First I was good, and now I suck.

I have a planted 12g with a 32W/10K bulb & DIY CO2.

When I first set this up, I put in some HM and some java fern and some other things I forgot the names of. It wasn't long before I had a plant and snail explosion - my plants were growing so well that it was actually hard to keep it under control. The snails just about dominated my tank. I also had a really beautiful carpet of HM.

Well, now it appears that the roots of my lovely carpet have all but disappeared, and what I'm left with is some kind of weird floating HM carpet and a bunch of empty snail shells. The HM seems to slowly be dying.

I haven't changed anything in all this time, I haven't been adding anything to the tank except for Flourish Excel, which I've always added. I haven't fertilized in a very long time. Could that be the problem? What might have killed all the snails? (We are talking about hundreds of snails here).

Nitrates: 20
Nitrites: 0
Hardness: 120
Alkalinity: 120
pH: 7.2

Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

H3D said:

You always sucked.

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You suck forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FL22 said:

You both suck! Argument solved...now get back to the answering the question:

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Spank you very much.

Someone please answer my question!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok here we go!

The tank has been set up since March `08 & I noticed that something was wrong about a month ago. I thought it was because my CO2 ran out, so I replaced it & it started up again, but nothing has improved.

I change the CO2 mix about every 6 weeks or so, give or take. Basically whenever it's going slow.

I change my water about once every 2 weeks. I've had the bulbs going since March `08.

I haven't tested for phosphates/potassium/etc. If someone can link me to a decent test kit for that I will buy it. If you can also tell me what readings to look out for that would be helpful since I have no concept of what any of this mean. (I know, shame on me, lol).

I'm not sure what happened with the snails, because many of them were living in the HM & it is very hard to see how many there are at any given point. I just noticed TONS of empty shells underneath this HM carpet after it lifted up off the substrate.

Hope that helps to figure out my problem!

Wee-Wah! No help in two days. Poor me, poor little plants.