[APD] Re: A real newbie question

["Steve" <steve_wilsonii at fishpalace_org>]

First off I could be way off, but I have a similar experience with
Hygrophila stricta. I had this plant for months and aside from developing
pin holes in the lower leaves and then loosing those leaves it just sat
there and all of a sudden at about 2 months time (after removing some vals)
the plant started to grow. This seemed great but the plant continued to die
faster then it was growing. I really wanted this plant to grow so I did some
research. I came across a statement in Ecology of the Planted Aquarium on
metal toxicity which mentioned zinc. On page 13 she mentions that "excessive
copper, manganese, and zinc may induce iron deficiency and chlorosis." Later
on she mentioned that zinc toxicity can be mistaken for magnesium deficiency
which is what I thought my problem was, but the Mg levels had to be high. Of
course this was not the first time I read this book, but this is the first
time I was receptive to this information.
There is a natural order to which metal is able to be bound to a chelator,
Iron being #1 and Zinc being #2. All the Iron I add to the tank is already
bound so I needed to bind the zinc. I added some loose peat to my filter
(taking into consideration it will lower my PH) as a natural chelator and
gave it some time... Well it was not long before the new growth was big and
strong and the older leaves stopped falling off. Now the plant is rather
lush and when I see spots starting to form on the leaves, I clean out the
filter and replace the peat, and then a few days later I do a water change
and vacuum any excess mulm around that plant and anywhere else I might see
some. This seems to be working well for me.
My zinc levels in my tap water is 0.5181 mg/l and was 5.0 mg/l before the
public water supply filters it. Ecology of the Planted Aquarium has a chart
on page 10 that shows the Zinc standards for humans is 5.0 and for fish is
0.1 ppm, which the conversion to mg/l is the same. I will assume that this
is why my apisto fry that I am raising stopped growing at 1", while the
parents are just over 2" long and were raised elsewhere.
This was a revelation to me and although much of the information stated in
Ecology of the Planted Aquarium may be debatable to many, I have found that
this information helped me quite a bit. Sorry for such a long post...
Steve
----- Original Message ----- 

  a.. To: aquatic-plants at actwin_com
  b.. Subject: [APD] A real newbie question
  c.. From: GramFran413 at aol_com
I have several 10G tanks, all planted.  One of them has aponogeton,
echinodorus barthii, java moss, valisneria spiralis, saggiteria subulata and
a
good-sized bunch of giant hygro.  Everything but the giant hygro is at least
doing
well, if not thriving, with the exception of the giant hygro.  I've had it
for
maybe six months and it's never grown.  It's just been standing there
"looking
at me".  In recent weeks, it's become paler and paler and is now developing
some pinholes in the leaves.

Nitrate (the day before water change) 80
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
GH 75
KH 120
pH 7.2

Is the giant hygro salvageable?  If so, what can I do?

Growing old is inevitable; growing UP is optional.



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