[Rockhoe14er]

Here is a picture. I'm not sure what it is but there seems to be an accumulation of mulm or something on the leaves. It doesn't look good and i'm confused what this is.

A little about the tank. I have pressurized co2 pumping as high as my fish will let me with ample surface agitation to help me safely put in more co2.

substrate ADA aquasoil
Lighting LED with 70 par lighting at the substrate.
EI dosing micro's and macro's and Barr's GH booster
Canister filter HW 302
Korolife

That's about it. Has anyone see this? i'm just confused why i'm not getting as good of plant growth from my conditions.

I also want to note that i'm also really not getting much read out of some of my supposedly red plants l. aromatic. and Rotalia macramandia, and rotalia butterfly

really seems to look like diatoms but the tank's been set up for about two months now.

 

[JasonG75]

Is it getting GOOD circulation?

Obviously you know Reds require higher amounts of Iron..but you might have to add a little more.

 

[Rockhoe14er]

i have like 15x circulation in the tank right now. To supplement iron i actually dose almost 3 times the needed micro's with csm+b

 

[Abrium]

If you are dosing that much with Co2 and light at what you stated I'd say give it time? I don't really see why plants wouldn't be growing with the conditions you have outlined I mean they cannot decided NOT to grow.

 

[Rockhoe14er]

I guess i'm just confused why i seem to get this accumulation on some of my plants. It's easy to get rid of and my aquarium conditions have been pretty constant for the last two months so how much more time do they need? I'm just curious how long do things have to be perfect for you're plants to really explode and grow with the good red color that so many pictures show and not get this accumulation on the leaves.

 

[JasonG75]

Its taken 6 months for my Vals to come back from the transition from the 55 sand to 75 dirted.

 

[happi]

am going to have to say that co2 isn't properly being diffused or too much light for the co2 to keep up with.

we can dose too much bps while thinking the work is done here, but you have to see how those bubbles are being diffused. what kind of diffuser are you using?

 

[Rockhoe14er]

I'm using a atomizer and i have a pH probe that lets me know that i am diffusing the co2 well. My pH starts at around 6 and goes down to about 5.4. At 5.3 the fish start to hang out around the surface.

 

[Rockhoe14er]

any other ideas?

 

[KH2PO4]

How big is the tank? It seems accumulated with detritus.
Enough flow but not enough filtration perhaps.

 

[Rockhoe14er]

It's a 29 gallon tank and I have a sunsun HW 302 filter. I just cleaned the filter so let's see what happens and if that helps.

 

[Abrium]

vacuum schedule?

 

[Rockhoe14er]

once a week.

 

[bsmith]

vacuum schedule?

once a week.

You probably have brown diatoms in the corners at the bottom of the tank too.

The mulm/particles you are experiencing is a combination of a couple different things. First you need to vacuum your substrate directly a few days in a row to rid yourself of the "ADA Dust" as I call it. Effectively "fluffing" the substrate. You also have a lot of flow it looks like which is great but when paired with dusty substrate causes what you are experiencing and IME this dust is a great substrate for nuisance algae to grow on plant leaves.

 

[Rockhoe14er]

wow that looks like great information. Thanks a lot.