Hi Kush,

thanks for replying!

Linda, do a search on "biogenic decalcification." When you talk about

ok. I'll look it up...

"dusty flake-like stuff" precipitating out of the water, I'm wondering
whether it's a product of your bacteria bloom or the insoluble minerals in
your water.

don't know.. but it looks more algae-like than not. when I used to live in
Cambridge, MA where once in a while you get a tea-colored water coming out
of the tap, and was told by the water department that it's a "harmless
algae", and it sort of happened in a regular basis whenever they switched to
a different reservoire intake.. yuck. and if you leave it be for few
hours, the brown stuff precipitates out into fluffy stuff.. that's what it
looks like (more or less). Cambridge also had pretty soft water... but
where I live now, I've never had brown water come out tho...

For your reference, I posted the current municipal water report in
r.a.f.misc under "municipal water report" dated 2/6...

Also, before you go to bed tonight, leave out a pail of tap
water so you can test the pH tomorrow after it has outgassed. I'm
wondering
whether the pH is higher in your tank or your faucet. Post the results

ok. will do. should I air-bubble it overnight? or just leave it sitting?

tomorrow night. Regardless, I'm going to recommend injecting with CO2.

waaa :-( too much hardware... my tank is essentially free-standing, so
more tubes will not be easily routed, not to mention not much floor space
left inside the tank... :-( this is not going to be easy to implement...

Don't obsess about clean gravel. Plants LIKE growing in fish poop. I've
had UGF systems running for many years that have only been occasionally,
partially cleaned. When I get down under the stand and look up at the
bottom of the (glass-bottomed) tank, I can see clear water flowing through
the root systems under the plates. You CAN scour your gravel every week
but, at this point, in the interest of getting your system settled into a
desirable equilibrium, I'd just let things be.

OK. I'll only suck out obvious debris..

what about the stuff accumulating under the plates? is it ok to leave those
there? my tank is sitting on a wooden stand, so I can't see under the tank,
but I was cleaning the UGF uptake tube using the bottle brush since I was
clearing the intake of the powerheads anyway (brown slimey stuff that
accumulated on the intake was clogging it a bit, and while I was at it, I
decided that the otos won't get to the algae growing inside the tube,
so...), and the suction the brush made drew up a lot of the brown fluffly
stuff from under the plate... I assume there is more where those stuff came
from...

P.S. I really am not that obsessive as it sounds, I swear!.. :-P that was
the second time I ever cleaned algae in the tank (i guess it's closer to 3mo
now..)! first time cleaning, I had to wipe some off the glass so I can see
what I was doing when I was planting (the tank was completely beige and
almost completely opaque by then...), second is the inside of the update
tube..

thank you :-)

linda