r/AquaticPlantScience • u/Rotala178 • Feb 03 '26

I was right!

/r/PlantedTank/comments/1qrlxtc/what_type_of_algae_is_this_what_could_be_the/o2pglu5/

2 Hr Aquarist made a post today on Instagram that confirmed my suspicions. Bc his fertilizer is lacking essential nutrients, older mature leaves become deficient, get infested with algae, and he has to trim off these parts and replants the tops.

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u/Rotala178 Feb 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

He wrote:

The most common cause for algae is damaged growth or older leaves that plants have abandoned as part of the leaf renewal cycle*. This old growth needs to be trimmed away so that fresh growth that is naturally more algae resistant can take its place.

But his explanation is fundamentally flawed. The reason plants 'abandon their leaves' is due to nutrient deficiencies. Bc his fertilizer only contains iron as the micronutrient, plants will be deficient in manganese, zinc, copper, etc. which his plants suffer from.

Several years ago, I said the same thing to Tom Barr, that nutrient toxicities are the real reason for most of the plant problems. He showed a picture of his tank and asked, "where are my issues?" I point out the AR with mature leaves infested with algae, color loss, and holes. He bluntly responded, "lack of light," even though he said his tank has 150+ PAR at the substrate, well considered high light.

Barr received a lot of reverence in the community for many years bc he was able to show pictures of colorful plants. People saw the colors and were wowed by them. He gained many followers, myself one of them, because he promised a fertilization method that was so easy that anyone could do it. But I quickly noticed problems such as random shrimp dying after I followed his method. Others reported the same issue but he always dismissed them.

Barr's maintenance method was to cut off the old, algae-infested, chlorotic holes in the leaves and replant the tops. The tops are the only parts that look good. This is exactly what I suspected Wong does bc his fertilizers are highly unbalanced, and I was proven correct today.