I've been raising aquatic plants now for almost 1 1/2 years (the first half
was raising algae ), but I'm experiencing some new difficulties.

Problem 1.

My E. Osiris plant has been growing for great for about 9 months in my 29
gal. tank (takes up half the tank, new leaves are very red and slowly fade
to a medium-dark green). Within the last 3-4 days I've noticed a few of the
plant leaves (the older leaves on the plant, although I only have 9 huge
leaves because the plant is so big) are starting to develop some areas of
discoloration. The discoloration is hard to describe (and I don't have a
web cam), but here I go... The areas (4-5 separate areas up to 2 inches
long covering 3 different leaves) look like the leaves have "dry spots",
which is about the best I can describe it. The leaves are all submersed,
however, so this is not the case. It's like the top part of the tissue is
growing transparent because the underside of the leaves don't show the
discoloration. The edges of the leaves are also starting to show the
discoloration. The nutrients that I measure are all in good shape (Fe .25
or so, Nitrates 5-10 ppm, PO4 .3 ppm, 4 watts per gallon of light, CO2
around 25 ppm). I know this is a lot of light, but I've been doing this
since the beginning and have had no problems for about a year. The tank is
also starting to develop Hair algae (slight case). I don't measure for K,
but I do dose this once per week after the water change (K2SO4-1/2 tsp.,
plus the K I get from KH2PO4 and from KNO3). Does anyone have any ideas on
this?

Problem 2.

My snails are dieing again! The only thing I can think of here is the 0.10%
of Copper my trace mix contains, or the pH value which is around the 6.8
level. The snails never get really big, always staying pretty young before
they die!

Any help on these issue would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

--
Craig Brye
University of Phoenix Online