Just as a follow up, I've been dosing the water column with daily 5ml of both micros and macros. Every 2-3 days, I also do a heavy dose, 20-30ml, of macros directly into the substrate around my root feeders. My lights are still on for the split 4-5-5 photo period most days, but I do notice a nitrate drop when I leave them on for a straight 14 hours, so I've done that a couple times a week along with continuous co2 injection during that time. That also leads to pearling/micro bubble steams at night, so I figure it can't be that bad to do occasionally. I still check my nitrate and phosphate levels a few times a week to make sure they are under 20ppm and 2ppm respectively. As far as algae, my staghorn is virtually gone for the first time in months, but I do have some spot algae growing on the glass, so I do still have some tweaking ahead. Another plus, it took almost 2 weeks for my nitrates to reach over 20ppm so my PWC schedule may have dropped off.
As far as the plants go, the damaged old growth I don't expect to see improvement on, so I started trimming the worst growth off. I did notice a lot of new growth ( more/quicker than ever ) on my wisteria, dwarf sag, and crypts, so I hope that it continues to grow nicely and stay full. I also trimmed and replanted my limnophila aromatica so I hope to see an improvement in those in the coming weeks.
The fish seem unaffected as well; no losses, guppies and platies still doing their thing, and I saw my danios go at it for the first time this morning, so everyone seems happy and healthy.
Let me know if you have any major concerns on my approach, or if there is something else you think I can do better.
Thanks again for all the input!
