Mmiller2001

I would increase your Phosphate and see what happens. Nerites and shrimp can help but they may not. Dropping light intensity is another option, but I would start with Phosphates.

Just want to add that Maracyn will cause a hit to your BB. If your BB count was low when you added it, could explain what you observed.

Small Gourami's. Absolutely fell in love with their behavior. I wish I could have more!

Thank you. I'm home all week so I will happily walk you through the numbers. We will get things on track and keep him in the hobby! Keep in mind, the above advice from others is good. My path is just one way to move forward. Crushed coral works and works well, I just don't know how to measure it and haven't used it, so I had to follow others advice and adapted their strategies to my own fish keeping.

The key to success is to have your water column dosing spot on. Especially if your are injecting CO2. It didn't make sense to me either but Greggz shattered the notion that inert substrates need root tabs. Great reads https://www.2hraquarist.com/ https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/greggz-120g-rainbow-fish-tank-scapecrunch-interview-1-18-2021.1020497/

I'm flattered! Thank you! 😁

I want to add two photos. I have Eco Complete on the left side of the tank and sand one the right. Absolutely no root tabs. See how the Eco Complete side is growing out of control? I get a lot of hate, but root tabs are Hocus Pocus. Adding root tabs is causing uncontrollable nutrient and TDS swings. This is destabilizing and can cause stress on our fish. Stressed fish is a recipe for trouble. The second picture is all sand. Absolutely no root tabs. When I did use root tabs, I had nothing but trouble, algae, dead fish and odd KH and GH behavior.

Hello @LiveBearer Fan I was just about to update my journal when I saw this post and I want to add my suggestions. But before I get started, it's important to let you know, I'm one of the "Black Sheep" of this forum, So please, don't take my advice or suggestions as rude, maybe take them as, you know, fluffy little kitties? Lets get down to stabilizing a lot of problems here. Your tank is all over the place, and it's really hard to pinpoint what's going on. So in order to "set a base line" we should do a couple of things that quickly caught my attention. 1. Eco-I assume you mean Eco Complete substrate. If he is using Eco Complete, stop root tabs immediately. This substrate is designed to draw in water column nutrients and nutrients from fish. This is then slowly released back into plants once the Eco Complete has reached saturation. I suggest Google'ing CEC value to get a better grasp of how this substrate works. But the TL/DR version is, Eco Complete needs to be left alone. When we shove these "Root Tabs" down into our substrate, we are unable to measure the rate of release, water flows through our substrate, just like in the water column, but slower and at an immeasurable rate. Stop root tabs , continue Flourish per directions. After a month, we will know, roughly, our true Nitrate ppm. Testing nitrates weekly will let us know we are headed in the right direction.. 10,000.00 bucks says your nitrates are not 40ppm, but rather a mixture of fish waste and fertilizers, we need to know the difference. 2. Eco Complete- Removing the gravel, that he placed on top of the Eco Complete, is something I would consider. If you guys want a white substrate, pool filter sand would be a better option, but that's another can of worms we don't want to open right now. Just keep in mind, the gravel is hindering the Eco Complete. 3. Test GH and KH , ignore pH. KH and GH are way more important right now. Find the "happy medium" for your fish load. And adjust GH and KH, slowly, to that "happy medium". 4. Do not raise the temperature of your tank. That's a stress on the fish we want to avoid. Trust your meds to do the work. Slowly reduce the temperature to the "happy Medium". 1 Degree over 2 hours should be fine. Slower if you can. 5. Continue Ich X per directions. If Ich X doesn't cure the Ich, it's not Ich. We will cross that bridge if we need to. 6. Edit: Let's correct our water, then dose Paracleanse or API General Cure after. 7. Test your source water GH and KH, know the difference from your tank water. Summary: Gravel on Eco Complete and root tabs is going to be challenging. Stagger filter cleaning over a month and only if you notice a reduction in flow. Med trio ALWAYS to rule out disease. Edit: Med Trio new fish arrivals. Test source water, we absolutely need to know what these parameters are. Top off tank with distilled or RO water only. 0KH is not bad. Edit: I missed your post with the KH and GH result. I apologize for that. I also did a quick look into your fish. I saw the word tetra and looked no further. I'm glad I did, your 0KH is a problem for these types of fish. Can you get a better GH reading? 150-300ppm is 8.6-17dGH. that's a big difference. API sells a KH/GH test kit. It will definitely help with accuracy. For your Barbs, let's shoot for 5dGH, that's 87.5ppm. We will mix some distilled water with your source water to lower the GH but we need to know source water GH. To increase KH, some people use crushed coral, but I like to alter KH precisely, and to do this we can use Seachem Alkaline buffer or my personal choice is Potassium Carbonate. Check your LFS or box store for Seachem and Amazon has Potassium Carbonate for dirt cheap. Health food stores may have it also. Just make sure it's food grade and no other additives Seachem buffer is probably going to be the easiest to find locally. Once you test your source water KH, we will add product to set a 4dKH. A 5dGH and 4dKH is a nice happy medium for your fish and plants. I would buy a five gallon bucket, with lid, so we can mix a "batch" of source water. This will reduce our work load. If you decide to go this route, I'll make the calculations for you, so don't worry there. We will then use our new "soup" to do water changes. This will raise and lower our numbers slowly and eventually set our GH and KH. Don't get discouraged, once you/ he does this a few times, it will be very simple. It just seems scary at first.

Here you go.

Agree, spot looks perfect. I would just raise your water level a bit.

I had one heck of a staghorn breakout, Seachem Excel saved the day. It never came back after the shrimp eat it.

I've never grown it so I can't advise you. But I have read it can be a difficult plant. But try it and see, you might grow very well in your set up.

POGOSTEMON HELFERI 'DOWNOI'. Maybe?

Don't ignore it, just check it before your water change so you learn your baseline. Then you can just add potassium carbonate to boost it if you want to extend water changes. I recommend a TDS checker if you want to push your water changes out. It's a great tool to have and they are cheap.

A pH drop is not a problem at all. Test your KH right before your water change. I bet it will be mostly unchanged. I think people are over estimating how quickly KH might drop. I keep my tanks at 1.5KH, I hit a pH of 6.1 with CO2 injection. When I test KH, prior to my water change, my KH is 1.5. My recommendation would be, if you want to reduce water changes, is monitor TDS. Get a baseline after a water change. If TDS goes up by 100, change water. I would grab some potassium carbonate, do weekly KH test, and if KH drops, dose the potassium carbonate to the tank to maintain 3dKH.

Do yourself a favor and spend some money on a decent one. This is the cheapest I would go. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ENFOHN8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_B0WPFA0MNKHW6G4TWSH1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

A 2-3KH is excellent for a planted tank. Why raise it? How often do you water change? Have you tested KH after a water change and before a water change? Was KH 0 before the water change? What's the KH of your water source?

You should be good. Shot for 20 to 30ppm.

It definitely does, that's it's purpose, and you shouldn't be concerned. Just follow the directions and you should be good to go. If your interested, here is the ppm of each squirt in 10 gallons.

Correct.

Here's a great source for you to read through. A .5KH is as stable as 5KH. And fluctuating pH does not harm fish. It's an old wives tale from yesteryear when people didn't have the multitude of tests and understanding we have today. https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/choosing-co2-why Hope this helps. Helped me tremendously.

Increase your CO². You are looking for a pH of 6.4 to 6.1. Once you reach 6.4, if you decide to push more, watch your fish for signs of stress. You don't have enough CO² with your current numbers and is the main contributing factor with your algae problem. I'm not sure why people told you to raise your KH? Did they say why? You want a 1 pH drop from your degassed pH. If you want to be more accurate, take some tank water and set it out, open to the air. Wait 48 hours and pH it. That is the number you will use to adjust a 1 pH drop.

It might be best to speak to a doctor in this situation.

Most likely, your tank is under filtered. Increase the turnover and improve flow throughout the tank.

Then my guess is bacterial, if you are confident that med works.