50% water change due this morning and decided I wanted to do a major clean up. I've not been happy with the flow and I reckoned that the back was far to packed out with plants.
I took out all the stem plants and the ferns. This is when I realised that most of my Limnophila aromatica had melted but there was fresh growth at the top. The roots and the majority of the leaves had turned to mush. Luckily there were new roots growing and fresh green leaves too so I cleaned them up to get rid of all the dying plant matter. I also hoovered up the gravel at the back because it was covered in a slimey substance.
I also noticed that my Anubias Petite had some mushy leaves. On removing them, most of the leaves disintegrated too! So i removed and cleaned them up as best I could but some were just rhizomes by the time they'd been cleaned. Providing this is just melt, and not a disease will the rhizomes grow back? Am I best to remove them entirely and get some new plants?
I replanted the stems and spaced them out a lot better. Felt a lot calmer than the first time of planting them and left space at the back of the tank for better flow.
Cleaned the tank, the filter in some tank water, and also removed half the floating plants as they have multiplied!
I've really struggled with the position of the filter due to the large piece of wood breaking the surface on the left of the tank. Using the spray bar doesn't work so I removed that and managed to get flow across the top, down the left, across the front bottom and back to the filter! First time I've seem plant matter do a full circle of the tank. Also saw flow at the back of the tank which I haven't done before so really happy with that now.
I've not been happy with the lack of colour in the tank so I'm thinking of replacing some of the lost Limnophila aromatica with some Ludwigia Super Red and would like to get some Kedegang too. Any other suggestions?
I'm now dosing 2ml of TNC Complete a day with a 50% water change and 20ml of Tetra Aquasafe every other day.
Once I'm down to 1 water change a week, would it be worth getting a dozen or so shrimp?
I'll take photos when the lights come on.