Water Investigation

Well, by the end of the week, the TDS in water in the 30-gallon had sky-rocketed. The other tanks had no increase, so my assumption was that the higher fish load was pumping up the nitrates faster than the plants could take them up. In fact, half-way through the week, I just bumped up potassium and stopped dosing nitrates.

However, every hypothesis should be tested. It was kind of bothering me that my 5-gallon, for instance, has a very high fish load and very low plant load, yet did not show elevated TDS over a week. So I went ahead and tested the nitrates, and sure enough, they were only 5 ppm. That means the increase in TDS is from other sources; presumably over-fertilization. Not surprisingly, phosphates came up off the charts (10+ ppm). If I could test for potassium, I would venture to guess it would come back very high (although I have symptoms of potassium deficiency -- pinholes in older leaves). I'd test for iron excess, but that test kit sucks...

Regardless, it appears that dosing nitrates wouldn't be a bad idea. So after this water change, that is exactly what I will do. Might as well do this EI thing right (maybe no phosphates this week).

As a reminder, for a 30-gallon tank (per APC):

• 1/4 tsp KNO3 3x/week
  
• 1/16 tsp KH2PO4 3x/week
  
• 1/16 tsp Plantex CSM+B 3x/week
  

Because I'm used to dosing everyday, anyway, and from many months of success with potassium dosing, combined with my heavy fish load, I'm going to adopt this similar, but different dosing strategy:

• 1/16 tsp KNO3 7x/week = 1 pinch 7x/week
  
• 1/16 tsp K2SO4 7x/week = 1 pinch 7x/week
  
• 1/16 tsp KH2PO4 3x/week = 1 pinch 3x/week
  
• 1/16 tsp Plantex CSM+B 3x/week = 1 pinch 3x/week
  

I'm still dosing phosphates and Plantex every other day. I read somewhere that they can interact poorly with each other (combining and coming out of solution), so I'll stick with dosing them on alternate days.

It comes out more or less to the same quantity of fertilizer, just a little less NO3, and a little more potassium. That's the new strategy, though I should probably be prepared to migrate toward the strict EI method (though I swear I've seen some dosign regimins with K2SO4).

Pregger Cherries

I dropped some algae wafer pieces into the 10-gallon this evening, and as my cherry shrimp hungrily flocked to them, I took some time to observe them. I noticed at least two, but probably three "pregnant" cherry shrimp! Wanting to know how long I can expect them to carry the eggs, I searched out this website that stated eggs usually took 2-4 weeks to hatch.

The site says the incubation time is dependent on temperature, but doesn't say how it relates. I'm inclined to think that higher temperatures would induce earlier hatching, but I don't plan on tinkering with anything anyway. So I suppose I'll wait a few more weeks, and try to identify when the eggs hatch, and whether or not the zodiac loach starts looking plumper.

I might as well take a little time to document my unsuccessful attempt to remove BBA from the java fern in my 5-gallon. I knew people had treated BBA successfully with spot treatment of Excel, but I didn't have a syringe to due it in situ. So I invented a 10% Excel bath treatment. I left the fern in there, barely submersed, for 30 minutes before replacing it in the 5-gallon. Well, I successfully killed the BBA, but I also killed the java fern. I'm leaving it in there for now, as there are a couple of fronds that are still green, but I cannot recommend the 10% Excel bath to anyone else.

K.I.S.S.

That's it. I'm done branching off and trying new things, making my (and my fishes' life) harder than necessary. I'm going to disregard my concern for the water hardness and begin relatively strict EI dosing on my 30 and 10 gallon tanks; at least, the TDS will be kept below 400 ppm, because high nitrates is the only reason I can think of that my fish would be getting sick. On that note, I did a water change on the 5-gallon too, which will get less frequent water changes, but I wanted to get the TDS down safely below 400 ppm.

There are a lot of things contributing to this. Compounding my rash of sick fish in the 30-gallon, the harlequin went missing in the 5-gallon (not even a body to pull out), and I thought I had killed off my tiger shrimp with all of the fish medication. Well, I might have killed off a couple, but I saw at least one today (though he looked kind of opaque). The big water change was necessary to reset the water -- at this point, I'm hoping the cory has gotten whatever medication he needs. From here on out, he's on his own. No more medication, but plenty of clean water.

Cool stuff to report for the 10-gallon, though. I saw a pregnant RCS -- I'm hoping the eggs are fertilized and will become my first shrimp spawn! And yes, I know I need to get rid of that distracting background.