Plants less red this week

• pH:
• Temp:
• KH:
• GH: 15 (AP test kit)
• NH4:
• NO2:
• NO3:
• PO4:
• Iron:
• Dosing: 5 mL Flourish, 0.25 ppm iron chelate, 25 mL Excel, 30 mL Melafix, 0.5 tsp MgSO4
• NO3:PO4 Cumulative Dosing Ratio:

Notes:
The Rotala indica and Ammania plants are noticeably less red this week. It seems that either the extra calcium or perhaps just increase in general hardness may affect the coloration somehow. Perhaps all the Cl- ions being added from the CaCl2 are negatively affecting the plants? Or perhaps the extra Ca/hardness is affecting uptake of some other element(s) that would help with the coloration. You can see on the picture to the left that I've never been able to get the L. repens very red. Another difference last week is that I did not dose iron chelate last week till just before the water change, so that might have been a factor, though I am only dosing half of the usual daily dose (0.25 ppm iron versus 0.5 ppm).

A few of leaves of the A. reineckii have been turning transparent, a few stalks of the hairgrass has been turning yellow, some of the leaves of the stargrass are developing some black patches, and there are some transparent patches on the H. micranthemoides leaves. The reineckii leaves turn transparent when it seems that there is not enough magnesium. Even though I've added 1.5 tsp Mg this week, I added another 0.5 tsp today. The algae levels have greatly decreased, more than last week. Perhaps whatever the slight deficiency is showing in these plants is also helping to reduce the algae levels beyond the effects of Excel.

One of the harlequin rasboras seems to have a slightly cloudy patch on its side, so to be safe, I dosed some Melafix.