[josolanes]

Little background:
- Very hard water
- Alkaline
- Basic (8.2+ according to the test strips)
- No nitrite, low nitrate, no ammonia as of last night

I have a 20G High tank with:
- RapidLED 24 Ultra Premium dimmable kit with 16 cool white, 6 neutral white, and 2 royal blue LEDs (the royal blue are very dim and mostly use for a moonlight). The LEDs are being used at full power from 10a to 8p right now
- Rena XP1 with spray bar attachment being used aiming toward the surface some for some water movement (but no splashing)
- Paintball CO2 just started 2 days ago, initially 2-3bps but dialed it back to around 1-2bps and it's held steady since last night at 1-2bps. However, using a needle valve and plan to replace it with a regulator shortly as the needle valve is pretty tough to stay consistent but has been now after running for a bit (also didn't know, when I ordered it, that a regulator is the most correct way to do it). The Drop Checker is also green currently and I'm running a diffuser under the filter inlet and it seems to have 100% diffusion
- I dosed Flourish Saturday night at correct dosage and then at about 1/2 strength last night as I read, initially, it's good to dose a bit high especially on a high light setup (which I believe mine is). I also use root tabs every 3-6" throughout the tank where plants are
- I did a 30-40% water change last night using the same water I always use, tap water (well water actually)

I also added quite a few live plants on Wednesday of last week (ordered online), but finally got a chance to watch the tank some and turned the co2 on Saturday. With the co2, I added Flourish to complete everything (I saw some pearling from my Java ferns last night too!, prior to the water change). I did not have an algae outbreak at all or anything odd happen before this morning. It kind of looks like a skin or something? Because I had to head to work, I didn't get a chance to look over the tank too carefully. I did see that the fish seemed fine as I didn't notice them having any issues with it and all fish seemed healthy. Whatever this is was on just a couple of plants (my Amazon Swords actually actually it seemed, which I've had in the tank for a couple weeks now) and coming out of the spray bar.

EDIT: yes, I know the plants look a little beat in the picture. I think they're just going through an initial shock and since I've only recently started dosing they haven't recovered yet from the move and everything

EDIT2: The tank has been up and running for about a month now. It finished cycling quickly as I was able to seed it from another tank and I've had fish in it for about 3 weeks or so. I've checked ammonia and other readings daily to confirm all was well and overall it's been very good. Now, as someone I know suggested, maybe this is a type of diatom bloom I'm seeing?

This is what I saw:

 

[[email protected]]

If you'll accept guesses:
Algae that sheeted off a plant leaf.
Biofilm from inside the Flourish bottle.

 

[josolanes]

Guesses are definitely welcome, that's all I could give also haha

Both definitely sound like possibilities. I just wanted to confirm that it's not likely to hurt anything. I'll clean it up some tonight and keep an eye on it

 

[Nubster]

Dead leaves from plants maybe? They often go translucent and separate from the stem when they die. Check for some leafless stems when you get a chance.

 

[josolanes]

Dead leaves from plants maybe? They often go translucent and separate from the stem when they die. Check for some leafless stems when you get a chance.

Will do. That's also a good possibility as many plants in the tank are new

What I found odd about the pieces is that they didn't have a texture to them, it looked like skin sort of. Very odd. I'll look around the tank more carefully later and see if I might be able to tell what it is

 

[Nubster]

Yeah, some plant's leaves become transparent and really flimsy and slimy and if they break off the stem will just float around the tank and usually get all wrapped up in the stems of other plants.