Mmiller2001

The easiest way is to cut your source water with distilled or RO water. If source water was 10dGH and 10dKH and you wanted to change 4 gallons of water, you'd just add 2 gallons of distilled to 2 gallons of source. That would cause 4 gallons of 5dGH and 5dKH.

Something like that is my goal. One day, one day!

Probably better off buying Finnex ALC's. 3.0's are over priced and the ALC's have true reds. If you have a good budget, look at Kessel, they advertise penetration.

Those Salifert test kits are pretty good. I would start dosing 1 to 2ppm PO4 and 15 to 25ppm K. I would find a good micro mix and start dosing that as well. .2 to .9ppm Fe as proxy. Start low though. I would test KH and GH as well. Fish load and feeding could be all that's needed to keep those nitrate numbers, which is not a problem, but the tank needs PO4 and K for sure.

https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/choosing-co2-why Here's a great resource.

Does it wipe off easily with your fingers?

If your source water is 20ppm Nitrates, I would stop dosing Nitrates completely. That includes root tabs too. Unfortunately, your all in one fertilizer will dose Nitrates. You will want to look for a fertilizer line that allows you to just dose P, K and traces. Seachem Flourish products would work, but expensive. I would do 5x50% water changes over 7 days to drop the nitrates and Begin dosing 1ppm P and 15ppm K per week. I would do 25 to 40% water changes per week there after. I would also quadruple the plant load in the tank with plants like Pennywort, Pearl Weed and Dwarf Sag. Hygrophila Polysperma is an amazing plant and does well to remove nitrates. Do you know what your KH and GH are?

Take a water sample and let it sit out for 24 hours and pH it. Record that number. That will be your degassed pH. Then pH the tank at peak CO2 injection about 1 hour after your light comes on. That will be peak CO2. You want a 1 to 1.5pH drop from degassed pH. That puts you close to 30ppm CO2. Also, co2 on 2 hours before lights on and off 1 hour before lights off. I would look into dry fertilizers and Estimative Index dosing. Unfortunately, Easy Green doesn't allow for ratio adjustments. I would be looking at dosing NO3 to 20-30ppm a week and easy green only doses 3ppm pere pump per 10 gallons. I have a feeling you are under dosing. I'd also increase water changes to 50% a week. This allows for low organics in the tank and also allows us to target nutrient ppm. Example, we can never exceed 2 times what we dose if all things inert. So if you dosed 10ppm of anything, did weekly 50% water changes, we could only ever have 20ppm. Stop the algae treatment too. Fix the other problems and you won't need it.

I see quite a bit of mulm in the tank. Are you gravel vacuuming? And what kind of filtration are you using? In addition to what @Tihshho is asking, what is your KH and GH? What is everything? How many pumps are you using and how many root tabs? Do you know the TDS of the tank?

You don't need root tabs. Probably more related to lack of co2, nutrient imbalance and/ or light. Can you tell me more about your tank. How much CO2 are you dosing, water change schedule and tank parameters. What kind of light is on the tank?

I've thought about going that route, but never looked to intensely into it. Maybe when these break.

I wish non were showing. All future tanks will have sumps just to hide equipment. I never intended to go high tech, so everything is an after thought.

I missed it. Is it archived any where. I've heard that before and I'm definitely breaking that rule. Could be a big part of my troubles. 2 heaters and you are seeing 2 intakes with skimmers.

No competition, I'm a terrible scaper 😭 They are all pressed together and they need some breathing room. I agree, larger groups, less species seems like a path I'm going to take. Managing so many needs is getting to me.

Not too much to update. Mostly headaches. Had a plant melt and disintegrated in the tank, along with an injured fish that went missing caused quite the algae outbreak. So did a more detailed clean of the substrate and removed some plants. I'm thinking I'm over stocked on plants and will be removing some permanently. I'll update those when I do it but the Pantanal is out now. It's not worth the struggle. Also, I've started front loading all Macro's, and dosing Micros 3 times a week. Quality of life improvement for sure. Basically, I'm dosing the water changed to the numbers I want. 33 Gallons to 25ppm NO³, 7ppm PO⁴ and 27ppm K. I upted P a bit to see if would help with a bit of GSA. Also, I've returned to 2:1 Ca:Mg and bumped them both a bit. Now 18ppm Ca and 9ppm Mg. Cleaned out the 40 a bit more and no number changes there, just front loading. Permanently suspending the use of Excel. I see no reason to continue with it. It causes more problems by hiding the root cause.

The biggest mistake people make is not using enough co2 out of fear. Don't do that. Here's everything you need to know in a nutshell. https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/choosing-co2-why

Just plant it. So the roots that do grow don't get disturbed.

I bet you are fine on Ca and Mg then. Probably all related to the Fe. Give it 3 weeks at your corrected numbers and see.

Medicate the fish food to target only them. Otherwise, just run the tank fishless for a while.

Put them in after your big water change. Right after.

For me, bubbles are an eye sore and do not run them. To compensate, I surface skim and have heavy surface agitation.

Also, 3ppm Fe is crazy high. That could be the problem or one of them. I would also stop dosing NO3 and just dose P and K and the corrected Fe until the Nitrates come down. Are you dosing other Micros? CSM+B?

I don't see Ca and Mg in that report.

Look through this site. https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/algae-control

That looks more like Staghorn and BBA.