Day 29!!
Didn't managed to work on the tank yesterday, so was looking forward to it today.
Came home from work at 7.45pm, and proceeded to work on the pot of HC I left in a plastic container yesterday, breaking them into small pieces. The lights don't come on until 8pm, so I just ignored the tank, as nothing much has happened to it for the past 2 weeks.
Then, taking the plantlets of HC to the tank, I sat down and like clockwork the lights flashed on. To my horror, this is what I saw:
White gunk all over the tank, and a thick layer of it on the surface of the water. It had an oily sheen to it, reflecting the lights in a colourful spectrum like oil would. Immediately I jumped into action and did a 50% WC, sucking as much as the gunk as possible. THis after 2 days of dosing P and N? What is this stuff? It looks like the white cotton growth from before. There was no visible algae for 2 weeks, and sudenly the whole tank was covered in white growth? I'm intrigued! What happened? Can anyone hypothesize on this?
Anyways, I trimmed the HG again to a uniform level. It's looking very good right now, thickening up nicely. I can understand why we have to trim the HG regularly now. Juncus repens is going strong with a new bushy habit happening, and the mini taiwan moss is perking upwards from the driftwod in the manner that I hoped it would be. I then remembered Sam's comment on the anubias getting lost in the scape, so I moved one of the rhizomes to a higher point on the scape so it won't get buried when the HC fills in.
Then I proceeded with the planting of more HC! Cloudy water from uprooting of HC.
As I proceeded to level out the substrate and move (with a spoon) some of it back to the rear of the tank (as lots has naturally eroded to the front), I finally found out why the HC have shown such little progress. Its because they have all grown UNDER THE SUBSTRATE! I can only imagine what has happened! The otos have ben playing with the substrate and in the process BURIED ALL NEW GROWTH. That is why the HC seem to be growing so slowly. I was so surprised to pull out a entire square inch of healthy HC growth with LONG AS roots from about below 1/2" of ADA AS!
So looks like the otos cannot stay in this tank for now. I had to move them to the other tank.
With the otos out ot the way, I then planted long stems of HC into the newly leveled subtrate. When I was done there was still about half a pot left haha. I've put these back into the plastic container, in case of any HC melt in the next week. Will be watching diligently.
Note how the old HC is a darker green than the newer, lighter green HC. P and N deficiency? Gurus, advise!
When that was all done, refilled the water. Dosed 3ml BRIGHTY K, 2ml BRIGHTY LIGHTS, 3 drops of GREEN GAIN and 2ml of EXCEL. Treating this as a interm restarting of the tank.
Water cleared after an hour, so I cleaned out the filter sponge and floss. Green algae growing on the bio rings, shoul I leave that so or clean them? Oh, one dead shrimp. Must have been recent as it was still fully intact ie. not made into a meal. But guess what? FOUND ONE BABY SHRIMP! Now a litle worried I might have sucked up some with the siphon... Would put a sock over the inlet next time.
So residents are now 5 adult RCS, not sure how many baby RCS, an 3 tetras. Might want to replaced the tetras with something smaller. Any suggestions?
Will be monitoring progress in the next week. Scheduled WC in 4 days. Hopefully with this the tank would finally be what I hoped it would be.
Any advice on what I should watch out for for now guys?
Had wanted to the HC to carpet by itself, but I think the constant disturbance of the exposed substrate is working against the HC. So maybe having more plantlets in a denser pattern would remedy this. Also stop the substrate from being messed up and moving forward. Would be planting tomorrow during the WC. Standby for update pics tomorrow!
