Donk122

This tank has been setup since early March. It finished cycling ~14 days ago. Current livestock includes bladder snails + 7 lamb chop rasboras Its a 9 gallon fluval flex. I'm using the light it came with and at first had it at 80%, but turned it down to 50% a few days ago. On the fluval website they classify it as a low to medium level light. It's on for 8 hours a day. No supplemental co2. Ph is 8, dgh is 13, dkh is 9. Temp sits 77f Since initially planting, all my plants have been growing pretty well. The juncus repens which I’m currently having the most issues with has more than tripled in size and is still actively growing, but it just doesn't look that healthy compared to the other plants in the tank. I’ve noticed a tiny bit of yellowing starting on my lobelia cardinalis too. I'm fertilizing with easy green at 1ml every 5-6 days with a weekly 30%-50% water change. Substrate is just sand. I have not been using root tabs as I made sure all my plants were able to feed through the water column before I bought them. Although it does seem odd to me that the only plants having issues are the ones in the substrate 🤔. I have a feeling the culprit of my issues is/was high light with insufficient co2. Or maybe my ph is too high creating issues with micronutrient uptake? A combination of both perhaps? Maybe they need nutes in the substrate? I saw on aquarium co-op website they recommend to aim for 20-50 nitrates from easy green in the tank. However my tap water has 40pm nitrates to start which makes following this dosing technique difficult to say the least.

Hello, I have a situation that has me confused. I have well water that comes out the tap at a TDS out of ~270ppm. When I test it with API gh+kh kit I get values of: dgh:16 / 16x17.9= 286.4ppm dkh:13 / 13x17.9= 232.7ppm so shouldn’t my water have a tds of at least ~519? Im using a blue lab truncheon to get my TDS value and I have checked to make sure it’s working correctly via calibration solution. From my understanding even though it’s using electrical conductivity to get its TDS value, that TDS value should still include the calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, and carbonate ions also measured in the api titration test. so why isint it adding up, what am I failing to grasp? thanks.