After getting very aggressive with my substrate vaccuming, I think I am making some headway. My staghorn algae seems to have been caused my a major mulm buildup, which snuck up on me. I think that when I hooked up the co2 reactor inline with the output on my eheim classic canister filter, I slowed the flow rate by quite a bit. I therefore had alot less filtration happening than I thought I did, and I really didnt notice until I had a second eheim classic side-by-side. :wall: I also got in the habit of changing only the water, as opposed to getting right above the substate and sucking up mulm from the entire substrate surface. For several weeks, I just stuck the hose in the tank and sucked out 50% of the water. Not good enough, and I paid the price by having a mulm explosion. Then a two snails died, an oto died, and a few shrimp got eaten. Combine a slightly smaller algae cleanup crew with a slightly overstocked tank, and I made a bad problem even worse. :uhoh:
I did about a 10% water change on Mon, and this was only junk from inside the substrate. I did the same thing on Wed on the other side of the tank. Today I did my normal 50% water change, and did the same thing and parts of the tank. I chopped out alot of algea covered leaves and dead plant matter, although I did not get it all. Water seems to be looking better, as before the tank still looked pretty difty after a water change, and it looks nice and clean as I type this. :grinno:
The second filter is also helping out alot, and it's making up for the restricted flow from the biological and co2 filtration loop. If you remember, this second filter in only chemical and mechanical filtration, and I am getting a very strong flow rate.
I have seen very little pearling in the last month. I think this is because of the excessive algae and because I have only been running 2 lights. The grow light has been off for more than a month, and honestly, that test seemed to not go so well. I guess i will run all 3 for a month, and test those results even though technically, this might be too much light.
Rainbow fish seem very happy, and I give them a wide variety of foods. I give them a different frozen treat two times a week. I set the frozen cube in a Starbucks cup of tank water for about 1/2 hour, and then just pour it in. The fish like the thawed individual shrimp/krill/ etc much more than a cut up frozen cube.
The young parva rainbow and turquoise have not colored up yet. I read an article the other day that said this is why rainbows never really caught on with the general public, they just dont look good until they are adult sized. I can wait. :grinyes:
My red root floater doesnt seem to have red roots, but it certainly has come back from the brink. I really didnt think the crap I got in the mail would ever grow, but it is doing quite well now and expanding. I think it may be mis-identified, but I guess I dont really care that much. The pennywort has grown very well, and I am getting the "lilly-pad" look I wanted with or without this other floater.
See you next week.
