I’ve continued to make adjustements with the tank and things have not improved too much. Slowly, I’ve been increasing the BPM on the CO2, but I can’t seem to get it up over 3ppm. Today, I changed the count from 84 to 148, so we’ll see how much of a difference that makes. I’ve been doubling it every week to ten days since I installed it.
I pruned my plants quite a bit last weekend. I pulled out some of the smaller Java Fern that didn’t look to healthy and had Hair algae growing on them. I also trimmed all the Rotala that were brown. More have died since last weekend so I’ll likely do some more pruning tomorrow. I pulled the dead/dying leaves off of the Kleiner Swords as well. Those plants seem to be doing very well. Each of the two swords are building an inflorescence now and it looks like there’ll be two, maybe three plants on each. Don’t know what I’ll do with those.
The driftwood that I removed a few weeks ago and boiled is still hairgrass free. Some green algae now, but that, in the past, has been easier to remove from the tank. I soaked my small rock in bleach last weekend to remove the algae from it. This weekened, if time permits, I’ll pull one of the two remaining pieces of driftwood and boil it. I’ll treat the third one in a few weeks.
I added five more Otocinclus Catfish last weekend. One died during the week, the rest seem to be doing okay.
Tests from last week show that the NO3 (Nitrates) are high. I’ll be doing some reasearch today on how to lower that. The weekly water changes help. I am pretty sure the spike is due to the dying plants, which I’ve been hesitant to pull because I am hoping the CO2 injector provides them with what they need to get healthy. Iron was low too, so I added 40mm of Floragrow last weekend. If the Iron content is still low tomorrow when I test, I’ll add another 40mm. I’ll probably do that each week till I get it up to .25-.50 ppm, which research indicates is where it should be.
