Pruning Rotala indica/rotundifolia

• pH: 6.8
• Temp:
• KH: 5
• GH:
• NH4:
• NO2:
• NO3: 10-20
• PO4: 1.0
• Iron:
• Dosing: 20 mL KNO3 (5 ppm), 15 mL KH2PO4 (0.6 ppm)
• NO3:PO4 Cumulative Dosing Ratio: 18.75:1.8 = 10.4

Notes:

Unfortunately, after the pruning of the Rotala indica/rotundifolia + water change, the water has become more cloudy. It seems that whenever I stir up the substrate and/or significantly prune back plants, it will trigger/aggravate the green water.


I'm still PO'ed that the System 1 diatom filter does not fit on my tank, meaning it will take at least a week and a half to get in the other filter (Vortex XL) and try to clear up this &*%$ green water. I also hope that the diatom filter will clear up the "green dust" algae. My theory is that the green dust algae will float around in the water till it settles on a surface and starts growing, so I hope that when I wipe the algae off the tank walls (suspending it back in the water), the diatom filter can then filter out the suspended algae. Otherwise, it would just settle back down and start happily growing again.

I also set the light duration from the usual 12 hours to 11 hours. I want to see if that has any effect on algae. A lot of people seem to like to set it to 10 hours, but I'll start slowly.

When pruning, the Rotala can be topped and and replanted, or the stem tops can simply be trimmed off. For some reason, it appears that replanting the tops result in the Rotala growing back more quickly than just trimming off the tops. Also, the tops are lusher and bushier than the bottom half of the stem, so I usually try to replant tops if I'm not feeling too lazy. The problem with replanting the tops is that I will tend to stir up the substrate while uprooting the bottom stem halves, which then causes the green water to get worse.