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my recent learning experience



Hi folks,
Thought I'd share my latest mistake as a fairly new planted tank keeper. My 125 gallon tank is heavily planted, VHO lighted, CO2 injected, and had a heavy fish load (maybe 90 or so tetras, otos, corys, rainbows). I have a stand of Rotala Indica that runs almost the entire back of the tank (6 ft long). This plant grows gangbusters and the leaves are bright pink. I was dosing TMG at 2x the recommmended dosage. The tank was fine until I did my pruning on the rotala indica. This plant grows to and spreads across the water's surface. I usually cut several inches off. I cut about halfway down the depth of the tank this time, and removed a full 3 gallon bucket of clippings. Unfortunately, I didn't think and continued with my dosing regimen. 2 days later I had a white water problem (no green this time). I guess the removal of so much Rotala (the fastest growing part) , combined with not reducing the TMG and the high fish load is what led to the bacterial bloom. I have an automatic water ch
 anging system on my tanks and dealt with the water issue by doing a series of large changes over a few days. I addressed the problem by cutting back to the recommended dosage for the TMG and reducing the fish population by about 1/2. I have always fed lightly. I have learned that when you remove that much biomass from a tank you need to cut back on the supplements and watch the fish load. I really threw the tank out of balance. Glad nothing worse than this happened.

Dave