# Chalky water with protein film - bacteria issue?



## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Try adding some almond leaves to tank or small bag peat in filter. If cloud goes away in about 3-4 days it would point to complete lack of humic and fulvic acid in water.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

I'm not sure I understand, Dave. Those are tannic acids suitable for maintaining CRS and Bee environments, aren't they? This was a neo tank when I used tap and now it's set up for tiger parameters.


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Humic and fulvic acids are naturally found in any freshwater environment on the face of the planet in some quantity. There is no downside to having them your aquarium at some level regardless of what your keeping.

Here’s some reading for you on it.

https://tanninaquatics.com/blogs/the-tint-1/humic-substances-in-freshwater-aquariums

Going geeky on this, humic and fulvic acids will bond with inorganic elements like Ca, Mg, Fe etc forming long chain organic compounds which most Chemoheterotrophic bacteria (ones causing your cloud) cannot access, they lack the ability to process organic compounds. Only higher plants/algae and phototrophic/chemoautotrophic bacteria can make use of them. Basically you will lock those bacteria causing your cloud out of their food source.

Once your aquarium ages and humic acids etc naturally build up because of organic decomposition in substrate etc this will become a thing of the past, but currently your loading your tank with those bacteria’s preferred foods via the oxidation of Mg your adding with GH booster.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

Thanks for elaborating on this, @DaveKS. I'd missed it at first but I think you solved the mystery. I have some fulvic and humic on order.

Bump: Thanks for elaborating on this, @daveks. I'd missed it at first but I think you solved the mystery. I have some fulvic and humic on order.


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Rainer said:


> Thanks for elaborating on this, @DaveKS. I'd missed it at first but I think you solved the mystery. I have some fulvic and humic on order.
> 
> Bump: Thanks for elaborating on this, @daveks. I'd missed it at first but I think you solved the mystery. I have some fulvic and humic on order.


Don't ask me how much to dose cause I have no idea. I just use leaves and Sera Super Peat. :nerd:


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

Lol, yeah, I was going to get the leaves instead, but they're out of those, along with almost half of whatever I want to order. The entire industry is very, um, aspirational when it comes to their stocklists.


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Oak courtesy of neighbors front yard. :grin2:


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

If there's nothing magical about IAL over oak leaves, then we have enough to supply most of the continent. The city hauls them off by the truckload.


Sounds like I need to dry a few on low heat for several hours to kill any fungus, then add one to the tank as needed.


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

If you look for fresh fallen branches or leaves that haven’t started breaking down there won’t be any fungus. I just bring those branches in spray them with hot water to clean them and hang up like that to cure. That branch was good one, it had obviously gotten broken off up in tree but had been hanging up in tree curing in sun for a while. Most ones I find are only about 1/4 of that size. 

I don’t bake them, fungus is a major part of the process as described in above article of forest floor which actually turns raw organic leaves into humus which in turn gets leached back into water every time it rains. 

Plant roots in your aquarium are actually covered in bacteria and fungi, they are actually part of the CEC process. Other fungus are part of conversion of organic phosphate into inorganic, which is what plants use. 

Below,mycorrhizal fungi/spores inhabiting root hairs. Without them cation exchange doesn’t happen at prolific rate and plants have to work harder/expend more energy to perform cation exchange at roots.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

@DaveKS, should I wait until the water clears before adding more snails and the shrimp colonies (neos and OEBT)?

Any idea how long it should take to clear?


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Yes wait. Those bacteria use the hardness in your water as energy source and consume dead or living organisms as there carbon source. 

Being as tank is brand new and you don’t mention any wood or other organic matter in tank their only carbon source are going to be from any moss that has died or other lower bacteria on food chain, this includes the bacteria you are trying to foster by cycling tank. 

If you add humic/fulvic acids you will lock them out of their energy source (it’s like you not taking in any carbs in your diet, you are also a Chemoheterotroph) and probably around 4-7 days cloud will wane and the other bacteria/archaea in tank will then have upper hand again and can respond to increased bio load as they should. 

A few more snails should be no problem, snail poop is good stuff. But I would wait a week after cloud goes away before trying shrimp. 4-5 shrimp probably not a problem but I’d rather be safe/patient.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

Not exactly brand new* but there's no wood other than the oak leaf I added yesterday, which I went with instead of ordering the acid (shop had half my cart on backorder). There are occasional gnats and crushed pest snails that feed the bacteria too.

* set up in July, dosed ammonia for 2-3 weeks, snails have been there 6-7 weeks, current ammonia and nitrite = zero

If the tank isn't cycling, where does that leave us?


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Rainer said:


> Not exactly brand new* but there's no wood other than the oak leaf I added yesterday, which I went with instead of ordering the acid (shop had half my cart on backorder). There are occasional gnats and crushed pest snails that feed the bacteria too.
> 
> * set up in July, dosed ammonia for 2-3 weeks, snails have been there 6-7 weeks, current ammonia and nitrite = zero
> 
> If the tank isn't cycling, where does that leave us?


I didn’t say tank wasn’t cycled. BB just might not be able increase at rate needed to prevent ammonia and nitrite spikes if you increase bio load to much.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

A week has passed and the tank has transitioned from chalky to green. Time, I think, for a blackout, WC, and to order the neos and snails.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

The saga continues, @DaveKS: the tank went green, did a 72 hr blackout, completely changed the water down to the substrate last week, and everything seemed fine. The new inhabitants arrived today and when the lights came on, the water was noticeably chalky again. I'd pared the oak leaf down to the size of an IAL over the weekend, but it's been in there since 10/22. 

Is this just a really slow cycle or some other sort of bacterial issue?

I added three alder cones today but assume it will take days before they'll have any effect.


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Well good news is it worked on bacteria cloud. 

Bad news is now their is no top tier bacteria in the food chain to keep phototrophic bacteria and algae in check, they use light as energy source and either A: use free co2 as carbon source (photoautotrophs) or B: use organic carbon sources, living or dead as carbon source (photoheterotrophs).

My 1st choice for green water is installing floating plants (anything but duckweed), they cut light reaching water column and also process excess nutrients from water column at higher rate than any submerged plant. 

Also sounds like you initially went with some pretty strong light to try to grow some carpet plant but failed and then you went with moss etc. Did you dim light and/or shorten photoperiod after MC fail or is it still blazingly bright?

Sounds like there’s to much salty shrimp elements in floating in water column. Probably if you had went with prepared soil ball type substrate that has binding properties instead of inert substrate these problems might not have appeared to begin with. 

Give your alder cones time to kick in and work on adjusting lighting.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

1. It's a Finnex Planted light, 32 mMol @ substrate, IIRC, for the Monte Carlo and mini-pellia. Monte Carlo never took off (thread algae) but I now have some impulse purchase Mayaca in there now that's holding its own. 
2. Photoperiod is 6-7 hrs.
3. I would love to have added some RRF...
4. ...but assumed they would court disaster as I'm not dosing and there's no data on the Salty Shrimp packaging. Bad assumption on my part, I guess, but I thought it was just a fancy version of GH booster, which always struck me as kind of an afterthought of EI dosing. 



If you think the Salty Shrimp will support a RRF canopy, I'll order some and a Sera nitrate test kit. 


@DaveKS


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Well best I could find on SS is this from a Reddit post.

17.88% Calcium
6.76% Magnesium
2, 11% Potassium
0.69% Hydrogen Carbonate
41.50% Chloride
16.91% Sulfate
0.35492% Trace Elements

Very light on trace, green water would probably use that up in a day. Also won’t supply NP but you could get enough of that from feeding. 

Why are you opposed to doing light dosing to help your plants outcompete algae? Algae can can thrive with very limited nutrients, higher plants cannot. But RRF are a very easy plant once it gets acclimated to your water/tank conditions. If your changing a bit of water regularly SS might be able to keep up. A phosphate test would also be handy. I prefer using phosphate test as a gauge of wether feedings are keeping up with NP levels. Have you started feeding shrimp yet?

Also I have no idea how mMol converts to par. ???


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

I actually had been doing limited dosing but stopped based on a misunderstanding. One concern however is TDS @ 235, which is already above the OEBT vendor's limit of 220. I can cut the SS concentration and work in KNO3 and KH2PO4 as needed, i guess. Haven't added the OEBT yet.

Feeding: I'm not feeding anything aside from the oak leaf and three boiled alder cones in the tank, plus moss detritus. There are 18 shrimp and 6 snails. 

mMol is the measurement of PAR, I thought. I'll verify the number later and edit this post with my finding.

ETA: PAR for the Finnex Stingray is 28-30 units at the substrate, which should be at the upper end of low. According to the PAR charts I consulted at the time, this should allow decent growth without requiring liquid or gaseous CO2 supplementation.
@DaveKS


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Is planting density in tank of mayaca large enough to actually make a dent in nutrient uptake? Know mosses uptake rate is negligible. 

But yes I would do light dosing of a full spectrum fert on a daily or every other day schedule, probably 1/4-1/3 recommend rate then use SS to to make up the rest to hit your TDS target and do just enough water changes to keep it there.

Also I am confused. Above you say “haven’t add OEBT yet” but later in text above you talk about feeding and 18 shrimp/6 snails. Do you mean your currently planning on adding OEBT but as of now have some other shrimp and snails in there?

To me a light daily or every other day supplemental feeding will help in aging your tank past this new tank syndrome your currently in. 

When you mix up change water shoot for low side on TDS range and also pull leaf and cone from tank and let them set in your change water overnight so acids have chance to bind to elements you add and also stabilize PH. When you change water TDS will drop slightly and then over coarse of week as you lightly dose TDS will slowly creep up, you change water, lather/rinse/repeat. You need to zero in on dosing and rates and maintenance schedule that works for your tank. Don’t change anymore water than is absolutely necessary to maintain your levels. Just know that as tank matures this formula will slightly change, usually slight increase in water change amount.

Also think a small colony of RRF is good idea, just be sure to tie or corral it up so it doesn’t overshade your mayaca. You’ve seen that you can lock chemotrophs out of there energy source by binding up oxidized minerals they use, now you have to limit the phototrophs energy source which is light. RRF are very easy to maintain, just take your tongs and remove some every week to keep density where it’s needed.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

Thanks for the detailed reply, @DaveKS. Yes, that's correct: I have 18 neos and babaulti in there now, along with 6-7 snails, and plan to add the OEBT once the parameters are fully under control. 

I've only rarely seen them on the oak leaf or the cones, so I have doubts about the need for feeding, but I'll try some blanched spinach tonight. Below is a pic of the tank after yesterday's maintenance. The LFS was out of RRF and had only a small amount of Frogbit.

The mass of moss in the center is hookeriaceae, fairly fast growing. There's that much again behind the large rock to the left. The other mosses (MP, mini-taiwan, and fissidens) are pretty low growth, almost non-existent. 

I added several cyperus helferi last night; the moonscape tank has really changed. Also picked up some Flourish in addition to the EI dry ferts I already had, so I'll have a nice little biotope going once these issues are settled and all the inhabitants are in place.


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

What kind of media is in that internal filter? If just coarse foam you might add some densely packed filter floss to it. But watch it, it could clog pretty quickly. Shame you don’t have a seasoned fine foam bubble filter, it could probably clear up that water in a day or 2.

Mayaca looks a little anemic but that could be trick of photo, but low dose of fert daily or every other day should fix that. .5ml fluorish, add to 1/2 gal jug of RO water and just use that to top of for evaporation throughout week. In a low uptake tank, especially one that’s currently limited by a light blocking cloud you don’t want any element in excess in water column but you also need to make sure that no element that plants need is ever in complete depletion for any extended period of time. Start low and as tank settles work your dosing up if needed. As water clears if you start see excess fuzz algae etc that shrimp and snails can’t handle, back off. 

I myself personally would also spread those mayaca stems out on 3/4-1” spacing so lower leaves are not shaded out. 

Also don’t not do a 100% water change ever, when you did that and removed most of leaf you took 5 steps backwards in the aging process in this tank. Finer filtration, minimal water changes (1-2 gal week max) and patience are what will help you break through this new tank syndrome your in.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

First, thanks for all your help with this, @DaveKS. 

Second, correct, it's only coarse filter foam inside; same as the material surrounding the intakes. I guess you're right about the NTS, but there's been a lot of surface area in the tank and on the foam for beneficial bacteria in relation to the light load until pretty recently. My unquestioned assumption was that it would be enough. Heh. 

I'll see about adding some filter floss and will space out the mayaca. I've found some more frogbit and the tank seems to be clearer today.


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Think you’ll get along great with frogbit. Now that I’ve seen your tank, keep it about 1/3 of tank on left end over mosses. Mayaca nice plant, keep it high light over that area. Think to maintain this tank you’ll need frogbit as main high metabolism plant. They are supercharged water cleaners and your just starting to see cleaning effect of them. Their roots are also loaded with beneficial bacteria and fungi which will help age/season your tank. Predict in about 7-10day you’ll probably be ready to order OEBT. 

Boiling your cones? Don’t. When you go to mix up some change water drop a fresh cone and a fresh oak leaf in there and leave them long enough to get a slight pale yellow tint to water, then pull them out set them out on a small towel and let them dry. I use a white 5 gal bucket so I can see my waters color. Then add your SS to spec, wait couple/few hours for humic/fulvic compounds to bind and waters ready. Reuse those same leaf/cones to prep your change water 3-5 times, then they go in tank and get fresh pair to prep your change water. 

Basically use them for 3-5wks for water prep and they’ll be ready to add to tank. You have no wood to add organic compounds to tank so just leave them there to breakdown, don’t take them out. Get a phosphate test, only if you see phosphate levels rising will you need to remove organic matter from tank. Your Mayaca and frogbit along with 20% (+-???) water changes should take care of any excess phosphate or DOC. 

People get carried away with fear of organic decomposition in aquariums when in fact it’s #1 carbon and nutrient source for plants in a low tech aquarium like your trying to setup. Healthy plant metabolism, healthy substrate/bacteria metabolism via proper circulation flow/patterns in tank and nutrient management/tank husbandry builds a big picture where everything just falls into place. If you don’t know how to prep your change water that 75% water change is actually going to do more harm than good for your tank.

Here’s what my change water for my Betta and Neon/Ember Tetra looks like.










In my 7 gal with big betta and 11 tetra I’ve only changed 2 gal of water in last 5 months, these fish actually like old water, I also since last April have only cleaned glass once. No brush algae, no fuzz algae, no hair algae.

2 plants, RRF and R. Rotundifolia and a Marimo Ball. Plants grow so fast I can hardly keep up with them. Nice colony of pink pearl ramshorns. Fish are vibrant and super healthy.










And to shock you, here is what bottom of this aquarium looks like, big layer of mulm and organic material I actually installed on setup, was no cycling to this tank, it was functional 4 days after setup, zero ammonia, zero nitrites and 8ppm nitrates. This pic was at 2 weeks and I already had to thin rotala out because it was taking over whole tank. Note huge roots drilling down into subtrate. Filthiest looking tank I’ve every kept but absolutely the lowest maintenance tank ever. 










The whole point of showing you this is not that you need to take your tank there but to show you there are all kinds shades of grey in keeping a aquarium, it’s all about finding a equilibrium that works for your special snowflake of a tank, no 2 tanks are exactly same unless you purposefully set them up that way. But you have to truly understand biological processes and how to control and implement them to make it work. 

I’m really kind of disappointed with myself for not seeing your solution all along. You basically had a excess of nutrients in water column, green cloud was forming but white cloud came in and was feeding on green cloud and using excess oxidized Ca/Mg/etc in water as fuel. If we had hit it with a 1-2 punch of adding humic/fulvic acids and also installing a colony of floaters at same time we’d be about week to 10 days ahead of where your at now. In a bright shiny new tank redox potentials are high so that added fuel to white cloud energy uptake via higher oxidation of hardnesses in water. When we added organic acids white cloud ran out of fuel via lockout and green cloud came forward. Now floaters are starting to limit green cloud by sucking up water nutrients and blocking photons hitting water column.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

Not ignoring your reply above, @DaveKS - just a quick note: sera kits arrived and took readings in natural daylight this morning as directed:
NO3 = ~5ppm
PO4 = 1ppm
TDS = 253
GH = 9 dGH
KH = 3 dKH

TDS are too high but GH is very, very wrong - should be 6 dGH. I can't think of anything but that at least one of the rocks isn't inert after all. Other ideas?


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

I see one lava rock which shouldn’t be a problem. 

Are other ones petrified wood? They can leach hardness back into water, some more than others. Once covered with biofilm leaching should slow down, moss should grow like crazy on them.

I myself would just adjust hardness of change water to low side, monitor GH/TDS in tank right after water change and then 5 days later. 

In theory the hardness rocks provide could totally negate use of SS. Could be all you need to do is change out 1 gal tank water a week with straight RO water to keep it inline. Your shrimp/snails couldn’t care less if Ca, Mg, K etc is coming from a boutique jar or a piece of rock.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

They're all supposed to be neutral ohko, dragonstone. The one on the far right in the picture is darker, more vertically oriented, and more scalloped than the others; I suspect it could be misplaced dark limestone. I'll pull it this weekend for testing.

The target parameters with the OEBT in mind are:
120-220TDS
5-7 dGH
0-4 dKH

Obviously I'm going to come in at the upper end of that range once the GH issue has been resolved. 

I replaced a section of the coarse filter material with fine floss and am leaving the coarse section in the tank for a week while the floss is colonized. Also spread out the mayaca as you suggested, @DaveKS.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

You were spot on, @DaveKS: the tank has rapidly cleared since yesterday; it's almost normal with only a chalky haze remaining. The frogbit and mayaca have really done the trick; it will be interesting to see what happens as the frogbit dies back (the light bar is narrow and only a couple inches above the water) though. I'm getting some RRF which can circulate better than the AF and I've replaced that rock with a confirmed piece of dragon stone, so GH should be static again. 

Winter's coming, making shipping shrimp risky again, so the next question is how quickly I can lower the water parameters without setting off another white or green cloud. I've been thinking of aging some half-strength Salty Shrimp DI water with the oak leaf and alder cone you suggested and changing out a gallon twice a week, plus PO4 and NO3 testing the day after. Btw, do we just assume we have enough K until we see pinholes?


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Take 6oz tank water, add 1oz RO water to it, let it set 30min and test GH. That will tell you roughly what doing a 1 gal water change with straight RO will do in your tank.

I’d probably do it 1/2gal a day and I’d set up with my slow siphon using airline tubing to slowly put water back in tank. You want to avoid inducing osmotic shock by a rapid hardness change. Just like doing drip acclimating of shrimp when you get them in just no IV clamp, with pump still circulating in tank GH should slowly creep down over coarse of 30min or so it takes water to siphon into tank. Lowering hardness I’ll only help get rid of cloud. Dropping 1 GH point or less a day would be optimal.

K deficiency, doubt that will show up in your tank with amount of K in SS. With planting density you’ve got currently not going to happen. Maybe if you let frogbit populate whole surface of tank.

I’d tie up a floater ring on left end to corral floater under light if needed but doubt you’ll have that problem. Your problem will probably be corralling it up so it doesn’t overshadow cyperus or mayaca to much.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

Hi @DaveKS

The chalky water is back. I took the mayaca out four days ago for a 72hr blackout to kill the thread algae and returned it last night, floating until I have time to replant it. Yesterday was WC Sunday; I removed around 1.5 gallons and replaced 1 gallon while the remainder ages. I've been alternating oak leaves with beech, and aging the change water several days as added insurance. The old leaf stays in the tank until completely shredded; the shrimp and snails like the oak but adore the beech. There's an alder cone in the WC container too. 

The tank has a full canopy of AF and RRF and a half-eaten oak leaf, so I'm surprised the mayaca's absence could trigger another bloom, assuming it did. As further insurance, I'm going to add a small piece of driftwood tied to variegated anubias and place it under the filter. 

Dosing remains Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ and Flourish Comp @ 0.5 ml twice a week, plus supplemental KH2PO4 and the soup from the feedings. The system had stabilized, so I didn't run tests this past week. Prior to this bloom, the only issue had been the proliferation of thread algae in the mayaca.

Sorry for the long-winded post. Do you think it could be something else?


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Did chalky water start after the blackout or just after the water change?

Is hair algae only growing on mayaca or is it a whole tank thing?

What and how much/how often are you adding besides salty shrimp?


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

- I thought I noticed it yesterday but only confirmed it this morning. The water change was a few hours before I returned the blacked-out mayaca to the tank. 

- There's the occasional strand or two of thread algae on some of the mini-pellia, but not enough to bother with.

- Additives besides SS: Flourish Comp @ 0.5 ml, dosed twice a week; KH2PO4 dosed at less than 1/64th tsp once a week, when indicated. Generally feed a lettuce leaf or prepared food every other day, plus they have the oak/beech leaf.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

The water is pretty chalky today, despite adding driftwood to the tank four days ago and the half gallon of aged water I added yesterday. Along with that I added 3/32 tsp of baking soda to raise the tank's KH by 0.5 degree, but that's not enough to cause such cloudiness, surely. 

Any theories, @DaveKS, anyone?


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Sorry didn’t see your previous post, you didn’t tag/quote me so it disappeared into the mist.

I was going initially under impression you moved mayaca out and did blackout on tank but your statement above makes it sound like you put mayaca in blackout?

But if you want my opinion I would have you go to daily low dosing. 

Half gallon milk jug, 6 cups water, add .75ml Fluorish, add 1cup to tank per day to make up for evaporation. No dose on water change day.

KH2PO4, 200ml water, 1/8tsp for solution that you will dose 2ml per day except on water change day.

I really don’t think the removing mayaca from tank was the cause, more like accumulative effect of dump and run dosing of ferts and unbound P and K in KH2PO4. 

It’s about flatlined stabile dosing not hitting EI oriented specs. Feed your plants a low level every day and you won’t have a deficiency. In a low tech non CO2 tank the metabolic rate is so low it’s nothing like high light EI dosing where if something runs out in middle of day your plant will choke and stall. All you have to do is make sure everything is there and never drops to zero for more than a day or 2. If you miss a day, no big deal double up next day, its low level dosing. 

And I think it’s time to move on from mayaca, it’s a softwater plant. It’s never going to work in your harder water. Instead of P levels restricting uptake of iron I think it’s potassium levels of SS blocking it’s uptake of iron. Heck try some ambulia (Limnophila sessiliflora) or even some basic Rotala rotundifolia. 

Besides ambulia and Val Nana I suggested before in your tank look at Willow Leaf Hygrophila. It’s marginal for size of plant your tank needs put it’s doable. Planted under that spraybar it’s leaves will sweep with water flow of that spraybar and look like a willow tree weeping out 6-7” or so into tank.

Take top right 4-5 stems of what you see in this pic and shorten them, imagine managing them as layered 4-7” stalks weeping out into tank. It’s easy to find, leaves are some of the most rugged leathery around and it has absolutely no problem with harder water. When it likes it habitat leaves at top under light will even get a nice pinkish/bronze cast on tips.










When’s going good and has current flowing by/over it this is look you’ll see when looking down into tank.










Also I’d also like to see you add some crypt wendtii red or bronze or something similar in middle area of your tank. That’s one thing your missing, a crown type plant that sets there long term and spreads roots all across substrate bed. Plant lightly and let those roots spread out across bottom glass for next year. To me there is no replacement for biological processes that happen in root zone of those type plants. Your mosses don’t do that, your mayaca I doubt has even 1/4 of root structure they provide.


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## Rainer (Jan 30, 2011)

Thanks for that post, @DaveKS, and the biochemistry behind it. I'll switch dosing schedules as suggested. The cloudiness is almost gone today. 

Yes, I removed the mayaca to black it out. After trimming away the damaged bits, I have about half the stems left and those are maybe half the height they were before. I've replanted those into a small grove on the back wall on the side away from the filter. Closer to the filter I placed the rotala rotundifolia I'd ordered in the meantime. Unfortunately it's in emersed form (supplier kept that hidden) and very difficult to plant and keep that way in the sand. 

I've been waiting for my invert supplier to restock on Val Nana, which could go in front of the filter, and American Shoreweed for the sandy expanse on the opposite corner, but your idea about willow hygro is worth serious consideration. I do have some concerns about it and the crypt throwing off the sense of scale, but I'm willing to try. I particularly like the idea of ambulia, which reminds me of the myrio mattagrossense I loved keeping in my old tank. Maybe shoreweed in the opposite corner, val nana in the other far one, willow hygro screening the filter and ambulia along the rest of the back wall. The driftwood, anchoring an anubias variegated, will go directly under the filter. 

I'll post some pics to the journal when I have some time as a future planting reference for anyone interested.


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