Date: 1/25/06 (into the third planted week, seventh week since aquarium set up)
pH: 7.2
Temp: 77
KH: 4
GH: 2
NH4: 0
NO2: 0
NO3: 0 < x < 5
PO4: 0.15
Iron: 0.2?
Dosing: 10 mL Flourish
Notes:
After adding Flourish for several days, the stargrass, which had been growing in very pale leaves (almost white) have turned green again. But lately, they’ve been developing black spots/holes in the older leaves. I don’t know what the problem could be yet. The Rotala Indica and Rotundifolia have been doing well, and have grown a couple inches a week.

I added a half inch slice of blanched zucchini for the otos and SAEs. The otos and SAEs seem to like to eat only the green skin of the vegetable. I found that if I left it in for about 2 days, they would eat all the skin, and I would remove the rest of the slice before it rotted too much. I also added Hikari algae wafers. The SAEs will nibble on the wafer, but the otos seem to ignore it. The black mollies and dwarf gourami gladly eat it though. I had earlier tried to put frozen spinach in, but everyone seemed to ignore it. Since the otos and SAEs have pretty much taken care of all the algae, I’m afraid of whether or not the otos will have enough to eat.

I also tried the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Nitrate test kit, the kit read somewhere between 0 and 5. Since the test ranges from 0 to 160 ppm, it’s not the best for trying to get low range readings, but I really don’t want to pay the money for the expensive low range nitrate test kits (e.g. LaMotte). I have trouble reading the iron test kit from RedSea, I have trouble telling the colors, since the range starts from blue to grey (is that blue??, grey??).