Mmiller2001

Plant stress can cause weird things to happen. This occurs in terrestrial plants too. I've seen female plants push out stamen to reproduce during high stress.

Blue light does not cause algae. Too much light does though.

Did a bit of testing and the tank is finally consuming. I've been dosing 10ppm NO3 and 5ppm PO4 with potassium over 30ppm. Surprisingly, NO3 was 10ppm and PO4 was 4ppm. I've increased to 25ppm NO3 and 7ppm PO4. Overall, the tank is starting to take a turn. It still looks rough, but there's finally some movement on these slow growers. Bit of algae on the glass, but I haven't scraped in a while. This is definitely a positive sign.

How fast does it grow?

Keep trimming it every time it reaches the height you want to maintain. And the tank above is most likely using CO2.

Picture please.

Eventually it will. But slowly.

To finish off the background, I would do some Val. Americana and Stargrass. For mid, maybe some pearl weed and dwarf lily. Foreground, crypt. Lucens all over.

I would reduce lighting down to 8 to 9 hours, increase water changes and plant quadruple the current amount. Make sure you have a complete fertilizer option and follow the instructions. I would also lower tank temperature to 76 to 77.

According to Tom Barr, the uptake levels can be NO3 1-5ppm NH4 0.1-0.8ppm(if you use this in place of NO3) PO4 0.5 ppm Per day with slightly more depending on tank setup. What many fail to understand is that plants produce waste. These soluble and insoluble organics are not utilized by plants and build up which leads to problems. Also, plants offer no mechanical filtration. Seeing areas of mulm build up is a good indicator of an under filtered tank. Mulm may host available food for many fish/shrimp, but mulm is an ammonia source and ammonia triggers algae.

Picture up close and a whole tank shot please.

100 percent the root tabs. 20 in a 20 gallon is way to much. You disturbed the substrate releasing the fertilizer.

It's iridovirus symptoms.

Ah, I took spread as moving out like moss creeps over surfaces. Indeed, it will form a wide bunch in time. I've found cutting and replanting to be quite effective in spreading it out. When I tried it, I only had a single bunch and was able to just top and replant.

It doesn't spread. Chop it and replant the tops. The lower chopped will split more tops. Keep propagating it and mow it often.

It will kill it all.

Just soak them in hydrogen peroxide for a few minutes. Just do them separated by about 2 weeks to keep the tank cycled.

It's the same, but tank generated Nitrates can be unpredictable. By dosing extra, you know it's always there and in non limiting amounts.

100%, you want to keep a stable nutrient load at all times. The biggest wives tale is that too much fertilizer causes algae. This is completely untrue. No amount of nutrient reduction fixes algae problems, you only starve the plant and cause more algae. Algae will win this battle every single time. You must have healthy plants and a healthy plant load and this requires dosing nutrients. I'm coming to realize there's serious misconception over what low, medium and high light means. Here's my Wendtti India at 21 inches and light at 44%. The GSA on it is from transition damage when I swapped the substrate, not from too much fertilizer. It also came from a very high light tank to this one, these transition periods will cause some weak leaves to form algae. Parva is without a doubt a true slow grower. I gave up on it a while ago. What's the point? I would sub it out for Lucens.

Lowering your nutrient dosing would be a mistake, that said, you want your 20ppm of nitrates to come from your dosing and not from nitrification (ideally). If this was my tank, I would lower the light intensity schedule down to 50% at 11 hour duration. Make sure there's no mulm hiding and clean it out if you find some. I'd improve flow throughout the tank and shoot for a 5 to 10 times water turnover per hour while maintaining fertilization. Algae is triggered by general instabilities throughout the tank , ammonia, too much light, high levels of organics and low or fluctuating CO2. Should you choose to lower the light intensity, this will be a disruption and your plants will need time to reprogram. This will be temporary but you should see improvement after about a month.

I would increase CO2 and improve flow throughout the tank. There's no reason to waist money on test kits. I would research Estimative Index dosing and employ this strategy.

You would simply mix your tap water with RO/distilled water. But before this is done, we need to know GH and KH.

Here's an updated shot. Did a bit of cleaning which I will continue to do as time progresses. All of the Trident is growing new plants from the old growth. I think they were emersed and now converting to submerged. So I removed those plants and kept the new growth. I still need to do this to the middle and left portions but the right side is done. Added a few plants to the foreground that will maybe make it into the new tank when it arrives. All of the crypts are starting to take off and look at the blue coming out in this Wendtii Indo. There's some GSA on those leaves, but it's getting better. The Fissidens is coming along nicely and I will trim it soon and move it to more areas. Overall, there's quitea bit of Buce melt going on but I may be seeing new leaves coming in now. The bladder snail population exploded with so much to eat and the higher KH is helping them along too. For now, I welcome them. I also continue to lower light intensity while maintaining an 11 hour photoperiod. So far, no plants are showing any sighs of light issues.

Dry fertilizer is cheaper. Dosing nutrients in excess doesn't cause algae. Root tabs are not necessary. PH swings don't harm fish. 0dKH doesn't cause pH crashes. Most plants thrive in low to zero KH. Large water changes benefits the tank. Higher water turnover improves tank health. These are just a few pieces of advice that got me where I am today. My advice, enjoy the journey.

Research Daily Light Integral (DLI).