Aloe leaves cannot be propagated.

It looks like it isn't photosynthesizing much--color looks very pale (no, I don't mean the white part. I mean the green part) And see how it's flattened out and really open? It's trying to get as much light as it can. It's not getting enough. Give it more light. Also check for rot.

It is in pure grit and the roots look great, so if there is rot, it isn't apparent.

It has bee flat since I bought it in June or July. I put it in direct sun after purchase, but it turned quite grey (feared sunburn, but no tissue died). It is currently getting 4-5 hours of direct sun and the rest is bright shade on a south-facing balcony, so lack of light seems unlikely. Do Aloes need more than that? Might it still be suffering from dim conditions in the store?

Is rot the only thing that causes an upper leaf to detach? Can getting the rosette wet during watering do it? Can cold water do it?

My aloe plants are outside all year long. In the summer they get tons of rain, so watering the rosette is not a problem. I think the rain is cold, but maybe the plants do not. They pretty much get full sun, with just a little afternoon shade from a palm tree. I fertilize when I remember.

Did the leaf just drop off, or did it get bumped? I notice the tips of the leaves are dried (gone). Did this happen after being in the sun? Maybe you needed to wean it into the sun more slowly.

This is a similar small aloe, A. 'Pink Blush'.

What is going on with your leaf tips? Those sorts of aloe hybrids rarely get necrotic leaf tips unless they are not getting enough water.

Also, rain on an aloe versus tap water on an aloe are like comparing apples to oranges.. not the same thing at all. Rain water is acidic, salt free, and very highly oxygenated⦠it is like magic⦠but tap water on a plant's crown can be very damaging, allowing rot to occur, particularly if it is not very warm out. Always best NOT to get any tap water on the crown of an aloe, particularly small, flat ones that will trap the water and be more severely affected by it. My guess is leaf loss is due to some damage near the plant's center, probably from tap water.

But the leaf tip necrosis thing makes me think your soil mix is too well draining. Most aloes don't like being dried out all the time⦠I grow all my aloes in regular potting soil with pumice in it⦠They do dry out, but stay moist for days after watering, and love it (most particularly like most soil in the winter⦠though some prefer water in summers bestâ¦and some hate watering in summers, but those are few and far between).

Good point on rain vs tap water. I have an r/o system to get rid of the yuckies in our water (like the smell of chlorine from the tap), so I forget what tap water can be like.

I should've explained the leaf tips from the start. They were sliced off by the sharp edges of the dinky pot it was in when I bought it. Any leaf that extended beyond the edge got cut like a knife whenever the plant was jostled.

It's interesting that a mix can drain TOO well for these plants. This mix retains only 25% of its volume after a minute of soaking, but I water every 2-3 days, never letting it dry out. My pothos and spider plants are thriving in it, and this little guy's roots are growing well, so I don't think it's suffering from the mix - except that such frequent watering is why the center stayed wet enough to damage it. The leaf wasn't bumped or anything. I just noticed it was loose, and it came right off.

I'm making a new batch of grit soon - one that retains more water. I'll transplant it then, or I might do the soil and pumice mix. I have several succulents in a mix of about 30:70 soil to pumice, and they're doing okay. I'm still experimenting with various media to see which ones work best for me.

Thanks very much for the education guys! Good lesson!

I have 25% coir and bark combined in my pumice/granite mix. I water in harsh Texas summer 1 time a week. I am backing off now.

OP said nothing about fertilizer. That mix will hold very little if any nutrients. Plus your constant water schedule washes everything out.

The good news is the minerals in your crappy tap water won't really have a chance to accumulate in the mix to jack up pH (not as big a deal with succulents than other houseplants).

The bad news is there are NO nutrients in there and if there are, they get washed out constantly

Throw a little CRF in there. Your plant is hungry.

use dilute water-based fertilizer, or VERY SPARINGLY slow release fertilizer. I personally only fertilize my potted aloes once every few years, and with water based fertilizer, diluted out a bit.. .they seem fine and it's been 15 years. Overfertilization is WAY too easy (done that, too)⦠not much worse than killing off your plants by burning their roots.

Lzrddr - How can you tell when an Aloe (or any succulent, for that matter) isn't getting enough, or is getting too much fertilizer? Do slide need or tolerate less fertilizer than other succulents? I recently began using Foliage Pro. The bottle says 1 teaspoon per gallon per week. I'm using about 1/2 that every time I water. Too much? Too little?

The Aloe was in peat when I got it in July. I probably moved it to grit a month later. I used MG fertilizer maybe once, very diluted, before I began using Foliage Pro regularity about 3 weeks ago. If I'm over- or under- fertilizing, I'm thinking it won't be apparent yet (unless grossly overdoing it). Whatcha think?

Wantonamara - I've actually been considering trying coir since I bought a very nice Sans recently that came in it. Seems like a nice, well-draining, light soil. Is there a particular type of coir you use, like certain paticle size, grind, etc? I really don't know much about the stuff yet - only that this Sans seems very happy in it. Do you mean 25% EACH coir and bark, or 25% of a mix of coir and bark? Is it a variation on Al's gritty mix recipe? I'd like to use his recipe, but I have nowhere to screen the bark, so I'm making a batch of 2:1 granite:diatomacious earth without bark. If coir can be purchased in a particle size that wouldn't need screening, maybe I could make the mix with it instead?