Hygrophila pinnatifida potassium deficiency

[Solcielo lawrencia]

Does anyone know how much potassium this plant requires? I've had this plant for more than a year and it always has pinholes.

Hpin K.jpg

[Solcielo lawrencia]

I've finally figured out why there is the appearance of potassium deficiency. It's a micronutrient toxicity that caused these pinholes to form. Trace element toxicity may be impairing or damaging the potassium uptake channels or damaging some other intracellular mechanism which leads to the pinholes. Since I've reduced micronutrients (CSM+B) all plants, not just H. pinna, have improved growth significantly.

[parthapratim22]

Nice info.

[vikramdutta11]

Will u pls share the dosing info in details along with ur tank details?

[Solcielo lawrencia]

I was dosing EI suggested concentrations for NPK and CSM+B. Problems were immediate with the pinholes as seen in the pictures as well as necrosis. Thinking it was a potassium deficiency, I increased K. Then I continued to increase until I was dosing 160ppm per week. But the pinholes and necrosis were still occurring. I then tried dosing ridiculous amounts of CSM+B thinking it may have been a micronutrient deficiency. Until I killed all the shrimp and snails and injured fish. One fish had gills so swollen that it dislocated its own jaw. It eventually died because it couldn't eat. I tried everything else, including using potassium chloride and sodium chloride thinking it may have been a deficiency in sodium or chloride. But no improvement. Finally, I reduced CSM+B to half EI concentrations of 0.1ppm/daily. Things started improving. When it was down to 0.2ppm/Fe from CSM+B per week, things really started improving. No more pinholes, and growth is now normal. Now, I've reduced CSM+B even further to less than 0.07ppm of Fe from CSM+B, and supplemented the extra Fe from FeDTPA. Everything is growing great!

Tank is 60 US gallons; high light; silica sand and Floramax substrate.

[vikramdutta11]

OH thats really a great input, Thanks for sharing this in details.