LeighMo, so you are saying since I match at the lowest testable level on my
Nitrite test, I have too much Nitrite?...so any measureable amount of
Nitrite is bad??

YES. Any measurable nitrite means something is wrong. The level you have is
enough to be fatal to fish over long periods.

I thought my Eheim 2028 with 2 trays of ceramic and 1 tray
of efimech would supply more than enough bio life for the tank. what are
your thoughts?

Did you do anything that might have affected your biological filter? Clean it,
use antibiotics in the tank? If not, your tank may be overstocked, or you may
be overfeeding. You don't have a lot of fish, but some of them are pretty big.


I have a couple of options for reducing the light. I can either:

1) turn off 2 of the 65w bulbs
2) leave both on, but reduce the number of hours
3) reduce the amount of time the second set of lights comes on

what would be best?

Turn off some of the bulbs. Changing the lighting duration won't make a
difference. You don't want to go less than 10 hours.

i know my Vals and Sags will slow their growth way down
if they don't get lots of light.

True, but they'll still grow. They are plants that do fine at moderate
lighting levels.

Can a compressed system be kept to
look decent and not have a bunch of bulky crap in the tank? does anyone
have pictures of their compressed setups?

You could inject the CO2 directly into the Eheim filter intake. The only extra
thing in your tank would be a few inches of thin, transparent airline tubing.




Leigh

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/halloween/881/