deluxechev

Just an update, the plants came in about a week and a half ago, looked nice and healthy just like the last batch. Couple of days later I dropped in 6 Pygmy Cories. Fish are all doing fine. No spikes, new plants are starting to die back which sounds normal. I picked up a Seachem Iron test kit a few days ago and found out I’m not giving anywhere near enough of the Seachem Flourish Iron. Hopefully that turns things around for me with these PSO's.

Also, lights are set to lowest intensity, on timer for 8 hours a day. Tank temp is 77. Air stone added one week ago. No CO2. Waiting for tank to cycle before picking up 6 Pygmy Corydoras.

New setup, Fluval Flex 15. Substrate is 2-3” of Seachem Flourite Dark. I’ve got some dragon stone and 2 pieces of Mopani Driftwood. The wood was boiled multiple times and soaked and the substrate cleaned thoroughly before going into the tank. No issues with cloudy water. I planted the following when I setup the tank. 1 pot of Anubias Nana (AN). 1 pot of Anubias Nana Petite (ANP). 2 pot of Cryptocoryne Lucens (CL). 2 pot of Bacopa Caroliniana (BC). 1 pot of Pogostemon Stellatus Octopus (PSO). All the plants looked strong and healthy when they arrived. I’m almost 4 ½ weeks in the Anubias’s and CL look like they’re doing ok. I broke up the BC & PSO during planting to spread the plants around a bit and all but one of the BC’s are dead. 3 of the 5 PSO’s are dead and the remaining two are not looking great. After two weeks I added 8 Cardinal Tetra’s, 7 have made it. The one that died kicked it within the first 2 hours of being introduced into the tank. Frankly I was surprised made it from my local fish store, I took their last 8 but they only charged me for 7 cause this guy looked terrible. Since introducing the fish Ammonia is stable at .25ppm. NO2 was also at .25ppm but just dropped to zero yesterday. Still no NO3 yet. Weekly water changes. Feeding fish only once a day. pH is 7.4. GH is 4. KH is 5. I used Seachem Flourish Tabs when setting up the tank for my stem feeders and Seachem Flourish & Flourish Iron for the leaf feeders. For the first 3 weeks I used the minimum dosage for the Flourish because I didn’t consider what I put in a lot of plants and I didn’t want to fight algae. Now I’m wondering if it wasn’t enough nutrients since my BC & PSO are looking like they might be a total loss. A week and a half ago I slightly increased the Flourish dosage. Still no issues with algae. So I’m ordering more LC & PSO (2 pots each) because I love them in my tank. I’m also ordering a Java Fern to try out because I’ve had great luck so far with the water feeders. Any tips on keeping the PSO’s from dying on me? This time I’m getting two pots and will drop them in as bunches, hoping that will do the trick. I’ll also add more Flourish tab’s in the area for these guys. Appreciate any tips or suggestions.