In article ,
Abraham Evangelista wrote:
Yabbut 5ppm N is kinda low. I aim for somwhere in the neighborhood of 15-30.

They seem to be all over the place. When I tested shortly after the
fertilization I only showed 5ppm. Tested again before bedtime last
night, and showed 20ppm. I tested when I woke up again and saw 10ppm,
and was back to 5ppm after dinner.

I'm starting to suspect my test kit, so tommorow I'm off to the shop
to pick up another brand.

Hobby nitrate kits are worthless. Only the LaMotte/Hach kits are accurate.

But I'm not showing any ammonia. And with the number of plants in the
tank, I shouldn't be showing any either.

If there's a lot of waste it may be utilized by the algae before it
gets to register on the scale. To put it another way you don't typically
have these problems in clean tanks.

There's lots of places to get cheap/free glass. Thrift shops, junkyards,
craigslist.org.

Come to think of it, I probably have another busted 10 lying around
here somewhere if noone's walked off with it yet. Hadn't thought to
hit the junkyards. Maybe the local freecycle?

Sure. Cheap/free glass is easy to find if you look around.

The Potamogeton is only an inch from the suface at this point, and if
it keeps going like this, it should hit air before the week is out.
Oddly, in the presence of the more intense lighting, it seems to be
going more green on its leaves. Since the leaves are translucent, the
effect prompted one of our houseguests to ask why I'd put a plastic
plant in a tank of already healthy live growth.

Cool. It would be enat to see just this in a tank.

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