Pics ... Tell me what's wrong, here's my tests

[frostby]

I have seen both - saltpeter/stump remover as well as the no - salt. I'll be going to the grocery store after work!! Um, since Potassium is most important here, what happens to the chlorine or sulfates - is one better than the other?

[Purrbox]

Sulfates are a micronutrient that is used by plants. I believe the Cl in KCl is actually chloride, but I'm not 100% sure. Either way it's not beneficial to plants and will be kept to a minimum through water changes. Since the sulfate can actually be used by plants there's a slight preference to using K2SO4 over KCl.

Some brands of Stump Remover are KNO3. It's great if you need to dose Nitrates and Potassium, but if you are only looking to dose Potassium or need more than you are getting from the KNO3 dosing you'll want to look at the KCl or K2SO4.

[czcz]

The salt from Cl- are also of concern according to some. I don't think you have to worry about that with these levels. (I dose lots of KCl as "sodium-free water softener," and only rarely consider trying K2SO4.)

How was your tank doing before adding CO2? Are you open to adding a faster growing plant, like Wisteria, to help your plants outcompete the algae? Attractive layout.

[frostby]

I'd be happy to add additional plants, -I haven't tried anacharis in this tank, but in the past, it dies and rots within a few days so I quit that idea, I've had some luck with the hornwort, but am not familiar with the wisteria.

The major pet stores don't carry much other than high light plants, rarely will i even see something as common as a java fern.

I'm definately in the mood to experiment, just it's hard to be patient and wait a few weeks to see changes, so it's hard to hold back and only do 1 thing at a time. I really haven't seen any difference in the plants since trying Co2, and it seems that my kh/ph ratio hasn't really changed at all since adding this system from the month prior.

So here's where this forum leaves me

1. Do I have a deficiency of "K", or do i have insufficient plants to keep the algae in check?
2. am i missing anything else?

[czcz]

1) Likely both. More plants always helps.
2) Your NO3 is dropping quickly, likely in part from CO2 injection, and as Rich suggested having some KNO3 from GregWatson.com/salt-peter/Grants or Greenlight stuimp remover is a good idea. Better to bump up your levels to ~15ppm or so.

This plus tweaking will likely get you where you want to go. You're right about having to wait to evaluate changes, but it's better to make changes slowly for our pets anyway.

When you have time, suggest reading through Tom Barr's Non-CO2 methods, and consider removing CO2 to limit uptake/maintenence. Having K and NO3 (and PO4) on hand will still help, but you can add this in part by feeding the fish.

[frostby]

This stuff is so overwhelming - once I tried it and failed. I'm getting the general idea here isn't to stick to a specific water parameter, but to find a balance, to keep the proper ratio's of fertilizers. This is much trickier than testing for only nitrates and dosing only nitrates!!

This was my mistake, I was thinking that I had either I had too little or too much of any one thing, I am now seeing how just a change in LIGHT, can require all other parameters to change!!!

I hope that more can learn from my mistakes here!
Thanks everyone!