

We need more information on the tank. What substrate? What is the dimension of the tank? how many BPS is the DIY CO2? Cryptocoryne leaves don't grow flat in most species. They tend to have a curve to them.

What other plants are affected?

ADD/EDIT: What is your pH? the lower the pH, the more plants are affected by gH deficiency. What are you adding to raise gH/kH?


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## fisherman

that is alot of questions to answear.. ill try to answear most of them for now..

subtrate - flourite gravel black, had this for a while now, been about a year i think.. about 2 inches in height of gravel i would geuss
dimension of tank - 36"L x 16.25"W x 20"H
BPS of DIY co2 - unkown, i have it going threw an airstone so it puts out little bubbles.. i do have x2, 1.5 litre bottles connected to the same air stone for diffusion.. its just connected to the bottom of the tank
plants infected - 3 different types of crypts, baby plant seem more less effective, i do have another species of crypt which is very bright green that is uneffected at all... needle leafe fern looks effected to but hard to tell cause its so thin, java fern is hard to tell to cause its still a small baby, bulbitis fern is really effected the most on new leaves(maybe it grows like that?).. red melon sword i think thats what it is, is effected, befor i remember it was perfectly fine.. and of course my fav anubias barteri round leaf is effected..
PH - last time i checked was about 7 - 8 i will have to get that checked later on
type of KH/GH buffers i am using - i was using replenish for GH but now i just started today using equilibrium since IPU does not have replenish no more. for kh i use alkaline buffer..


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## EDGE

Replenish is most likely the culprit. 

Calcium (min) 13.00%
Calcium (max) 14.00%
Magnesium (min) 1.2%
Potassium (min) 0.12%
Sodium (min) 0.60%
Sodium (max) 0.70%

When the Ca/Mg/K ratio is out of proportion, one of the elements get locked out. If you just add replenish to the water you changed, your Mg and K will bottom out leaving Calcium at extreme high level. your 4 gH is probably 95% Ca if not 99%. 

Do a couple weeks of large water change roughly 50% to 75%, then add gH via equilibrium. to bring gH back up to 4. 

ADD: 50% over a period of a few days, if your tank is heavily stock or rarely get larger water change. 

Another way is to just add Epsom salt and not equilibrium for a few weeks with water change to help adjust the Ca/Mg ratio. But this is more tedious without testing for Ca and Mg


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## fisherman

*Do a couple weeks of large water change roughly 50% to 75%, then add gH via equilibrium. to bring gH back up to 4.*

i am a little confused on this... do i need to slowly adjust the Ca/Mg/k levels up??

i have already did a 50% water change with the equilibrium this time... not with the replenish, i completely ran out of it... is that bad???

yeah there must of been a reason why IPU stoped selling replenish......


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## EDGE

Sorry for the confusion.

If you already do 50% water change, then the new growth should revert back. Old growth will show the deformity.

This was suggested if you were in the small water change group, 25% or less water change.

Normally, I would not do large water change to a tank that has been receiving small 25% water change or tanks that run high TDS. You would have to slowly adjust the water because your fish/inhabitant are not used to the large water change and or create a huge TDS swing quite fast. 

i.e. if TDS is 1000, 50% water change will drop down to 500. (500 difference shock). If TDS is at 200, 50% water change will drop down to 100 (100 difference). 

Of course, this could easily be resolved by having a large barrel to house conditioned water to change. 

Replenish is still a good product for certain purpose but not for planted tank. Seachem website suggests certain products for particular type of setup. 

Replenish is not part of the product of recommendation for planted tank on their page.


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## fisherman

seems like the 2 newer anubias leaves turned flat already, i geuss they wernt fully grown yet and grew flat... wow and i used a whole bottle of replenish already... thx for the help EDGE! it was a good thing that IPU stoped selling replenish otherwise i woulda bought another bottle..


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## fisherman

1 more question, should my plants grow better now that i am using the right buffers for a planted tank?? just curious


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## EDGE

Your plants wont grow deform. Depends on if your tank has enough Nitrate and Phosphate and what you mean by better. You can start dosing flourish again following the recommendation from the bottle.

If you have a lot of fish in the tank,then equilibrium will be perfect as there is a lot of potassium in the product to offset the N and P byproduct of fish and food waste.

If you want faster growth speed, then you should supplement the tank with a carbon source. metricide/excel or CO2 (DIY or pressurized).

I have been playing with potassium dosing for a while now in a *fishless* planted 75g and in tanks that get 2 to 3 times feeding a day. So far, I have found that excess potassium can lead to nitrate deficiency symptoms if there is not enough fish in a CO2 injected tank. KNO3 doesn't help either because potassium is also being added at the same time. I chopped the K off the DIY gH+K mixed (similar to seachem equilibrium ratio without Fe and Mn) now. Worse comes to worse, I will add ammonium to offset the K if plants keep on losing the older leaves or just add fish to the tank


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