Koi

It looks like you have java fern not an amazon sword and the roots you are seeing coming out the leaves are baby plantlets. You can pluck them off if you like but it might be even better just to let them either fall off on their own or allow the plantlet to get a little bigger. Also you might want to pull the java fern out of the substrate a little. It might not be an issue but you could run the risk of having the rhizome of the plant rot out. The rhizome would be the horizontal part of the plant where the leaves are coming out. You can try tying/gluing it to that piece of wood. Since java fern pulls nutrients through the water you don't need to use root tabs anymore unless thats your only source of fertilizer. I wouldn't worry about losing co2 with the air stone, it might even be more beneficial to leave it on.

I'm not entirely sure if you can, but I imagine the fluval 3.0s would be able to achieve warm white since you can adjust the blue levels. Were you looking for a warm white look specifically with a led fixture? If not you can buy a 1 or 2 bulb t8 fixture for fairly cheap and use 3000k-3300k led retrofits (2700k if you want even warmer). Problem is the fixture is only 24 inches long if having full light coverage across the tank matters to you. Not sure how well the light will show up on picture but this is with a 3300k led fixture.

@marc206 Just in case I wasn't being clear enough, I attach my line to this inlet. So as far as I know only the rio 800 and 1100 has this specific impeller and these two pumps aren't really ideal for smaller tanks. It just so happens to work really well for my 65 gallon tank because it spins co2 across a 3ft length of my tank instead of floating straight up like you would see with a regular glass diffuser. If you have a smaller tank a smaller venturi pump will probably work but this exact impeller was what attracted me towards this pump.

Yep, feed it directly to the impeller.

@gardenman I recently started using a few weeks ago and wanted to see if you have seen a better one. I just bought a Rio Plus 800 venturi and I'm really starting to like it. I've been using a lot less co2 and it does a great job whipping co2 around my tank. The impeller from the rio 800 has 6 adjustable blades and it breaks up co2 really well. It's pushes out a mix of mist/microbubbles. Its definitely a little noisy depending on how much co2 the impeller has to break up, but It doesn't bother me too much especially since it is so easy to use/clean. I've been looking at needle wheel impellers used for calcium reactors also but I can't find one that is a reasonable price. I would love to know if there are any venturis that you have been looking at.

Been some time since I've update this but I bought some new toys this week so I felt it was a good time to document some of the changes going on in my tank. Somewhere around April-May I got a little busy and didn't have time to manage my tank so I just decided to let it go. It feel like I stopped taking care of the tank for a month or so but I don't really remember. I stopped fertilizing and doing water changes completely but I still fed everyday and made sure to top off the tank with water at least. I also moved all my guppies outside to my pond so I may even consider changing my stocking. Being as cheap as I am I might do an all male guppy tank, but we'll see for now. Theres not too many changes in these pictures but I figured I'd log them in before I lose any pictures. But here is the result of my "vacation" from tank maintenance and I will say It was a lovely break away from tank maintenance! I'm definitely looking forward to see how change the layout of my tank! 5/17/21 5/24/21 6/14/21 This week I found a t5 fixture at a flea market for $20 which I just couldn't pass on. Heres a little comparison between my previous led lights, t5 with led bulbs retrofits, and some colored t5 bulbs. The tanks will be in the same order as the picture of bulbs to show what each light looks like. Heres a short video comparison of my t5 fixture with different bulbs LED Retrofits Monochromatic bulbs (not sure if thats what they are called)

You're doing great, maybe if you see my tank you might feel a little better! haha

Your tank looks great! I actually like your plant choices, you have a good mix of fast and slow growing plants with a variety of textures. Just by looking at how nice your alternanthera is starting to become I think you are pretty spot on with the correct nutrient levels and if not, you are pretty close. Your tank looks like it starting to close in on balancing out I think you should stick with the routine you have going now and make minor adjustments. I think you should stick with your light settings for now especially if you'd like to keep the red on your AR. I can see new growth on a lot of your plants so at this point I wouldn't even worry about the algae and just focus on pushing growth on your plants with good fertilization. It won't be long where you can cut the tops of your AR and ludwigia and throw out bottom portions that are covered in algae. Also in the meantime while you wait for your plants to grow, I would go in and remove leaves that are completely covered in algae or are decaying. You don't have to do a massive cleaning routine and tear up everything either. Although I do heavy maintenance pretty often, I usually spend 5 minutes or less through out the day plucking out ratty leaves if I see any as I walk past my tank. But as you continue the prune the unhealthy parts of your plants and allow them to grow out, your algae won't be able to compete with that plant mass. Also, now that I see how nice your tank is, I'm pretty sure you don't want elodea in your tank haha. Being that its a pretty invasive weed, it might take away from the overall aestethics in your tank. I should have known better when you mentioned watching aquascaping videos... But like I said earlier, you are extremely close to beating out the algae so don't give up just yet!

Sorry to hear about your plant loss. It is a little hard to say what exactly is the problem you are dealing with because your tank is still relatively new but I can point out a few things that stick out to me. Your ammonia problem could be that you are still cycling the tank so try changing some water out would help to bring it down and I would hold off on feeding until you see ammonia come down. At the same time I think it would be good to remove or trim off decaying leaves as that might be contributing to your ammonia problem. Your plants might be melting because one of two things or possibly both. Your plants could still be adjusting themselves to your water or your low nitrates could mean there isn't enough nutrients in your water. I think upping your dose of easy green is a good start but be sure to monitor your nitrates as you do it and aim somewhere for 10-20 ppm. Root tabs is a good option for your sword and crypts but adding extra easy green should do the trick. From there focus more on new growth coming from your plants instead of the older leaves. Also you are getting a lot of shading from your plants but you can remove more of your floating plants instead of having to buy another light. With the water parameters you have right now there is no need for an RO unit. You essentially would be stripping minerals and nutrients from your water at which point you would have to add back in with more equilibrium and easy green. You could inject co2 if you wanted to but I would try balancing your tank first before jumping into it. Co2 will help your plants grow better but it also does the same for algae if the tank isn't balanced. If anything problems get worse a lot faster when injecting co2. But these are just my thoughts on it, hopefully your tank turns around soon I'm sure you'll be fine with a little time and maintenance!

There are a lot of different factors that can cause algae but I don't think temperature alone will induce algae. Or at least it won't around your temps. I think 75 degrees is recommended because it serves as a good middle ground for a wide range of plants to grow well. Generally everything grows faster the warmer it gets wether its your fish, plants, or algae. So any imbalances in your tank will be exacerbated at 80 degrees compared to say 60. I like to use a lot of plants or really fast growing plants to compete against algae. Elodea does a pretty good job pulling nutrients from the water and it grows really fast for me at 80 degrees. I'm sure someone here will be able to help you or at least lead you in the right direction. Any information you can give about your tank like water parameters, light schedule, and if you are dosing any fertilizers will help give a clearer picture as to what might be going on.

I'm not sure how much having a 24/7 mode will hinder your plant growth but personally I like having a good amount of time for the plants to "rest". At least from my very general understanding how plants grow, the way I understand it is that plants photosynthesize during the day creating their food so that that it can "eat/grow" during night. I'm not entirely sure how correct that statement is but I've definitely seen this occur with some of my stem plants. This is somewhere near the middle of my light cycle. I can't seem to find a picture where it was at its peak stage of photosynthesis, but this is close enough. Usually the petals of the rotala are completely flattened out trying to absorb as much light as possible. Here it is an hour before light goes off and the petals are starting to close off. 30 minutes before lights off This is I think is 4-5 hours after light has shut off. I couldn't find a picture at lights off when the petals fully closed but hopefully you can see the growth

It looks like the seeds you bought were a mix of different plants. Just curious since I'm unsure, is your first picture with the grass like plants your latest photo or is it the second? It's a little hard to tell from the picture but your second picture looks strikingly similar to glossostigma elatinoides. It's pretty common for glosso to be sold as seeds to use for dry start/carpeting. For reference, this is what my glosso looks like. As for maintenance, I don't really know an easy way to to trim quickly without getting any of your shrimp. Usually I'll either run my hand or shake my scissors across my carpet to scare off the shrimp before I cut it. Using a turkey baster to push water through the carpet works well too. If you really want to be meticulous, before you remove the leaves you cut, I'd shake them around in the tank incase any fry are stuck/holding on to the cuttings. Or when you net up all the trimmed leaves , throw it in a jar of water to see if shrimp came along with it.

If I knew nothing about fish keeping, I'd probably question why you spent money on a bunch of sticks too!

Thats a steal!

The first one looks like a bacopa, if I had to guess Bacopa Caroliniana I’m only commenting because I admire the fact that you took time to outline the leaves instead of just circling it haha

I think it’s illegal to export from Japan or at least it was a long time ago. I just assumed they just used another rock and labeled it as seiryu stone.

It looks like you have staghorn algae, if so you can just pluck that off by hand pretty easily. I'm not sure if you just have the one sponge filter but try moving it around different areas to see if you can get better water circulation. As you val and dwarf lily grows, the leaves will start affecting the flow pattern in your tank. I would remove any of the stunted or tattered dwarf lill leaves too. By decongesting that area, it might help with better circulation and allow any leaves that are getting shaded more light. Try dosing easy green to reach 20 ppm nitrates and just see in next few weeks if the problem still persists. Hopefully you will be able to rule out some possibilities then.

It might work, I think seiryu stone is a type of limestone and your water might be acidic enough for it to start eating away at the stones till calcium/carbonates leach off of it. I've definitely noticed that my ph gets buffered to around 6.4 even if I try lowering it even more. Usually my ph stops dropping and starts to stabilize while gh/kh slowly rises throughout the week.

Not that I fully understand how iron works, it seems to me iron is a little hard to test accurately (or at least I've given up on trying out different test kits). I've noticed that testing even a few hours after dosing, iron isn't present or isn't being detected. Since you mentioned that you are a Seachem Junkie it would be safe to assume you are using Flourish Iron?. If so, luckily for you Seachem uses a form of iron that is readily usable for plants... the bad news is that it's very unstable and precipitates out quickly which I think plays into being difficult to test. If I can offer some advice, a little bit of iron will go a long way. I've had better results dosing smaller amounts of iron more frequently throughout the week than if I were to dose that same amount of iron once a week. I'm guessing by hi tech you mean co2 injection? Looking at your gh/kh it sounds like you have quite the ideal setup, would love to see your tank!

I like using the API GH/KH test kit. Since GH measures both calcium and magnesium you won't really know how much calcium is in your water but I think it still serves the same purpose for what you are looking for.

My pleasure! I'm pretty sure my method isn't the most accurate for calibrating a test kit but I can sleep better knowing at least one of my results is close!

@AJE It looks like theres some extra water dripping from your test strip onto the color chart. This probably isn't the issue you are running into but I'll just throw this idea out there anyways Sometimes when I lay test strips flat on a table the water tends to seep through the back and turn the nitrite pad pink (sometimes my ph and kh pads too). Now after I dip my test strips, I just lay it on top of my tongs so that any excess water can drip off without touching the other pads.

Glad to know I'm not the only one that is experiencing this! I always see a bunch of these worms especially when I tear crypts out from my tank. I'm sure I have black worms living in my substrate now but I found these in my tank before I even started feeding live black worms.

This isn't the most surefire way but if you have distilled water you can test that and see what results you get. The results should come pretty close to 7 but most likely it will be a little lower due to co2 dropping the ph of the distilled water.