Update on main tank!
I think I figured out a cpl of the problems.
1. not enough media in canister(only used 1 box each of prefilter/biomax that came with filter )
2. under fertilizing. Bottoming out my nitrates plants were just sucking them up.
Now the first one I hoped would be enough till my order came in to fill it. And it might have been had I not had so many plants.
The second one I thought ferting with flourish would comp for but after testing with no fish the tank zeroed out across the board. Even with double dosing!
As of today I'm EI dosing dry ferts to get all my plants reserves back and to help with any thing they have been lacking.
Why EI over PPS? Two reasons 1 I want bombard the plants to get them back to square one. 2 I want to see if I can tell a difference when I control their intake per day/ and see how much controlling phosphate matters in my tank. 3 I may or may not have a bet on the side
As you can see my algae has shown up later then expected. It should go away in the next cpl of weeks as the plants out competes it for nutrients in the water column. And my snails are extremely happy lol.
I'm also fishless cycling ~4ppm ammonia should allow a full stock when complete.
If my logic is off or plain out wrong please speak up. It takes a lot to offend me. I may retort not to say your wrong but to better understand.