Re: Frustrated

["Rachel Sandage" <rachelsor at hotmail_com>]

Tom,

thanks for the reply. My KH is up around 5, thanks to baking soda, but GH is 
only at 3 or so after adding 2T of Seachem Equilibrium.

I do weekly water changes of well over 50% - I siphon out about 75% of the 
water, then refill while doing some cleanup siphoning - most of the water 
gets changed.

By bushynose do you mean the bushynose pleco, Ancistrus sp? I have one in my 
29 gallong and it didn't eat the green dust which was growing in there, but 
maybe it was just weird. I've been resisting adding a bug sucky to the tank 
- it is so nice to put the plants in and have them stay there. The ancistrus 
in the 29 seems to watch me plant new things, then swim over there as soon 
as he can to dig them up.

I don't have a test kit for PO4, but I will check the cO2 again, since the 
mixer is all gunked up again.

By cutting out the traces, do you mean everything I put in aside from the 
NPK & hardness stuff (that would mean no Fe and no Flourish), or something 
else?

I have been travelling alot (last weekend Florida, this weekend Las Vegas) 
but after this weekend I'm home for several weeks straight and hope to be 
able to do 2x week water changes to see if I can get ion top of stuff.

I clean the filter every 6 wks or so - should I up that frequency too? How 
often? It's an Eheim 2026 on a 72 gallon.

Thanks for all your help. Maybe I won't put a sledgehammer through the front 
of the thing after all.

-rachel

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