Journal - 29G Black Schultzei Corydoras Breeding Project

[nabokovfan87]

Testing Results from yesterday:
Temp: 73.4
Phosphate: 1.0-1.5
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 10
Nitrite: 0
GH: 300+
KH: 60-100
PH: ~7.6

It appears that KH is "stable" for the most part, but it's very hard to tell for me reading the chart at what the specific value is.  PH being that high is a concern, especially with the amanos in there and recent issues.  I did continue to add a bit of the alkaline buffer on the water change but I have been lowering the dose to try to keep things more consistent and the PH in the 7.0-7.2 range as opposed to higher.  I'll test phosphate and PH again today just to get a reading after 24 hours.  I am now running a phosphate pad for the sake of lowering algae and phophates.  Ironically, since adding it, the phosphate has increased. Probably due to bypass on the Tidal and due to the algae killing plants.

CO2 is doing better than it was when I first installed it and it makes me feel like I am getting back in stride with having a higher quality planted tank.  I am having a weird regulator issue still but it is very likely due to the check valve I am using and causing a drop in pressure somewhere.  I might've been running too long of a piece of tubing and that also caused issues.  It's difficult to say.  the issue being, at the regulator I am seeing 5+ drops per second, but on the diffuser it's much lower.  Yesterday I moved the diffuser from the front to the back of the tank and the CO2 is dissolving a lot better.  But, I am dumping CO2 in there and the way it's dissolving it appears I can just about double the rate and still not have much loss.  (it's not reaching the surface and is diffused prior to reaching the waterline)

 My goal this time around, with some inspiration from @OnlyGenusCaps was to go ahead and scrub the living crap out of this algae and remove as much as humanly possible.

I got everything setup, tried to remove things out of the way, turned off the filter, and moved the light out of the way.  I went to cut the CO2 line from the diffuser so I could shorten it and move it to the back of the tank and immediate pinched the crap out of my finger with the scissors, what a great start!  I took the wood out, rocks out, scraped the tank, gravel vacuumed, cleaned the lid, equipment, and I wanted to record a before and after.  The rocks did well but you can tell the algae is deep in on the seiryu and it looks like it has little black dots for pores on its surface.  The most annoying part is seeing it take hold on the edge of the silicone on all of the corners of the glass.  The only way I'm getting rid of this is to treat everything and replace the tank 😞 . 

I don't think the scape looks good right now, but it is massively better for the fish and they have a hide now and feel a lot safer.   I was watching the fish last night after everything, lights out, but this is how I tell that the fish are doing ok and comfortable with the tank.  The sleep out in the open and don't mind it one bit.  This is a very blurry photo, but for the sake of comparison this is how big my corydoras is compared to the ACO color chart on the test strips.  I usually put my hand up to the tank for size and she's just a bruiser.  I really enjoy this species and it has been a surprise that they get this big, but I am really glad I have a larger species.  I wouldn't have gone out of my way to get them just based on size, but I can say that there's no reason to avoid a larger species if you enjoy something like panda corydoras.



I got a  backup impeller in case I ever run into issues with a pump.  I found a new PH Checker and it works a heck of a lot better (from seachem) as well as the diffuser I am trying out.  I also managed to find the "rest" of the Fluval aquascaping tools and I have been able to get some hands on time with them now. 



Spring Scissors: Extremely cheap feeling, but they work well in use.  I will post a second photo below, you can see just how small the jaws are.  It's a great bit of kit to have for the sake of trimming plants in tight areas.
Flat Scissors:  Works well for big tanks, blades have always been kind of dull, but works for plants.
S-Curve Scissors:  I don't know how I managed to get work done without these!
Straight Tweezers: They work decently well and the tension on them I really like. The grips I like as well.  If you look closely you'll notice that the ends are pretty chunky, but they also only touch at the tip.  This makes it very easy for things to slip out.
ACO Curved Tweezers:  I always had some issues with the tension and getting these in-->out of the substrate without removing the plants.  I would have to squeeze hard and then often crushed roots or something on very delicate plants.  Not excessively, but trying to hold the plant wasn't easy.  I noticed that the tips were bent at a weird angle and I had to make sure they could actually close properly.  Much better now.  Just be sure to check yours if you do have these that they close and the jaws / teeth are parallel.
Spatula: The central handle and rod is perfectly fine.  It might work better and actually be cheaper to produce if the entire thing was flat, but this is a 3 piece construction.  That being said, the two ends are the cheapest, thinnest metal I have seen and these things will not work well over time.  Do not get these, find something else that's better built.  When mine arrived in the box, I had to open it from the fluval packaging and actually bend it straight.  It's the equivalent material to stiff aluminum foil. 😞



I took a video of the before / after on the tank to make it a bit easier to see things.  Sometimes photos get confusing, hopefully this is a little easier.  The first part of the video is before, the following part is the next day after the tank had a little bit of time to clear up.

Edit:
Retest Results
-PH = 7.4
-Phosphates = ~0.75

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by nabokovfan87
Fix Photo Position

[Marcelo]

On 5/14/2022 at 10:08 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Nitrate: 20 (I literally just dosed)

Hi @nabokovfan87how are you increasing your Nitrate level ? I saw you wrote “dosed”. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/20/2022 at 6:05 AM, Marcelo said:

Hi @nabokovfan87how are you increasing your Nitrate level ? I saw you wrote “dosed”. 

Easy Green!  I do my changes on Sunday (sometimes I clean the HoB on Wednesday.  I try to test both days, usually before I dose just to keep an eye on what's going on. The tank has very small (and few) fish compared to most tanks.  Only 5 Corydoras, 2 Plecos, 4-5 Otos, and amano shrimp.  So my nitrates usually go from 0 ---> 5-10 ppm per week based on what I am feeding.  My other tank that has a lot more fish will usually get to the 25-30 ppm range when I test it.

[Marcelo]

On 8/20/2022 at 12:21 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Easy Green!  I do my changes on Sunday (sometimes I clean the HoB on Wednesday.  I try to test both days, usually before I dose just to keep an eye on what's going on. The tank has very small (and few) fish compared to most tanks.  Only 5 Corydoras, 2 Plecos, 4-5 Otos, and amano shrimp.  So my nitrates usually go from 0 ---> 5-10 ppm per week based on what I am feeding.  My other tank that has a lot more fish will usually get to the 25-30 ppm range when I test it.

Thank you !!!!!!!

[nabokovfan87]

I'm working on cleaning equipment today.  I recorded a video as an update for the RR thread as to how the hardscape and plants are doing, but.... then I accidentally deleted the wrong one trying to edit it with my phone.

I wanted to show the video followed by the photos I took because I tried a new technique to clean off the wood.  I was watching green aqua discuss how to rid a tank of algae and what was interesting was their use of an electric toothbrush on stubborn algae.  I'll have to keep a head to use for fish stuff when the one I am using now needs swapped.  There is also a tongue attachment that might work too!  Something to try in the future, but this time I went a different route.

I took the blade side of my mag float and just went to town trying to get rid of these stubborn tufts of algae stuck on the wood.  the plants are "ok" and the RR treatment seems to be doing on.  Some of the anubias isn't looking too hot, but it all takes time to grow.  The filter flow is lowered so I know I need to clean everything.  I brought in some buckets of water to cool off from the outside heat.  I added bags of water to the freezer so I can use those as well to drop the temp on the tank as much as possible and try to trigger a spawn.

I scraped the wood for about 30 minutes until I was satisfied with enough progress and to try to see how the shrimp do now that they can more easily get at some of this stuff.  I have these big tumbleweeds of BBA floating all over the place so I cleaned the intake and then I'll go ahead and remove the wood and siphon everything I need to. 

When I was doing the big clean last week I had the lid drop in the wind, today I found a chunk of glass in the tank.  Not fun.

Here's the photo update as far as "how well" that technique worked with the dull style blade and cleaning the wood underwater as opposed to trying to see it with the wood outside the tank.  Unfortunately, that is extremely hard to do.





The video before should show off pretty well what these looked like before. 🙂

Edit: I finished up my black cory water change, cleaned out the pump (filled with plants that melted into the water column, yep there is a prefilter sponge.  The magic of seachem I guess.  I added about 15 lbs of ice to drop the temp and dumped in a big chunk of food to try to trigger behavior for spawning.  I don't expect them to spawn tonight, but it would be nice now that the fish have a proper tank that's a lot cleaner compared to previous nights.  I'll watch them under the blue light and see what happens.  My next effort will be to move them to an adjacent wall that's a lot quieter to improve their atmosphere.  The walls in the house aren't too solid, and two in my room aren't walls (single layer thick panels) which limits how much I can remove noise.

On 8/21/2022 at 2:01 PM, Marcelo said:

Thank you !!!!!!!

Happy to help. Best of luck.

Edited August 22, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

I went ahead and repeated this technique on my other tank.  I'll add this as it's own post, not an edit, because I want to keep the "other tank" notes separate from the project.  I entirely blame my motivation for this to @Chick-In-Of-TheSea @Cinnebuns and @Guppysnail and all their efforts trying to help me find so many methods to deal with this stuff.  I HOPE..... if I have to scrub this crap daily, this does it.

Here is some before shots. 


Following the scrub down here it all the BBA in the tank before cleaning.





Here is the video showing the technique.  Lights are out, but I'll grab a photo tomorrow.

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Guppysnail]

I hope this works for you. It may also help to throw the wood in a kettle and boil it for 2-3 hours. Let it air dry for a few hours Not for removal purposes but to clear out some of the remaining sap and nutrients to further starve the BBA of anything it is attracted to. I would not scrape and scrub it into the tank. 
I spy an adorable little panda 🤗

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/22/2022 at 1:47 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Here is the video showing the technique.  Lights are out, but I'll grab a photo tomorrow.

 

1) What a pain.  Wire brush could be helpful as well?   (Literally the toothbrush did nothing - as you know.)

2) Slow progress > No progress

 

Does that stuff get into the filter and continue to grow?  

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/22/2022 at 8:33 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Does that stuff get into the filter and continue to grow?

It likes to use the actual filter as a home. It grows on plastic. It's the worst stuff ever.

On 8/22/2022 at 8:33 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

1) What a pain.  Wire brush could be helpful as well?   (Literally the toothbrush did nothing - as you know.)

Yes!  I think it was Odd Duck / Guppy Snail both mentioned it.  That is the plan for rocks, I just need to get one I can use.

On 8/22/2022 at 4:03 AM, Guppysnail said:

I spy an adorable little panda 🤗

Literally need to trademark the word panda pile for a shirt design or something.  20 of them piled up in a corner of the tank is just too much.  They are awesome little fish, thankfully recovering nicely!

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/2/2022 at 11:40 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

On 4/2/2022 at 11:40 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

I wanted to quote the above for the sake of comparison.  This is from the original post and this is where we started.  You can see everything covered in crud and we've been through worms a few iterations with this issue.

The below pictures are what I took prior to maintenance today.  I woke up, had a few realizations and I'm just sort of feeling stuck with the situation.  Let's discuss....

You can see the bacopa is completely toasted and I have very small leaves / bits to try to grow new stems with.  In the second photo you can see the others I've planted. There is a few of these and they break off. Every morning I try to re-plant, but when the pump comes on for the CO2 dispersion it's quite intense and they usually get uprooted.  I have planted some root tabs to try to help things out, especially the DHG.  It's basically back to being dead again.

 

The moss is pretty infested with this stuff, and it was literally *just treated* with the RR and all of the algae removed.  I am not sure it it's because of the rocks or what specifically, but things just are struggling.  I know that old growth / rotten leaves is usually the target for this algae. This is something I had to live with so to speak for the moss because the starter culture I had was half dead at the base. I didn't trim it off nice enough and so that gave the algae a little bit of a home.  It's since all green and all things are growing fine, but so is the algae.... 😞



I pulled this root off.  Anubias is trying hard as heck to recover. You can see the little specks of BBA/Staghorn on the moss itself as well.  A spot treatment should work well to treat that, but I haven't done this yet and did not do it today.  I need to have someone walk me through it essentially because I cannot afford to risk or lose these fish.


The Staurogyne Repens is taking a beating, growing, but it is likely all of the old growth from the plants.  There are a few little bits you can see in the photos that I have been letting grow up into stalks.  It generally seems to be doing ok, but not great.




The Hygrophilia Pinitifida took a major hit.  It grows very differently than most stems for me. I hope to see it recover from the RR treatment, but it's just really hitting this patch of plants very hard. I will likely need to purchase more, but.... again, I really don't want to buy more if this algae is just going to destroy everything I put in this tank.


I tried to scrub the tufts off that you can see here.  This is after the scrape and everything, a few water changes, and this is what has returned.  My hope is that I can add moss in these spots and let the moss take over the wood.  This algae loves the outflow and loves to thrive here because it's right under the light. 


Here is the moss after it was added to these spots.  There is two spots in the front, plus that spot in the back that you can see.

I wish I had a better path forward with this tank.  My thought right now is to starve it, try to get the shrimp to eat a bit more and help me out a lot more with removing this stuff.  I woke up today and they were swimming to all of the different spots. The CO2 is doing it's thing and working well.  The plants are not thriving, but they are growing.  The moss is growing, the S. Repens is growing, the anubias is growing.... and so my only real course right now is to adjust light, conditions (clean it more, more WCs) and to try to adjust my dosing. 

I will spend the next couple of days testing pretty aggressively and going forward I am going to bump the light up 10%.  It's basically off at this point and still the plants are struggling.  If the the algae flares up, it's already doing that and I'm going to have to take everything out and bleach it at this point.  The tank itself, the silicone is hosting this algae, and I feel like my only chance is to get this moss, some stems, and to out compete it or start over with a new tank.

I'll test parameters in the morning, dose easy green, and then go ahead and see what the shrimp do.  I didn't test anything today because I know it needs some love and attention right now.  Either I start scraping the glass and what not every day or it's just a weird situation where I am stuck staring at an algae ball.  I can't really go and "scrape off" the bba, even if I had the energy and mindset to do so.  The only real thing I can do is pull the dead plants.  The bacopa is a good example of why this isn't a good method.

Edit:
Testing Results:
Temp: 72.8
Phosphate: 1.0
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 10-15 (Dropping about 10 nitrates per day right now)
Nitrite: 0
GH: 300+
KH: 60-70
PH: ~7.0

Edited September 14, 2022 by nabokovfan87
Fix photo placement

[Guppysnail]

I am not one of the aquascape greats by any stretch of the imagination but I have really good luck with getting tanks to sort themselves out and plants to grow. 
 

Some things I learned from stubborn tanks that may or may not help but I really want to see your tank succeed. I want you to look at your tank and be able to really enjoy your beautiful fish without the plant and algae disappointment. 
 

Im not diagnosing your tank I’m not that good but I have had a few stubborn tanks that I got to sort themselves out.  
 

I find some plants just don’t thrive for me. Period. I can put them in tanks where everything thrives to the point I get tired of trimming and they still won’t grow well or at all. Bacopa being one of those. Most moss does well for me but Java moss is ALWAYS an algae factory even situated beside beautiful thriving mosses of other types. So perhaps a change of plants. 
 

Anubias and Java fern only do well for me if it is shaded a bit and anubias angled so the flat of the leaf is pointing forward and not receiving direct light. 
 

I have agricultural runoff so my tap is high nitrate and nutrient. If I don’t have gobs of fast growers and emergents I get algae farms. I also had one tank I fed a specific food to that I didn’t use in other tanks. There was some specific  nutrient in that food that caused an over abundance of that nutrient and when I switched food the algae went away. 
 

plant mass that is thriving to bio load needs to balance. I have previously used handfuls of things like hornwort, anacharis and guppy grass that grow like mad no matter what to “clean-up” excess nutrients to give new plants in new tanks a fighting chance against the algae. Once the plants I want start thriving I remove the nutrient hogs I really don’t want in the tank. Since the plants you have are not thriving I would discontinue using fertilizer since your plants are not consuming it but it gives algae gobs of nutrients to grow rampant. 
 

I hope some of this helps. It is by no means a critique, it’s just things that have worked for me on stubborn tanks. 
 

Good luck. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Agree with everything @Guppysnailsaid. Floating plants have in the past been super helpful along with fast growing stems. 

Pinitifida needs to be out of the substrate, it’s a rhizome plant that will help it. Spot treatment is pretty easy. Prior to water change I take a syringe and fill with h2o2 or carbon (1:3 parts concentration) about 5-10 cc, remove the water to the level of the plants you want to treat Slowly and I do it by zones - the piece of wood could be a zone. I give it less than 5 minutes to soak then water change it. When you see it turn purple or brown you’ve been successful. You can scrub off or if you have algae eating fish they’ll take it down.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

@nabokovfan87 come ON!!  You NEED to join Team Snail!  Let them do the work (and nerites don't multiply).

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/12/2022 at 6:22 AM, Guppysnail said:

I find some plants just don’t thrive for me. Period. I can put them in tanks where everything thrives to the point I get tired of trimming and they still won’t grow well or at all. Bacopa being one of those. Most moss does well for me but Java moss is ALWAYS an algae factory even situated beside beautiful thriving mosses of other types. So perhaps a change of plants. 

Yeah... The frustration is because I have had bacopa (and it is growing) do well in my water along with DHG and a variety of things I am trying.  That was all on a sand tank and things were "fine" even when I didn't really know what I was doing.  Obviously this algae wasn't around.

On 9/12/2022 at 6:46 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Pinitifida needs to be out of the substrate, it’s a rhizome plant that will help it.

Do you have any details on this with how to care for it?  I have seen both planted and glued on.  I can toss a rock right there and Hygro the heck out of it.  I was definitely confused..... so yeah 😞

This is my usual reference for new plants to me:

 

I have seen it grow roots, it was growing fine, but obviously the algae doesn't help.

On 9/12/2022 at 10:17 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

@nabokovfan87 come ON!!  You NEED to join Team Snail!  Let them do the work (and nerites don't multiply).

I will add a nerite if it actually doesn't put dots on my wood. LOL.  That's about it.  TEAM AMANO!!!!!!  If I had my SAEs in this tank they'd probably destroy it in about 20 minutes.

 

On 9/12/2022 at 6:22 AM, Guppysnail said:

plant mass that is thriving to bio load needs to balance. I have previously used handfuls of things like hornwort, anacharis and guppy grass that grow like mad no matter what to “clean-up” excess nutrients to give new plants in new tanks a fighting chance against the algae. Once the plants I want start thriving I remove the nutrient hogs I really don’t want in the tank. Since the plants you have are not thriving I would discontinue using fertilizer since your plants are not consuming it but it gives algae gobs of nutrients to grow rampant. 

Nitrates have been pretty low (0's out every ~3 days), I'm barely feeding the tank.  If I don't dose then the plants do absolutely nothing.  The plants are growing, but just not moreso than the algae.  CO2 is stable now, so that's one variable set in stone.  Dosing I have been keeping consistent.  I am just stuck trying to decide between nutrients, which I haven't been great at, and lighting which I have constantly been turning down.  On my last plant order the plan was to add some salvinia to the surface, but I have been trying to fix the skimmer and all that stuff on the tidal, I can easily add that plant now and happily want to!

 

 

On 9/12/2022 at 6:46 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Prior to water change I take a syringe and fill with h2o2 or carbon (1:3 parts concentration) about 5-10 cc, remove the water to the level of the plants you want to treat Slowly and I do it by zones - the piece of wood could be a zone. I give it less than 5 minutes to soak then water change it. When you see it turn purple or brown you’ve been successful. You can scrub off or if you have algae eating fish they’ll take it down.

I will try to give this a shot next time I drop the water low.  Pretty soon here.  I have to fix the level on the left side of the tank and potentially move it on the wall slightly to make room for another one.  I know there's a finite limit and that's what scares me.  Even when this stuff turned red with the RR treatment, I was hoping the shrimp would remove it, but alas... no.  They are about as sick of it as I am!!! 😂.

I have everything I need to do so, but just need to find the will.  I wonder if I use some insanely fine tweezers I can get get that stuff out.

On 9/12/2022 at 6:22 AM, Guppysnail said:

I have agricultural runoff so my tap is high nitrate and nutrient. If I don’t have gobs of fast growers and emergents I get algae farms. I also had one tank I fed a specific food to that I didn’t use in other tanks. There was some specific  nutrient in that food that caused an over abundance of that nutrient and when I switched food the algae went away. 

Very interesting....  What food was causing issues for you?

[nabokovfan87]

I do also have plant weights not, so I can wrap up the Hygro stems in those if I need to 🙂

[Guppysnail]

On 9/12/2022 at 3:45 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Nitrates have been pretty low

When referring to excess it could be something like iron or potassium or some other single nutrient in excess. 
Salvinia is great. It will get the job done. 
The food was years ago. Some off name sold at a local shop. I just used that as an example of excess of any one thing whatever it was adding causing issues not able to be measured by a simple nitrate test. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Joel is great but his setups are straight hi-tech. I have seen it planted a few times but the majority of people I’ve seen online use it in the scape not the substrate. Ryo Wantanabe uses it almost exclusively on the scape. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 9/12/2022 at 3:45 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I will add a nerite if it actually doesn't put dots on my wood.

50/50 chance you don’t get a dot putter. Roll the dice. 😉

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/12/2022 at 1:45 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

50/50 chance you don’t get a dot putter. Roll the dice. 😉

First time I got lucky, the next 2.... Nope. 😂

On 9/12/2022 at 1:34 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Joel is great but his setups are straight hi-tech. I have seen it planted a few times but the majority of people I’ve seen online use it in the scape not the substrate. Ryo Wantanabe uses it almost exclusively on the scape. 

Mine are as well. I finally got the CO2 dialed in. I'd run a dosing pump if need be but for right now I don't. My biggest concerns are excess iron (substrate) and or potassium right now.

I'll keep an eye on it. It was and has been growing fine, but the algae bloomed. Reading today it really seems like the light is too low. I'll keep an eye on things as the shrimp do their work and then adjust after a week or so if need be.

[nabokovfan87]

I don't have any test results as it's not maintenance day right now (tomorrow 🙂 ).  I wanted to post a few updates here from the morning and where I'm at with a few things.

I did modify the position of the light to reduce the direct light on the diffuser.  It's a pretty big diffuser ~2" diameter (seachem, pollen style) and it is just this bright white shine that loves to grow the diatoms.  Considering I already have the BBA/Staghorn issue, any little way to stop some of this stuff, all good.  This won't hurt the plants and won't do much in terms of modifying anything.  It makes life a bit more annoying because I have to move the light when I want to feed or open the lid.  The light already moves anyways because the lid isn't made correctly.... so there's that.

I cleaned the diffuser, fixed up the plants slightly from whatever the filter kicked up that isn't rooted.  Happens daily.  Of note.... I am no longer running a pump when the CO2 is on.  This pump now has a spraybar and will be on constantly to push flow across the length of the tank itself.  I have two pumps I can use. I will likely try both.  I am currently using the smaller of the two with about 1/2 the gph rating. 

I am seeing the algae do what it normally does, which isn't surprising.  Annoying, but not surprising.  I am going to do a few things.  I am going to try to drop phosphates more and I am going to likely add in some more stems and floating plants.  I need to get a ring for the floaters, I need to get them here, and then I need to figure out what stems and find something with the best chance to survive.  I will likely also be getting more hygro because I do love the plant and the way it is shaped.  I want to take one of the pieces of hardscape and as @Beardedbillygoat1975 mentioned and put it all over the hardscape similar to the anubias.  This is literally just something where I have gone through ~8 tubes of super glue and plants are constantly coming detached.  I will also likely toss some in the base with some plant weights and try to get the stems to grow out that way as well.  I had 2 pieces of anubias nana petite that I had to split into ~6-8 very, very small rhizomes.  The BBA/Staghorn ultimately killed the old rhizome and all of these pieces are the new growth.  This is all dramage from the tubs, see the op, but this is all normal and expected.  I have been trying to give all these plants a place to grow and they have, but just not well, nothing is doing "well".  I am working with someone via DMs to try to ensure CO2 is doing well now that I have the spraybar and I am running PH tests to confirm that.  I am not hopeful and positive about anything in this tank except for clearly stating is has some issues.  If I step back or don't have glasses on it looks fine.  If I step closer, it's a mess and not anything that looks easy.  Consistency, upkeep, water changes, and all of these things I am trying very hard to keep a highly regimented schedule.  I have adjusted everything I wanted to and right now it's all about upkeep and monitoring. Testing.

Cleaning the diffuser with bleach again



Spraybar flow / install moved to the left side of the tank, Diffuser is on the back right corner.



Squint really hard and it's awesome!



You can see that my plants right now are basically only S. Repens and Taiwan Moss.  I do have one little tiny piece of Susswassertang in the front / center and it's glues to the wood.  I would like that one little duder to grow and fill the entirety of the tank!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully.   We'll see.  The bacopa is all but dead.  The Hygro is holding steady.  It's on the flow opposite the diffuser, so getting that flow handled and circulating is the biggest key here to get both the S. Repens and the Hygro to do well right now.

Edited September 24, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

The Repens looks very bright green and happy!

Nice work on the spray bar. The drilling looks nice & neat. 

Edited September 25, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/25/2022 at 5:53 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

The Repens looks very bright green and happy!

I keep pulling off the dead leaves.  It's got a lot of the original plant that is just hosting the algae.  Hopefully that leads to better growth and less algae on that growth.  The spraybar is from fluval so no drilling or anything by me.  I trimmed it to length, that was it!  Super easy.

[nabokovfan87]

I did the usual maintenance for the week.  I tested nitrates last night (basically just before the lights go on for the next day) and yet again they were zero.  I dosed the tank prior to doing maint. today, which leads to a few issues I need to address. 

I am still working on verifying CO2 function with the help via DMs.  I am slowing down food simply because I am having so many severe issues.  I want the shrimp to keep working on the algae.  They are.  I literally watched them today in the shade under the light scraping the algae off the wood.  They don't enjoy the light and that's where the algae is at.  I might need to dose ferts 3x a week as opposed to currently where I am doing it Monday and Thursday.  Monday is the usual start dose, then based on testing, thursday I need more.  I can't say for certain, but being low / zero on sunday isn't great for the plants and is likely causing undue stress on them. 

I took a bunch of moss off the wood that was long, cut it up into pieces, and glued that to the main rock again to propogate more of it out.  I do this to remove the algae and end up with about 3/4 of it that easily comes off and is fine to use.  I don't think it's growing that fast, but I sure did have a lot to attach, especially when you're cutting things down to size for attachment (1/4" segments).

I'll restest everything late tomorrow so that the buffers and everything have time to do their work.  I'll edit this post and record those here.

I also found another potential issue, pretty frustrating one.  Black substrate, black algae.... and now I am seeing growth on said substrate.  This could be from the scrape and I'm not too concerned.  I did a pretty big vac and a big water change to remove the junk from the water column.  Hopefully this helps.  This is my only method to reliably lower phosphates in any effective way right now.  Part of what you're seeing here is the hairgrass with all the algae on it. The other parts is the substrate with the algae on it.

Definitely not an exciting development.



A lot of this type of stuff, is why I am excited to have the spraybar and looking forward to improved circulation to alleviate that as a cause for the algae.

Edit:

So.... plants have been moved. Meaning, the little scraps that are barely holding on and don't have good roots are floating in a hang-on breeder box for the time being.  Bacopa and some of the hygro.  Because of this, the fact that I glued the lid and what not means I can't toss this in the back rim and make it easy on myself..... SO..... essentially no lid for right now.   I do have the glass there to shield the light. 

I flipped the pump / spraybar as to force the output of the spraybar over the diffuser better.  The end of the spraybar is towards the front of the tank, pump to the rear, and I now have the little suction cups to hold it in place.  I moved the diffuser from the back to the front, so that the light can go from the back right now to the front left..... well.... if the lid could sit flat.

Yep, it's a mess. As usual.  I hope tanks go on sale soon because I'd love to not use this hang on box for too long.  My hope is that the ferts in the water and the movement is enough to keep them happy with the ambient light and keep the algae at bay enough to let them recover.   Pretty sure all the plants will be there eventually if things keep up and the black corys are getting a reset with no plants and whatever else need be.

No test results this week because I literally have too many changes right now.  I can test and omit the PH, I'm fine with that, but right now the neck needs a break and my headache needs to calm down. 

Hope all is well, it's a quiet day, but just sore and frustrated with this tank right now. 😞

Edited September 26, 2022 by nabokovfan87
clarity

[nabokovfan87]

No tests results, but a few notes. 

I was able to do WC at about 1 AM.  I guess that counts as Sunday still.  I do believe the algae in question is specifically staghorn at this point.  I don't think BBA grows the way this kind tends to grow.  Could be both, could be just one, but for the sake of my own efforts I'm treating this as a staghorn infestation.  (fix CO2, fix flow, fix light)

I did have to dose a bit extra this week.  I might need to go back to daily testing and dosing it every night / morning (if dosing at night isn't good, which I've read it isn't).  I'm up to 3x a week right now, but I very easily could've just missed a dose.  I SWEAR I didn't, but I also don't think the tank would use 1 full weekly dose in 24 hours.  Impressive if it does. 

I'll keep an eye on it, dose in the morning, and then go ahead and report back.  Because of all the monitoring I'm doing right now, hopefully it makes sense why results are a bit delayed. I don't want things to be inaccurate in this log and so I am trying to give all the buffers and what not time to work after dosing, at least 24 hours.

EDIT: Two test results in the photo, the one in question is on the left.
Note: Nitrates already zero, telling me I need to dose a lot more.

Testing Results:
Temp: 72.7
Phosphate: 0.25-0.5
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 10
Nitrite: 0
GH: 300+
KH: 80
PH: 7.6

Algae really has me annoyed and frustrated today (tuesday). I see it taking hold yet again. Phosphates are down, flow is improved. It's just this massive inconvenience.  I feel like pulling every plant, because it's going to die anyways.  I don't want to see this slow death 100x over and over again and again.

Edited October 4, 2022 by nabokovfan87
Added Test Results

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I wonder if your extra nutes are feeding the algae.

Also- staghorn huh? Interesting.