Hello! Im newer to aquarium keeping and i have run into an issue i cant seem to fix on my 20g planted tank. My stem plant, mainly my hygrophilia polysperma and my ovalis plants keep forming pin holes in leaves from the oldest to newest and i cannot get it to stop. This tank ran smoothly and these plants grew lushly the first 6 months but now i cant get trimming to propagate without forming pinholes and loosing leaves.

The tank is purely aqua soil substrate, i have been dosing seachem potassium and flourish once or  twice a week since establishment and have in the past 2 months upped potassium to 3 times a week in case it was a potassium deficiency but that doesnt seem to be the case so far. Thus tank also has a co2 tank attached and working for about 10hrs a day. I keep my like on for 12hrs as well on a timer.

The tank is heavily planted and i did have a period where other plants suffered leaf holes and leaf wasting as well, mostly my floaters and pearlweed about 3 months ago. Those are bouncing back but may also still be somewhat affected though not as much as my fast growing stem plants

The tank is somewhat heavily stocked with bluedream shrimp, 2 mystery snails, 2 hillstream loaches, 2 honey goarami, 6 medaka rice fish, 4 ember tetra, and 6 emerald rasbora, 4 juli corys, and 2 khuli loaches. The fish have seemed mostly healthy but i did lose some juli and emerald rasbora a few months ago to what i assume was a nitrate spike, but never perfectly pinpointed the reason as i had signs of parasites that i have since remedied with api general cure.

Finally below you can see a test strip check i did today. Unfortunately i am color blind, (red/green) so i always feel iffy testing my water but with the help of friends and local fish stores my parameters usually seem stable and safe in this tank. I do wonder if maybe my water is too hard from shrimp supplements for kh i have used? Not sure if that would cause the pin holes though. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!




Advice on plants forming pin holes for a newbie!