WEEK 4 Date: 1/29/06
pH: 6.9 (evening), 6.8 (morning)
Temp: 78
KH: 5
GH: 9
NH4:
NO2:
NO3: 0-5
PO4: 0.15
Iron:
Dosing: 5 mL Flourish, 10 mL Flourish Iron

Notes:
Shortly after adding the plants, the water had become slightly cloudy. It was most likely a slight case of “green water” algae, probably due to adding an excess of Flourish. Within a day of adding an extra watt per gallon of light and the compressed CO2, the water cleared up completely. This was before the water change.

I performed a 50% water change, adding the following:

20 mL Amquel+
5 mL Flourish
10 mL Flourish Iron
2.5 Tbsp Equilibrium
2.5 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp Epsom salts

2.5 Tbsp Equilibrium = +6 dGH = (for 50 gallons water) 35 ppm K, 15 ppm Ca, 4ppm Mg, 0.2ppm Fe
1 tsp Baking Soda = +2.35 ppm Mg

The GH was 9, was aiming for 6, must have miscounted the dosage and/or forgot to account for the Epsom salts (Mg in Mg2SO4). After the addition of the CO2, the plants are now pearling nicely. I saw that the CO2 was getting past the reactor (because CO2 bubbles were occasionally being expelled from the canister filter. I lowered the CO2 rate slightly from 2 to 1.5 bubbles a second. The reactor is probably not the most efficient design, or maybe it needs to be longer to give the CO2 more time to dissolve in the water. The reactor is 18 inches long.

The old leaves in the Rotala rotundifolia were turning yellow from one side of the leaf to the entire leaf. It might be a potassium or magnesium deficiency, so I added a little extra magnesium in the form of Epsom salts (Mg2SO4). It could possibly be nitrogen as well, though the nitrates have been steady at 5 ppm.