Hi all,
I made an assumption that green meant lime green/light green.
Personally, I run 2x drop checkers (a 2dKH on the right and a 4dKH on the left in the picture below):
It was only after I ran both that I could even tell the difference between yellow and green in the water. For me, as long my 2dKH - which is always yellow - is lighter than my 4dKH, then I know I am good (having also watched the fish etc).
In terms of lights on/off the DC has a delay by 1-2 hours ... and that sucks - that means if it is my DC light green color at lights, you can be certain that your CO2 is max at lights on - which is good. Once you do that and the tank gets healthy, reduce your "before lights on" time as suited ... or don't.
I have been reading some more on these issues and I now notice green algae on several of the plant leaves including the older Rotala ones. The meeboldii ones are almost totally covered in it. Many post claim this is related to phosphate imbalances. I have just order a kit as it did not come with JBL proscan I had. Given that my tank has a lot of fish I am thinking that its overstocked. I never initially shared this info so here we go: 10 neon tetras, 6 rasboras, 4 lampreys and 3 dwarf gourami's. Given that Amazonia comes packed with phosphate I think my levels are probably way to high. Does this make sense? I will test in a few days - what level should I aim for with phosphates?
If you read through several of my posts over the past few months, you will probably find a tone of frustration regarding this exact concept - determining implications in the aquarium. Below are some of my thoughts that may help.
First, the "balanced tank" means (generally speaking) healthy growth and little to no visible algae*. The root of the balance is unknown. And, frankly, the cause of algaes are unknown. People can draw correlations - saying that they notice if they skip water changes (several) and have decaying matter, they get black beard algae ... then you could have someone else not get BBA under the same circumstance. It all becomes anecdotal and "experience based".
So, is GSA something with phosphates - certainly many have had luck with it; however, the other day I had a micro bloom - did 2 major water changes back to back and continued dosing EI etc. I had trimmed heavily earlier (the day after a WC) that week and didn't bother changing water (on purpose, just to see what would happen) - and then the GSA appeared ... but then the GSA did not come back ... so did the dirty tank from all those leaky organics from trimmed stems cause the bloom or was it phosphates? Well ...
What I am getting as the best course of action at any time where there is an issue is to water change daily/every two days (and replace nutrients) and then as things fix, start spacing them out longer. I would be apt to water change in the evening, put in an EI daily dose of macro nutrients, plunk in a micro dose in the AM and then change it all out that evening. Repeating that for a while - <
while cleaning rigorously >.
Many people advise a reduction in lights to slow down the energy in the system (you can do this), on the other hand, the speed of a high-light system allows you to see stuff happen quicker and attempt to draw connections.
If you dose EI levels using <
this calculator >, then - at this point in your tank - we can be almost certain that the nutrients are present. From there, we need to do CO2 as above, we need to do extensive maintenance, and watch new growth. EI will remove the guessing from if you have enough of nutrients. Reduce it later (if you want) once the tank has become healthy.
Do not chase a phosphate level as it will differ for every tank - and each tank is unique - which is annoying to hear.
The ultimate point piece is the flow of water in your aquarium - it delivers all nutrients (including CO2) to your plants. So if your DC reads properly, your nutrients are in check and your plants are still suffering after good cleaning and a few weeks of growth - and your floating plants look good - you can look at Flow (although we should always look at flow first). The problem is we need to gather info from the system (i.e. flora/fauna health etc) to tell us about what to do.
*some people embrace algae and some people don't. There are several great threads on the forum about that.
I am not sure how off-task I got - sorry for that - but if you notice algae (and you don't want), I have had success with intensive water change + put nutrients back in to the tank at the "right" levels. Then remove them and all the algae spores and all the dirt that the bacteria will use and steal your oxygen from your precious plants and fish and create ammonia for algaes to eat ... then ween off the water changes as the tank stabilizes and go from there.
Hope that helps.
Oh and yes your thoughts on accessible phosphates makes sense; however, most of those phosphates in ADA are probably locked up in the substrate and not in the water column. EDIT: I also just realized you have ADA substrate - I am assuming you followed their procedure (which I have never done) for establishing the tank? That would suggest that the initial release of nutrients is "done" ... but maybe someone with ADA experience can comment.
Josh