I am not new to fish keeping, but I am new to planted tanks. My 55 gallon tank has been up and running for about two months. I was not seeing significant growth and the plants were starting to turn yellow so I added a CO2 system. It has been operating for about 9 days. It took a little tweaking, but my drop checker now indicates a CO2 level of 26-30 ppm. I have seen no change in the plants so did some research on fertilization, both macro and micro. There is a lot of conflicting information so I'm not entirely sure what my problem is or how to correct it. I have also developed some green algae in the last 10 days or so on the glass and wood (one large manzanita stump, two medium mopani rootwood). I do 30% water changes weekly. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Specs are listed below.
Plants:
Substrate is 2-3.5" of Eco-complete
16-18 Sagittaria Subulata - Growing well, good color, spreading but not particularly quickly
12-14 Micro swords - Spread well at first now turning yellow and not spreading
11 Narrow leaf chain swords - Planted 10 originally, also turning yellow
Approx 18 sq inches of dwarf baby tears - have not spread nor died off, slightly yellow
8 sq inches dwarf hairgrass - just starting to spread but not as bright green as it was at first
Water specs:
pH 6.6
gKH 5
GH 150
KH 140
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
Lighting:
Coralife Aqualight with 4 65w, 6700k compact fluorescents
Light is 1.5" above tank
Light operates from 8 am - 6 pm
CO2 operates from 7 am - 5 pm
Livestock:
10 Cardinal tetras
5 Lemon tetras
6 Otos
2 Pitbull Plecos
2 Siamese algae eaters
Equipment:
Pressurized CO2 system
Fluval 305 canister filter
In-line ETH heater
Plants:
Substrate is 2-3.5" of Eco-complete
16-18 Sagittaria Subulata - Growing well, good color, spreading but not particularly quickly
12-14 Micro swords - Spread well at first now turning yellow and not spreading
11 Narrow leaf chain swords - Planted 10 originally, also turning yellow
Approx 18 sq inches of dwarf baby tears - have not spread nor died off, slightly yellow
8 sq inches dwarf hairgrass - just starting to spread but not as bright green as it was at first
Water specs:
pH 6.6
gKH 5
GH 150
KH 140
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
Lighting:
Coralife Aqualight with 4 65w, 6700k compact fluorescents
Light is 1.5" above tank
Light operates from 8 am - 6 pm
CO2 operates from 7 am - 5 pm
Livestock:
10 Cardinal tetras
5 Lemon tetras
6 Otos
2 Pitbull Plecos
2 Siamese algae eaters
Equipment:
Pressurized CO2 system
Fluval 305 canister filter
In-line ETH heater