MWilk

Just finished liquid testing for GH/KH/PO4/pH/Ca 8dGH/4dKH/1.0/7.4/30 that calculated out to a 1.9:1 Ca:Mg and now I understand why, they go by weight not ppm. Thank you for the link. Now I’m just going to dose up Easy Green heavily for a month and see how it goes.

Is there some component of hardness that is unexplainable? If GH is 180ppm, and Ca is 30ppm, what is the rest if not magnesium?

My live bearer tank receives regular doses of equilibrium and the ramshorns do well in there. I’m just baffled by the numbers given by our water treatment facility with magnesium being so high. I figure there must be something about the relationship that I don’t understand.

That was my first thought too, I may still not be doing enough. 2 pumps of easy green 2 times a week, keeping nitrates above 20. The floaters absorb a ton of it. I don’t have any way to test it, so I squirt a little easy iron and a capful of seachem potassium in there because that’s what I do in my other 20 that is doing very well. The thing that started me looking at calcium at all was my snails, I use this tank for mystery snail breeding and they’re not making it past the hatch in sufficient numbers. I also got a very pretty rabbit snail for another tank and want to make sure the calcium stays high enough for their long term health.

This is the tank in question, just a 20 long. Specifically, the scarlet temple in the back right is barely growing, and starting to die off at the bottom of one stem. The golden nesaea pedicellata is doing okay, not great. Hydro salicifolia in the left rear is okay, fairly algae free but very slow again. The anubias nana dropped a leaf yesterday. My GH is about as high as it can get, and calcium tests at 30 ppm. this tank is unheated, 70-72F, has the 24” co-op light on at 60% from sunup to sundown. A full covering of red root floaters on the top of the water. Nitrates 20-30 ppm. Blindly dosing iron and potassium weekly. I have added equilibrium a few weeks ago to try to raise calcium but it contains magnesium as well, though at least in a decent ratio. Does 41 ppm magnesium not seem outright absurd for tap water? I added several pictures, the dwarf sag is new, don’t mind it.

What is a moss slurry exactly? I have this nasty thing in a totally unmaintained shrimp tank. I’m pretty sure it’s 100% algae but for some reason, algae doesn’t grow anywhere else in the tank but on this log. I actually pulled the log out of our farm pond years ago and stuck it in this 29 when I kept bluegill in the tank. Are there some mosses more suited to this sort of thing than others?

I keep seeing recommendations for something like a 3:1 Ca:Mg, but my city’s water reports having more like a 0.8:1. I am not sure I trust it, as my water tests very, very hard, but wity a calcium test I’m consistently coming up with that same ~30-35 ppm calcium in my tank. I suppose next I need an accurate phosphate and a more accurate GH measurement than test strips will give me, but my plants are suffering. Any recommendations? My other tank, I’ll be honest, I haven’t even tested. The plants there are fine, but it is different plants.

I would just go shopping in the physical store and feel the nets. A lot of them are what they called “dipped nylon” and are sort of scratchy. Find something that feels comfortable for him. How often do you really need to scoop him up though?

You’d be better off shopping at an outdoor sporting goods store fishing section. That’s a large fish.

I like those little guys, they are lightweight so they can climb all over plants without disturbing them. They won’t multiply like crazy unless you overfeed. I have them in every tank I have and they never get too bad except in the shrimp tank in my kids’ play room at grandmas house. They get fed way too much there.

Is that eco-complete substrate?

White cloud minnows. 100% peaceful.

Mollies are pretty vicious. Swordtails as well.

Or with that small of a tank, maybe you’d like salvinia minima?

My RRF never really seem to have red roots until I take them out of the water to sell them. looking from the outside, they just look like roots. Sorry the tank isn’t exactly picture ready