Sporophytes turning clear
-
I’m at the beginning of week 5 with these spools and I noticed Friday (they’re inspected daily) a very quick change in color in the tips of these sporophytes on 10 of my spools (one tank). Today they seem to be totally dying/bleaching and starting to curl despite no changes to the tank water. They’re due for a water change tomorrow, as I do them every 7 days, but I’m doing one now just incase. Water parameters are still normal and the same as my other 19 tanks, in which nitrate is between 20-50ppm (if it drops below 20 I add 2 mL of F/2, which hasn’t happened yet), temp varies from 50-52F degrees, and lights are on a 12/12 schedule at 100 umols. I just checked parameters again to be sure, but I cannot find any fluctuation or change from last week or the weekend. I do check them every day even weekends, and there was no power failure that I’m aware of, I’m usually notified within minutes.
I did have problems with ectocarpus in 6 of my tanks, but so far I don’t see it in this tank. These sporophytes were otherwise healthy and nearly 2mm on Thursday.
Is there anything I can do to save these spools, maybe some additive like iron to give them a boost? (I am testing iron in one of my tanks and they’re doing well)?
Hi @elizabeth_savage19, it's likely that the spools are taking up nutrients quicker than you're adding & becoming nutrient starved in the tanks. We see this happen toward week 5 - 6 in the season and often add extra nutrients throughout the week (for example, if we typically do nutrient additions 1x/week, we'll bump it up to 2x/week).
The blades look like a good outplanting size, so in addition to adding more nutrients this week, I would try to get them to the farm as soon as you can.
I'd love to learn about your findings with the iron additions! Keep us updated if you find any meaningful differences