Mmiller2001

What are your dosing totals for the week?

I like around 8ppm in my CO2 tanks and 4ppm in non CO2 tanks. I go 8ppm with inert substrate and 5 to 6ppm with my aqua soil.

Go the other direction. Root tabs are not necessary and water column dosing is easily controlled.

Are we disqualified if there's an enormous amount of algae? 😁

I use an Eheim 2215 classic on my 20.

You should never stop dosing fertilizer and based on your drop checker in the second picture, you are low on CO². That's probably the largest contributing factor causing the BBA you have. I've found this resource to be incredibly helpful. https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/choosing-co2-why Also, I would research Estimative Index dosing and how to use it. Fertilizers do not cause algae!

Because you are dosing the same total per week. if you dose 10ppm a week, change half, you now have 5ppm. Dose another 10 and another water change, you now have 17.5ppm. So on and so forth. You will always approach 2x the dose and never exceed because you do 50% water changes.

Proxy is used when dosing more than 1 element. Easy green contains many things, so we choose 1 of them for the calculation (that's the proxy).

I will add my "if this was my tank" information. I would do everything that @Seattle_Aquaristis saying but I would drop my Easy Green dosing down and dose the DPTA to make up the difference. So the tank is 17 gallons but true gallons is lower. Let's just use 15 gallons for simplification. You dose 2 pumps every day, that's 14 pumps. At 10 gallons, that's 6ppm NO3x7days=42ppm NO3 as Proxy If the tank was 20 gallons, 3ppm NO3x7days=21ppm NO3 as Proxy. So you are somewhere in-between but assuming 15 gallons you are around 30ppm NO3 as Proxy. When we do 50% water changes, the tank will only have 2x the amount we dose. This is called an accumulation total. So your accumulation total is 60ppm (as Proxy) and this is way too much. Now plants pull and fish add NO3 to the tank, but the 60ppm is the reference number. I would drop your dosing by half and ideally I would only dose 10-15ppm NO3 as proxy per week. This would give an accumulation total of 20-30ppm NO3 as proxy. 4 pumps per week seems reasonable. I would also only dose during peak CO2 to take advantage of the lower pH. Now for Iron, dosing Easy Green will give you around .13ppm Fe and I would use the DPTA at .4ppm Fe. Is your DPTA iron 11% DPTA? If so, I would dose 2x.2ppm, that's 1/64tsp twice a week. This will give you a total .53ppm Fe (weekly) or a bit less due to the EDTA chelate. We don't think of accumulation total with Micros.

Can we see a picture of the tank?

What is the pH at peak CO² injection?

Cut top, replant. Bottom portion should sprout branches.

If plants are the focus, anything 4:1 to 2:1 Ca:Mg. I would say 3dGH to around 6dGH would be ideal, but being higher works too. API has a GH and KH kit most box stores carry. Just FYI if you are eager to test. What's the pH?

I would check with your water company and find out what the Ca and Mg concentration is. Twisting can be related the these 2 elements. How many days do you does that amount of Easy Green and how large are your water changes?

What source water are you using? What's the GH and KH? How many gallons is the tank?

Let's not get abusive 😄. Following.

Verify 0ppm with a different test.

A part of me died inside....you are a terrible person! 🤣

It's better that way, isn't it!

Lol, it's okay. It was a funny moment. We just looked at each other and laughed. She was like, "where did the plant go." ☺️

Lol, new plant went into it's position. Narrow Leaf Sag. That's exactly what happened. When my wife looked away, I through the plant into the trash. 😁

Y'all missed I took the plant out, didn't you! 😳 Combing was a fail!

There's no specific article, but a general consensus from top planted tank keepers. Sadly, one of the best journals was deleted over on another forum, and they had discussions about this very thing. I will pm you his new journal, but it's only just starting over. I know he is hoping to repost the old journal, but there might be some legal issues there. Fingers crossed!

If this was me, I'd drop the GH and KH to around 4dGH and 2.5dKH (KH lower is better). Just cut your tap water with 50% distilled water. I'd also lower the CSM+B to about .4ppm Fe (proxy). Make sure to dose the micros when the pH is below 6.8. If you want to dose more Fe, get the DTPA 11% Fe and dose additional Fe using that. Dosing .7ppm Fe from the CSMB is putting your other micros on the high side. Also, tanks that use NO3 generated by livestock typically have problems. I would reduce stocking levels, or up my water change percentages so I could dose NO3 properly.

I wanted to share how well the combing went. 🤔