Out with the Shrimp, In with the Otos

I discontinued the AlgaeFix treatments when I bought the ghost shrimp for the 30 gallon tank. This was mostly OK, but there was some algae growth on the surface of the substrate. After switching to the Greg Watson ferts, I saw soem additional algae growth at the tops of the rotala indica and the edges of the temple. One of the foxtail plants actually developed some green fuzz, too. I'm going to optimistically chalk it all up to the tank chemistry being knocked slightly out of whack, and hopefully in a matter of time it will settle back down.

In the meantime, to help it along, I'd like to use AlgaeFix to prevent trouble. However, shrimp cannot tolerate the treatment, so I had to remove them. I got as many as I could find over two days and moved them to the bucket. After a day or two of treating the aquarium with AlgaeFix, I spotted a ghost shrimp perched atop a water sprite. I found this curious, but just in case it would eventually succumb to the medication, I went ahead and put it in the bucket.

I went to PetsMart hoping to add a Siamese Algae Eater to the tank, but all they had was the unsavory Chinese Algae Eater. A pleasant surprise, though, because they had otos available. I got three of them to go with the one I already had. Hopefully, between the four otos, the AlgaeFix and my new ferts, I will have the upper hand once and for most of the time...

Greg Watson supplants Seachem

The dry fertilizers from Greg Watson showed up a few days ago, and I finally got some distilled water to mix them up for solutions. I decided to mix the components separately instead of a complete Poor Man's Dupla Drop (PMDD) formula. This way, I can dose each component as needed, and tailor it to my aquarium's needs. I even put them in old Seachem bottles I had kept for just such an occasion.

The most recent suggested dosing I could find goes something like this (per liter of water):
* 2 tablespoons Plantex CSM+B
* 2 tablespoons Mg2SO4 + 7H2O (not really sure what the H2O is all about)
* 4 tablespoons K2SO4
* 2 tablespoons KNO3

I mixed the Plantex CSM+B micronutrient mix with the Magnesium Sulfate (Mg2SO4) in equal parts (1/2 tablespoon of each in a 250 mL bottle). This is now my micronutrient fertilizer that I will add in sufficient quantities to maintain an iron level of 0.01 ppm.

In a second, larger bottle I mixed up 1 tablespoon of my Potassium Sulfate (K2SO4) in a 500 mL bottle. I realize now that works out lower than the recommended concentration, but since I made more, I can simply add more. The Sears/Conlin paper suggests I dose this in sufficient quantities to get nitrates down near zero.

Finally, in a bottle I may or may not use a whole lot, I mixed a half tablespoon of Potassium Nitrate (KNO3) with 250 mL of distilled water. This solution is to be used once nitrates get low to bring them back up to 5 ppm or so. The tricky part, however, is to get the plants to grow like heck and suck up all the nitrates from the water column to create a nitrate deficiency. Feeding less would help, but that's no fun, is it?

The Scourge is Gone! (Sadly)

Well, he was never really a very agreeable guy, but I was still sad to find my albino Buenos Aires tetra dead at the back of the tank. I don't imagine the rest of his tankmates are too sad to see him go, as they are probably under much less stress these days. With the extra "room" in the tank, and the sad state of my bucket, I moved the three neon tetras (which had remarkably survived there for some time) back, and I bought three more neon tetras. So while it's maybe slightly overstocked, I think it's at a good place for now. When I was putting the last cory in for medication purposes, I bought some extra hiding spaces, so the neons have plenty of places to hide from a mostly benign school of three black skirt tetras.

The "powdery film" is still a problem, and I cannot have any old, broad leaves without it. I'm now spotting a fine layer of green hair/fuzz algae on the green foreground plants and some of the older water sprite branches (which were promptly cut off). The foxtail that's growing is still looking algae-free. I'm going to try to scale back on the Excel a bit (while making sure there's plenty of CO2) in case all the extra carbon I'm adding is contributing to the mysterious problem (the Aquamaniacs forum has been little help in identifying the cause).

An additional, inexplicable occurence is the termination of otherwise healthy-looking rotala indica stalks. The top leaves tend to spay out, in a starburst pattern, taking on a green tinge (despite the normally red tips) that is also suggestive of algae. The rest of the stalk, however, looks fine, and while they can continue growing, growth must begin with a different stalk emerging from a lower node.

I'm excited about the Greg Watson ferts I ordered. About four pounds of stuff for a little over $20. It should add up to a huge savings over the Seachem Flourish products. Plus the potassium sulfate and potassium nitrate are exactly what is called by the algae-free paper I'm trying to follow. Speaking of which, at last check my iron levels were closer to 0.4 than 0.1 ppm, so I'm going to lay off dosing for a while.

Next on the list to get is a bubble counter (might end up builing my own) and a pressurized CO2 system. I might have it by now if the welding supply store near work didn't charge so much for the bottles.