# Help - burning or deficiency in ficus pumila?



## scadut (Dec 12, 2013)

Hi I'm wondering if someone more experienced in plant caring can give me some insight. Not sure if I'm providing the appropriate conditions for my focus pumila or if there is somethint I can do better. I provided some pics but I can also give some vivarium information. No plants ever have wet leaves at night. 

Temp range: 75ish day/68ish night
Misting: mistking off 20sec - 8a/11a/2p/5p
Fluval plant 3.0
Soil: ABG

If you can see in my pic the ficus pumilia is dark green in certain newer growth areas but yellowing/browning in older areas. The yellower areas are right below my light so maybe I should put a brom there to shade my ficus? I dont want the ficus to take over the entire background.


----------



## Pepepepe (Aug 30, 2020)

Two things im not any expert but that happened to me and I moved them and gave them a bit more shade and it seems to be better and I really like your viv. What do you house in there?


----------



## Harpspiel (Jan 18, 2015)

Looks like high light or chlorosis, which is a nutrient deficiency. If you don’t have frogs in there yet, you may need to fertilize the plants, but you’ll have to be careful to use a fertilizer that won’t hurt whatever creature you house there in future.


----------



## scadut (Dec 12, 2013)

Thank you for the input. I think I might add a brom in the middle of the yellowing" spot as a first step to see if that solves the problem before I go and add anything in there. Can't believe I gave all that information and didn't include the fauna. Established springtails, powder orange iso and two azureus 1.1.0 in there now. Both frogs eat like f-ing champs daily so I can only assume the poop like champs too. makin' me proud. Thinking about adding another male in there. it's a 24" cube


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Harpspiel said:


> Looks like high light or chlorosis, which is a nutrient deficiency.


So it might be lacking iron? Or there is soil pH that is hindering absorption? 

I think that the worry with ferts in frog vivs is with nitrogen. Fertilizer suggestions without N?

This seems a not uncommon situation, and expert advice would go a long way.


----------



## Robru (Jan 1, 2021)

Socratic Monologue said:


> I think that the worry with ferts in frog vivs is with nitrogen. Fertilizer suggestions without N?


What is the adverse effect of Nitrogen in a viv?


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Robru said:


> What is the adverse effect of Nitrogen in a viv?


Frogs are known to be sensitive to nitrogen compounds -- ammonia, nitrite, nitrate -- likely in virtue of their drinking through their skin from the substrate. I do not know if any keepers have noticed ill effects, and I personally have used normal chemical ferts very judiciously, but it is something that is best to err on the side of caution.


----------



## Harpspiel (Jan 18, 2015)

Socratic Monologue said:


> So it might be lacking iron? Or there is soil pH that is hindering absorption?
> 
> I think that the worry with ferts in frog vivs is with nitrogen. Fertilizer suggestions without N?
> 
> This seems a not uncommon situation, and expert advice would go a long way.


I wish I knew more, given how many plants I grow! I say it looks like chlorosis due to the green veins and the yellow at the edges, that’s a distinctive look and I haven’t seen that in high light situations. Just from Googling it looks like it could be caused by iron deficiency and/or high pH making nutrients unavailable. Now I’m trying to remember what my grandma used to do, she was always trying to grow Azaleas in our limestoney soil...but in this case I think mixing some peat (milled sphagnum) with the soil right around the Ficus would lower the pH locally and would be a good test. There are also fertilizers with high iron content and you could check their nitrogen levels.


----------



## scadut (Dec 12, 2013)

Harpspiel said:


> I wish I knew more, given how many plants I grow! I say it looks like chlorosis due to the green veins and the yellow at the edges, that’s a distinctive look and I haven’t seen that in high light situations. Just from Googling it looks like it could be caused by iron deficiency and/or high pH making nutrients unavailable. Now I’m trying to remember what my grandma used to do, she was always trying to grow Azaleas in our limestoney soil...but in this case I think mixing some peat (milled sphagnum) with the soil right around the Ficus would lower the pH locally and would be a good test. There are also fertilizers with high iron content and you could check their nitrogen levels.


 Isn't it the springtails, then bacteria, that will further process animal waste and dead matter into nitrogen? I have frogs (that shit a lot) in the tank. I would imagine nitrogen levels are where they should be as it's pretty easy for the necessary bacteria to grow where it needs to on it's own. The iron deficiency is something I could see being the culprit. I did look up chlorosis and would agree with the similarities between pictures online and my ficus pumila. Both have mild-severe yellowing on the outer portions of leaves with the veins in the center remaining green. I had some testing strips from my aquariums that I put at the bottom. It might be tough to tell some of the shades of colors since some dirt still stuck on the test pads. I'd assume that would work as the tests are designed to react to levels in any situation. It seems like my soil pH is acidic (maybe around 6.0) with low levels of alkalinity. Harpspiel, what peat/milled sphagnum product would I add to the soil? Like zoomed reptisoil mixed with zoomed sphagnum moss? I took a couple in case the light makes it tough to see. Thanks again for the help!


----------



## Harpspiel (Jan 18, 2015)

How did you get the strip wet enough to test the soil? I think the best way would be to drop some soil into distilled water (distilled water should have an entirely neutral pH, 7) and then swish the stick around in the mixture. Anyway, if your pH is around 6 then it’s not too high, so maybe try lower light and if that doesn’t work try a specifically iron-based fertilizer.

If you end up getting a pH result back that is 7.5 or higher, that’s when I would recommend adding some form of sphagnum, which is acidic. Any form of sphagnum would probably work - long fiber or in peat form.


----------



## Chlorophile (Jun 29, 2017)

Just saw this discussion, but if it's not too little, too late...I was re-reading a perennials book just a day or so ago and saw a handy chart on nutrient issues.
As for nutrient deficiency symptoms, interveinal chlorosis in particular:

older leaf chlorosis suggests insufficient Magnesium [Mg]
younger leaf chlorosis suggests insufficient Iron [Fe] since this element cannot be moved by the plant from older tissues to younger ones when needing to cannibalize limited resources to sustain growth
Manganese [Mn] deficiency chlorosis affects both old and young leaves (not sure if there's a way to tell them apart visually)
Molybdenum [Mo] deficiency is said to resemble Magnesium deficiency (ditto)
I don't know how likely any of the soilless terrarium substrate ingredients would be to alleviate or promote such deficiencies (by lacking the elements supplied in mineral soil) but, if fertilizing, consider using one that is "complete" (in other words, contains the micronutrients beyond just N-P-K). I don't know what animal manures (in this case, herp or microfauna defecation) contribute nutrient-wise beyond N and any other "macro" elements. I wish there was an at-home testing kit for those; even if one wanted to go to the effort of sending out a sample of substrate to a soil-testing lab, I'm pretty sure they can't run their tests accurately with non-mineral soil.

I'm having similar chlorosis issues with its cousin Oakleaf Creeping Fig, though I'm wondering if my particular scenario involves the complicating factor of root decline due to substrate that is/was staying too damp. I do mist with distilled though and don't remember to fertilize regularly (this is a plant-only tank), so I'm sure that's at least a measurable part of the problem.


----------



## scadut (Dec 12, 2013)

Harpspiel said:


> How did you get the strip wet enough to test the soil? I think the best way would be to drop some soil into distilled water (distilled water should have an entirely neutral pH, 7) and then swish the stick around in the mixture. Anyway, if your pH is around 6 then it’s not too high, so maybe try lower light and if that doesn’t work try a specifically iron-based fertilizer.
> 
> If you end up getting a pH result back that is 7.5 or higher, that’s when I would recommend adding some form of sphagnum, which is acidic. Any form of sphagnum would probably work - long fiber or in peat form.


I took a little bit of the soil and dropped it in the water and yielded the same results. After a month of this, unfortunately the yellow discoloration has not gone away. It doesn't look as if its spreading, as some areas are very dark green. I have also moved some broms to provide slight shading to the yellow-effected areas. 

Now that I think about it more, I'm wondering if the material I chose for the background might be contributing to the discoloration. The background is a mixture of Sakrete mortar mix, peat moss, concrete bonding additive, and water. Could it potentially be the lime in the mortar mix. People have used mortar mix for backgrounds plenty of times so I just assumed it was safe as long as it remained moist.


----------

