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Lack of light or nutrients?

2K views 5 replies 2 participants last post by  Byron 
#1 ·
After going on an 11 day vacation, during which my fish were fed 6 days in with portioned out food, I returned to no deaths!

But, I returned to several dead leaves and many that are yellowing, browning, or becoming clear. I did not have the person that came to feed the fish add any nutrients.

Do you think this decay is due to not receiving any nutrients for the past 11-12 days, or the fact that my water sprite had grown like crazy and is really beginning to hog much of the light at the top of the tank?

I have 2 24" Hagen Life-glo bulbs over the tank that run for 12 hours. I also usually dose Flourish Comprehensive once to twice a week.
 
#2 ·
I would not think that missing fertilization for one week would have made any noticeable difference within a week following. At least this has been my experience. It does also depend on what nutrients are otherwise available. Was the water change schedule affected, for instance?

If the light period was unaffected, here again I would not have expected anything within a week.

From the above, you will see I am considering any changes to the norm. Temperature, water parameters, fish feeding, fertilization, light intensity and duration--these are all things that can affect plant growth if changes occur. The degree depends upon the whole system.

With respect to the Water Sprite, as with all floating plants, you must regularly thin them out or trim them to maintain whatever amount of shading you need in the tank. I find the easiest way with Water Sprite is to pull of some of the daughter plants and remove the large parent plant, then cull the daughter plants similarly. The fast growth of this plant is a benefit as it is removing ammonia and other nutrients from the water column very effectively. This is a great floating plant.

Byron.
 
#3 ·
The two main changes would be not feeding every day and going almost double the amount of time between a water change. So I assume there wasn't as much ammonia being produced because of the food decrease which I would propose could have caused this.

It was just strange to come back to several dead leaves when everything seemed fine upon leaving. I definitely need to trim out the watersprite.

I will give it a week or so and see if the plants rebound.
 
#4 ·
The two main changes would be not feeding every day and going almost double the amount of time between a water change. So I assume there wasn't as much ammonia being produced because of the food decrease which I would propose could have caused this.

It was just strange to come back to several dead leaves when everything seemed fine upon leaving. I definitely need to trim out the watersprite.

I will give it a week or so and see if the plants rebound.
Again, that sudden of a change in the plants would be due to something that may have altered prior to all this, or building up for a while, such as a gradual lessening of light [just one thing, don't jump to conclusions:)]. Which plant species? And can you post a photo?
 
#6 ·
I will try to take a photo when I return home.

The ones I mainly noticed it on were a few of my amazon swords, to include a few of the compacta. That was mainly it.
In that case, I would expect it may have been the lack of nutrients for a week. Swords are very heavy feeders. The photo will allow me to be a bit more certain, but if this is only the outer leaves, the new inner growth from the centre of the crown should be OK with weekly fertilization.
 
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