Minor update: I have some minor concerns about my water source (city water) and have reached out to the water work department.
Their average (fairly stable) PH is 7.91. They classify their water as "Medium Hard" but couldn't give me any actual readings. They encouraged me to e-mail in and ask for more detailed readings and that a tech would get back to me.
I started the inquiry asking if there was any publicly accessible water parameter logs. Back when I lived in a neighboring city the water grid got water from two sources: The lake, as well as groundwater. Depending on how the stars aligned (No discernible reason) the water would go from wonderfully soft to Liquid rock. Apparently where I live now is exclusively fed from treated lake-water, so it should be more stable.
My tap water is at about 7.9PH, 6dGh and 12dKh. at the upper end of what discus will live in. Definitely not breeding unless I invest in an RO Unit.
I'm curious to see if my fridge filter (5 micron) will do anything to these levels. I may test that tonight if I have time.
I'm getting ansty, I really want to start getting new plants going, but I think first I'm going to strip out about 50% of my crypts.
IF i have time tonight (doubtful) I'll probably clean my cansiter filter. Its been almost 2 years and I'm a bit nervous about what I'll find. Since day 1 i've had a sponge over the inlet (also never cleaned) so I am confident that there are no snails in the filter (which killed my old fluval) so heres hoping. Ill update tonight regardless.
Also, Re-mounted the moonlights a bit better. I need to find a plastic channel/stick to stick them to properly. This is semi permanent now. With the water change/toppoff it loks much better, but there's still a lot of glare off the water.
Please ignore snail eggs. I need to scrape the glass again.
(I set my phone to manual mode. Its a fair bit dimmer in person.
anddd a video. because why not