Robert K

Thanks, I might do that. No stress in the meantime, I'm all right with having it here. 👍

Ok, thanks! Yeah, diet is still being mentioned quite often, as are activated carbon and stray current (which I am particularly sceptical about). But overall, there doesn't seem to have been a whole lot of development. It's still pretty much a mystery.

Hitting the tank hard with flukes and Hexamita meds. I'm really crossing my fingers now, because I don't know what to do if this doesn't work. This thread seems to have evolved more towards diseases/meds than plants and fertilizers. Anyone know how to move a thread to another category?

Thanks! Yeah, I think I've seen these charts before and they're busy to say the least. 😅 But absolutely, it's a complex system where no single component is independent from the rest.

I may have been too optimistic. The good: Plants are doing great and showing a lot of new growth, nitrates are under control (around 20 ppm before the weekly water changes), I keep dosing phosphate and it works great. The bad: The geo isn't doing better, in fact he's worse. It's so frustrating and stressful seeing him like this. The other day he started breathing quite rapidly and intensely, which got me thinking. Could this be flukes? I mean, based on google searches to me this totally looks like HTIH. And when it comes to HITH most of the time it's treated like this mysterious affliction without exactly known causes or cures. It's not often I've seen it connected to flukes, while to me it makes a lot of sense. Flukes feed on the skin/gills of the fish. Hexamita parasites are mentioned as possible causes. But how reasonable is that? Hexamita is an internal parasite, these are external wounds. But OK, maybe there is a connection. I have therefore treated my tank with Hexamita meds a couple of weeks ago, didn't help. Meanwhile, could it be just flukes? I really hope so. I've got some fluke meds in the mail which should arrive by middle of the week. At the same time, if it is just flukes, I will be kicking myself for not picking it up earlier. Man, i hate to see the geo like this. Well, we'll see. Hopefully, I'll learn something from this.

Hey @Juancho what did you treat your fish with? I have a geophagus with what looks like hith and that refuses to get better.

Consider a blood parrot. It's my kids' favorite, both looks and personality wise. I'm sure your daughter would love it. Or a T-bar cichlid. Mine gets along great with everyone else in the tank. Looks like a miniature flowerhorn. 😅

Three if I remember correctly,

I used black acrylic paint with a roller.

@Jeremy Shives Now that's a thicc substrate! 😀 Do you notice any denitrification going on?

Both would be very fun tanks I think. Like @Tony s says, the skirt tetras might take down a shrimp or two but I would definitely try this. Considering that the tank is heavily planted you should be able to get a shrimp colony going even with the occasional shrimp ending up as a snack. The one thing I'd probably do is put in the skirt tetras last, thereby giving the shrimp a bit of a head start.

It can take weeks for plants to get used to your water and start showing new growth. I'd cut off what looks like rotting and keep it floating.

Don't feed them for a couple of days before the move and don't feed them in the bucket and I think you should be fine. Throw in a plant or a piece of decor from the established tank and you're good to go. Fish spend days in small plastic bags when being shipped. You'll be fine.

The easy way out would be getting a silver flying fox imo.

Today I set up these mesh strips (?) rolls (?) on my lights. I think I have way more light than I need on my tank. A new light with RGBs, that's dimable is on my wishlist but I pretty much have to go with this brand and their lights ain't cheap. So in the meantime I thought I'd try this, and I think I like it quite a bit. This is a mesh that is originally intended for trees as protection against deer and other animals that like eating the bark. It comes in rolls.

A quick update. I'm cautiously optimistic. I've been dosing phosphate for a little more than a week and the nitrates are dropping. After last week's water change the nitrates were at around 30 ppm. I tested almost every day and the other day they were around 10 ppm. Right before today's WC I measured around 15 ppm. The big takeaway is this might be the first time that I've had nitrates actually fall between weekly WC. Another thing I noticed is that the hygrophila has started pushing new shoots further down on the stems (even though it's difficult to see in the pic). This is also new. The most important thing though is the geo. I want to say that the pits/holes on his head have stopped progressing. And he looks better. At least it seems so to me. Obviously, he is scarred but I really hope it stops here. I can't back this up but I'm slowly becoming convinced of two things. 1. I need to dose phosphates to have my plants growing properly and actually consume nitrates efficiently. 2. High nitrates, if not cause, at least contribute to HITH. But I'm still only cautiously optimistic. It's still very early.

Well, it worked for Mac's dad so... "The man doesn't blink! The man doesn't blink!" 🤣

This might sound a bit weird weird but in my personal experience, once I got most of the beginner stuff under my belt, I started getting information from the tank itself. Sit with it and see what happens. Sooner or later you'll notice specific things which you will be able to put in concrete questions, which you then can ask either the tank itself or the internet.

Flake food I keep in the cabinet under the tank. Pellets on the other hand I happened to buy more than I can spend within a year. So those I actually keep in the freezer. I have a smaller container which I refill from the freezer every month or so and which i also keep in the cabinet.

GH is around 7 and KH at 5 Thanks, will look him up.

Ah yes, I understand.

Ok. Yeah, I also have hygrophila but it's not growing as much or as fast as I would expect from a stem plant. I wrote in another post that I suspect that my phosphates are low. I just started dosing phosphates, so we'll see if it does any difference. But also, there's another reason I'm asking about the nitrates. Like I said my nitrates are on the high end and I have a geophagus that's having a bit trouble with hole in the head. I read that geos can be susceptible to HITH if nitrates are high, so I suspect that my nitrates are the culprit. Also from what I read it's not uncommon for discus to get HITH. My guess is that it's one of the reasons discus require very clean water. But you haven't had HITH issues with your discus? I have managed to get my nitrates down a bit and the geo seems to be doing better, but I want to lower them further.

I don't inject co2 and haven't planned on doing it anytime soon. But yeah, I'm sure it would give the plants a boost. I did get some frogbit like a week or two ago and it's just beginning to get established. I hope it helps.

Ok, thanks. I'm just curious because I think I'm going through a bit of a nitrate phase right now. 😅 Trying to figure out how much I put in vs. take out, what affects the levels in my tank etc.

Do you remember what nitrate levels you had before the weekly water changes?