90g Revamp

I had a pretty serious algae problem (BBA, green stringy stuff, etc) because I stopped taking care of the tank after I lost power during hurricane sandy and most of my fish died. So I'm trying to "get back into it" and fix this **** thing. I'm just going to post what I've been doing any my results later on in case it might help someone else. I'm also open to suggestions.

This past Saturday I pulled out all the wood, plants, etc. Soaked the wood with straight up H2O2, and scrubbed the crap out of it later on. I scrubbed the algae off of whatever plants I could (mainly anubias - the java fern kind of fell apart so I had to stop). I soaked them all in straight up Excel for a few seconds. Took out a bunch of gravel that had some BBA on it. It's been soaked in H2O2 but I don't know if I'll bother adding it back to the tank.

I set up a pressurized CO2 system with a reactor to dissolve the CO2 (2 bubbles/minute and 216W light for 8 hours). Cleaned out my filter with tank water and added GFO. Then with the filter OFF, I put 2 tbsp per 10g of H2O2 in the tank and manually swirled it with a fish net for 15 minutes. I did a 50% WC and added Excel.

All of this took me HOURS. The worst part was scrubbing all the algae off the plants and wood.

Sunday was Easter and I was out so I did nothing. Yesterday (Monday) I did a 25% WC and plan on doing so daily until this Sunday, then I will cut back to every other day for a week, then every 3 or 4 days and then weekly, etc. I did notice that my tank had a slightly cloudy appearance before I did the WC, so I don't know if I just obliterated the tank so badly that it's like new again or what.

One question I have is when I dose with Excel after a change, do I dose for the whole tank or just the replaced water? The directions are kind of vague on that.

Any additional suggestions are welcome. I am really looking forward to restocking!

The whole process took me like 5 or 6 hours and my hands were RAW afterward.

Ok well most of my plants pretty much melted. I'm guessing from the H2O2 treatment. So far the BBA seems to be under control. I still see little spots of it here and there but I'm hoping that it will disappear on it's own with some decent upkeep. I found it really hard to do water changes every day for a week - life gets in the way. Right now I'm doing about 25% every other day. Maybe in a week I'll go down to 2 or 3 times a week.

Anyway, I moved my driftwood/rocks/etc around and ordered some new angels. Today I also started seeding bits of dwarf baby tears around the substrate. Will probably plant some amazon swords and more java fern. Blah blah blah blah blah.


I ordered 8 of these angels:

So after all that work, I am starting to see a green tinge developing on everything in the tank. WHY???
I have a few plants left (that didn't get melted) and I just planted a bunch of little dwarf baby tears all over the substrate. I have 2-3 bubbles of CO2 per minute and 8 hours of 216W light.

I am planning on putting a ton of more plants in there. Will that help? I also need to get fertilizer - was thinking about this Macro Micro Nutrient Mix (Macro Micro Nutrient Mix 1 lb contains 1 equal part each of Potassium Nitrate, Potassium Sulfate, Magnesium Sulfate, Plantex CSM+B.) - I have no idea what any of this stuff is or how it helps plants. Will this mix be good for amazon swords, java fern, dwarf baby tears ludwigia and maybe some micro swords?