Thanks and an Update

[Rupret]

To everyone who gave me some advice and help -- THANKS!

A brief update. I did another partial water change today. Tank looks better, algae getting under control. Current water values as follow, I used both an Aquarium Pharmacuticals and Red Sea test kits:
pH- 7.0 to 7.2 (AP vs RS)
NH3- 0
NO2- 0
NO3- 5ppm
PO4- 10 ppm
GH - 2 to 1 (AP vs RS)
KH - 2 to 1 (AP vs RS)
CO2 - 4 ppm (consistant with KH/pH/CO2 charts)
Cl2 - 0
O2- ~100%

I have done a complete dosing after the water change as follows (all are Seachem products):
Equilibrium - 45 mL
Comprehensive - 10 mL
K+ - 20 mL
Trace - 30 mL
N+ - 7.5 mL
Fe++ - 60 mL
P+ - none due to my current phosphate level

I know, I need to alternate days with macro vs micro, but just got busy dosing and forgot today. My glass CO2 diffuser is working well after being cleaned, bubbles are diffused prior to getting to the surface, and running one bubble approximately every 2-3 seconds. I did attempt the ladder diffuser, but it did not work at all (well, I tried); the glass diffuser seems to be working very well after the cleaning.

Any further advice, recommendations or opinions?

I also bought another book, which I highly recommend to anyone doing plants, especially a newbie as I. The book is "The Simple Guide to Planted Aquariums" by Barber and Wilson. It is a very good book, the best I've seen so far on planted aquariums, and is consistent with the advice here on AA. It goes pretty in depth into the water chemistry, which really helped me gain the understanding. I also pulled in some previous biochemistry acid-base balance education , which clued me into the of the KH, CO2, and pH relationship.

I may purchase some more plants this weekend and try to get things restarted. I still have some of my plants, but need to do some restock. I'll also look at restocking some more fish.

Thanks again for you help and encouragement. I received some very poor advice from local places here and have learned a lot from the results. Sorry, if I offended any of you; the death of over a dozen fish in a week was not pleasant. Thanks again!

 

[Purrbox]

Glad things are going better for you now.

It's actually the Iron in the Traces and the Phosphates that need to be dosed on separate days (actually only need to be dosed about 4 hours apart) to prevent the Iron from precipitating out of the solution. Since you didn't dose and Phosphates, there's absolutely nothing wrong with dosing the Traces with the rest of your Macros.

 

[Plantbrain]

Terry and Rhonda's book is great.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[rkilling1]

I am glad to hear all is getting better Rupret.

Slowly but surely your tank will come up and will look great.

"Any further advice, recommendations or opinions?"

Your NO3's are pretty low. Not that 5 is out of range, but our test kits are not that great for measuring at that level and having 0 NO3's leads to bad things.

Your CO2 has to come up. Increase your BPS slowly until you have roughly 30 PPM CO2. Once you increase the CO2 your current diffuser may not work well. You may want to look into using something like CO2 mist. That would be installing a PH directly above the glass diffuser and then directing the outlet downward. From what I hear, it works pretty well.

Seachem fertilizers are good to have, but with your size tank, they will cost you a lot of money. you should look into greg watson fertilizers when you run out. (well, before you run out!)