Back on my Feet

I picked up 6 golden kuhli loaches (Pangio doriae) from Fintique, but they seemed to have a hard time finding a place to hide. I thought, since they had such an easy time squirming into the gravel at the store, they would burrow comfortably into my substrate. For whatever reason they either couldn't or wouldn't do it, and eventually four of them ducked under a plant I need to pull up in the front, left of the tank. I would have thought they would have liked the rotala indica like the previous kuhli loaches, but I'm getting the impression that they need something on top of them, too. I might need to get them something they can wedge under.

I saw some zodiac loaches there as well that I held out on because they said they'd get up to six inches, but this website says they max out at 2.5", so I might consider those over cory cats (though I might find success with them without a gourami in the picture).

I saw some pretty sad looking new growth on the green foreground plants I have (white, twisted), so I figured there was some sort of micro-nutrient problem. I found this pretty neat page on The Krib that lists common nutrient deficiencies and their symptoms. The initial list is helpful, but a response further down on the page gives much more thorough symptoms that helped me conclude it was likely a calcium deficiency.

A boron deficiency displays similar symptoms, but this deficiency is less likely, since I believe Greg Watson provides Plantex CSM+B, where the B stands for boron. I found the ingredient list for Plantex CSM

• Copper (Cu) - 0.1% - 0.038 ppm (concentration at 0.5 oz/100 gal)
• Iron (Fe) - 7.0% - 2.6 ppm
• Magnesium (Mg) - 1.5% - 0.56 ppm
• Manganese (Mn) - 2.0% - 0.75 ppm
• Molybdenum (Mo) - 0.06% - 0.038 ppm
• Zinc (Zn) - 0.4% - 0.15 ppm

It does not appear that calcium is included, so I might have to start supplementing it, since apparently there is not enough in the tap water.

I was at a loss for a remedy until I remembered the feeding blocks I sometimes drop in when I leave town for a few days. They are mostly chalk, and therefore have quite a bit of calcium in them, so I broke of a little piece and dropped it in. Of course, the shrimp swarmed it, and after they had had their fill, I took what was left and dropped it in the filter so that it would dissolve faster and be distributed better. Now I need to see if that works, and then consider buying yet another bag of fertilizer from Greg Watson, this time of calcium carbonate.