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90x45x45 medium tech :)

TDS before today’s water change 275. I did a pure RO water change today and the tank is now sitting at a TDS of 165.

I'm not sure that's really a good idea. TDS is made up of everything - so very over simplified you might have 150 tds from tap water or remineralized RO made up of your GH/KH plus 150 tds from of your ferts to give you 300 tds total. If you do a 50% water change with pure RO your TDS might drop back down to 150 like your source water, but what you have actually done in the tank is halved your GH/KH! So now you have 75 tds made up of GH/KH and 75 made up of ferts. Much better to use normal water change water (tap or re-mineralised) so your GH/KH stays consistent. You'll need to change more water or do it more frequently to drop the TDS but the water will stay a steady GH/KH for your fish. If you kept doing pure RO changes you could end up with an apparently good TDS but it's all made up of excess ferts instead of GH/KH.
 
I'm not sure that's really a good idea. TDS is made up of everything - so very over simplified you might have 150 tds from tap water or remineralized RO made up of your GH/KH plus 150 tds from of your ferts to give you 300 tds total. If you do a 50% water change with pure RO your TDS might drop back down to 150 like your source water, but what you have actually done in the tank is halved your GH/KH! So now you have 75 tds made up of GH/KH and 75 made up of ferts. Much better to use normal water change water (tap or re-mineralised) so your GH/KH stays consistent. You'll need to change more water or do it more frequently to drop the TDS but the water will stay a steady GH/KH for your fish. If you kept doing pure RO changes you could end up with an apparently good TDS but it's all made up of excess ferts instead of GH/KH.

Yes, I did think that, but as my GH even with the 60/40 RO/Tap is still going to be above 7 and my mini landscape rocks will add minerals back into the water. I figured worse case I'd go down to GH 3.5. I will not be doing it again and I"m going to bring my weekly water change forward a few days. I now have some seachem equilibrium to remineralise my RO. I'm going to give remineralised RO a go for a few weeks and see how things look.
 
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Picture update, Reduced lights and reduce fertilisers and the growth is still there
 

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Just a pic update.

Also some notes to myself, what I do different next time.

  1. using the rockwork as a dam to hold the soil and substrate back. Good idea, but now I can’t take the rocks out without causing an avalanche and ruining the whole tank.
  2. Not bleaching and presoaking all the rock and woodwork. bleaching and then soaking the rockwork, substrate and wood, would have removed nearly all of the organics which would have most likely reduced a lot of the issues I had / having.
  3. Having nice white cosmetic sand in the foreground. Looks nice but pain in the blahblahblahblah to maintain.
  4. Not using a retainer between gravel and dirt, not sure how I’m going to separate the two when it comes to a re-scape.
So to summarise, I wish I prepared things more conscientiously, used a single substrate and placed wood and rock work in a manner that would make easy to remove and clean if needed.
 

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