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Re: What's Missing




Chuck,

I have this problem all winter long (detroit area).
I use a garden hose attachment that has different 
spray patterns, I use the shower pattern. Cuts
the out gasing by 75 percent. I was told the tiny
bubbles can hurt the fish and get behind the scales.

Mark

While doing this weekends water change, I once again observed MASSIVE
pearling after the water change.  I get some bubbling normally, but not
steady streams of bubbles.  Following the water change, the bubbles were
being produced so fast they formed solid threads to the surface.  I
really
want to know what is missing in the tank normally that is present in the
tap water?   BTW, I inject my CO2 in my sump, and when I do water
changes,
I remove the water from the sump.  So I know that the sump water isn't 
getting very high levels of CO2.  In fact, following a water change, the
CO2 levels are measurably lower in the main tank for quite a few hours.

Also, this water change didn't involve any pruning of plants.  Just the
water change.

The tank runs about 15-20ppm nitrate (I was adding it daily at the time
of this water change, but have since discontinued, as I think I was
adding
a little too much).    I haven't tested the phosphates, but I'm guessing 
they are there.  I definitely over-feed the fish.

I add TMG daily.  I'm positive I've got plenty of iron, as the Frogbit
is
quick to show the deficiency.   And it's nice and green right now.  And
until today, I was adding KNO3 daily.  

I'm going to get a phosphate test kit, to see if I could really be low
enough in phosphate as to seriously slow down growth, but I doubt it. 
As
my rainbows have been growing, my feeding has been increasing, which is
probably what caused the nitrates to slowly creep up. 

Is there anything else that is commonly present in tap water that might
be the missing ingredient?