Mmiller2001

No, carbonic acid is formed from the injection of CO2. This is one acid responsible for lowering pH. KH is the buffering capacity of the water.

There's no benefit but for a few select plants.

Low levels of CO2 has low affect on pH. PH swing from CO2 has no negative effect on fish.

I would calibrate your test kit.

Same, it's one fish I love but won't buy. Tried 2 early on. Both had it.

Maybe. Will just have to see. The real problem is that they are most likely infected with a virus common to that species and they don't have long to live. Can't remember the name off the top of my brain.

You'll never have more than 2 to 4ppm CO2 without injecting CO2. If you want the benefits of CO2, you will have to inject it.

I lowered CO2 quite a bit. I also stripped the tank down to minimal plant mass. Did a decent clean as well. That's good info, I didn't know that.

Correct. And if TDS dropped by weeks end, a couple of squirts should be fine. And I must say, that's a lucky 4 year old 😁.

I don't want you to change what you use to fertilize with, but with such a large volume tank, dry fertilizer makes a lot of sense. It's way cheaper too but requires a few more steps to manage. You also have way more control of what is being dosed. If the tank naturally runs high on Nitrates, you can easily dose less Nitrates while keeping the other Macros higher. Something to think about at least.

I'm right around 185 TDS after my weekly dosing. One thing I want to mention that can cause crypt melt is TDS fluctuation. With your source water being 50, after your water change, the TDS of the tank is obviously lower. This could be one reason this is happening. Another issue I see is that you may not have the proper GH distribution. After I mineralize my zero TDS water with calcium and magnesium (GH) I have about 85 TDS (about 4.5dGH). This could be a case where your calcium magnesium ratio is off or just overall low. One strategy you can use to have a more stable TDS is to front load your nutrients in your water change. Basically the per gallons used to change the water gets dosed and your water change is completed with that water. So to simplify it, you add pumps only to account for the amount of water being replaced. This has the benefit of maintaining a very stable TDS with water changes versus a high TDS tank, lowered significantly by a water change, and then TDS being added back to the tank over the week. Does that make sense?

Wow, you have great water.

Nice, 190 is a good sign. What's the TDS of your tap?

I'm with @Colu, bacterial infection and hopefully it's not the nasty one.

Test your source water too. See if there's Nitrates and ammonia in it.

Just a cheap one on Amazon. TDS Meter Digital Water Tester, DUMSAMKER Professional 3-in-1 TDS, Temperature and EC Meter with Carrying Case, 0-9999ppm, Ideal ppm Meter for Drinking Water, Aquariums and More https://a.co/d/fZutg6E

A TDS meter is an amazing tool and can give you a good understanding of your water quality. It will also let you know if the tank is producing or consuming. Test your source water and see what it shows. NO3 GH and KH.

Welcome 🤗

I suspect they are the culprit. I would do some larger water changes for a week and see if things smooth out.

Look for the root tab break down and see if they contain it first.

You are under dosing the tank. Especially with the addition of CO2. I would increase to 3 pumps per 10 gallons. Might need more to be honest. You also need to calibrate any testing method against know amounts before you can ever say they are accurate. Using Nitrates as the proxy for determining how much to fertilize is going to leave you in limbo in regards to other Macros. How high is the bioload? Can you test TDS?

GH is just calcium and magnesium. Something in the tank is leeching it into the water. Maybe the root tabs are the source.

I'm going back to daily dosing, reducing plant load to improve overall flow through the tank and dropping light intensity. My moss wall is pretty over grown as well. I will pull it out and start it over.

Thank you both! But rookie mistakes right at the end erks me to no end. I'm just bummed about it. I was so close 😂. For those who may find this post. Even with a good Aqua Soil or root tabs, you have to dose the water column no matter what. The plants in the 40 really suffered in the last few weeks because I was too low on dosing. I bumped light and CO2 and thought the Aqua Soil was enough to keep things good. I was wrong! Now I have some filamentatious algae and black beard popping up 😭.

Alright, problems problems problems. I didn't even deserve to be in the AGA, and now I'm kinda glad I messed up and decided not to enter. I've been overly preoccupied with other projects, and as such both tanks have suffered. Long story short I killed an Oto and nearly killed all my fish by cranking up the CO2 trying to speed up growth to finalize the 40 gallon tank. This was a huge mistake, also front loading nutrients was kind of a mistake because I didn't account for plant mass increase. Lessons learned. With the anticipation of changing to 75, I've kind of just let it go wild. So here's a picture of both. I'm a bit disappointed with myself for not being as strict as I used to be and my goal going forward is to reduce the amount of workload I have to put into both tanks. I hope to achieve this by reducing the maintenance needs of the 75 gallon and just focusing on the 40 gallon for next year's competition. The 40 should have Myrio Green at the left back. That's what I ruined. I just threw spatulata there for a place holder for now. But you should be able to assume the final layout. Both tank will be torn up and redone over the coming months. Also, in a desperate attempt to save the 40, I tore plants from the 75. So there's obvious open areas now in the 75. Oh well, if this was easy, everybody would do it.