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Whack!	Thomas Barr
	Apr 20, 2003 18:37 PDT

Have you had a plant deficiency meeting before? That is the current problem I am having, it would be nice to see what kind of problems others have faced with specific plants. Attached is a journal I've been keeping to figure out my fertilizer regiment, using Rotola Indica as an indicator. At first the plant was very white so I started dosing Iron and more phosphate and the condition improved. Now I am stuck with crooked leaves, which is a calcium problem, but my GH is 12 and KH is 6. Maybe high light tanks go through that much calcium? Or I was reading elsewhere that it could be that I am dosing too much K that is interfering with the calcium. Greg I think rather than looking for deficiencies, try removing the water that's there and of unknown composition and replace with tap water and all the needed nutrients for the make up water. Then you know the plant has access to the nutrients. See an issue, take care of it. You can have a battery of Lamott test kits and try your darndest to do a controlled set up for a certain type of deficiency but they are tough to do right. I know of none done on aquatic plants really. By keeping up on this routine(adding nutrients regularly), you never have a deficiency(or an excess since you do large weekly water changes). It's when you slack off, you get algae and poor plant growth. You can forget Ca issues, I've had tap water with over 600ppm of Ca and no plant issues. Well except perhaps 2 plants that tend to give folks with soft water issues anyway. But it was not due to K/Ca. You are not even close to this level. As far as using up some 100-200ppm of Ca in a week? Nope......... On a note that's started to chaff my hide: I kept hearing some fool out there that seems to like to promote this K inhibition of Ca or vice versus. Well, I've had tanks with lots of K and very little Ca(like I do now). I've had tanks with high Ca and high K and I've had tanks with low K and low Ca. And the moderate levels in between. Now if this fool can show me that this occurs in practical aquariums, I'll eat a handful of pennywort. Because it doesn't. I know what I see. That interaction might occur in terrestrial plants where pH issues and extremely concentrated amounts of Ca etc can come into play. Ca/K gates at the cell level in plants is something else also. I think someone got confused and did not see if what they said applies to planted aquariums. Because if they did, they would not be saying this. Another person blaming bad plant growth on the wrong parameter. Someday we will see less of this as more folks become aware and learn about aquatic plant keeping. Makes me want to slap these people with a mullet:-) Whack! Greg, this is not directed at you personally:-) Just don't want you(and many others) worrying about things that don't matter. Regards, Tom Barr

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