Howdy Folks,

I have a moderately heavy planted 55g with a few workers, and a
handful of other fish. The tank actually was running with fish for
over a year before any planting was started. The bed is formed of
sand, smaller pebbles, and the a bag of time releasing nutrient stuff
you can buy for plants. Since the initial planting, things have went
somewhat well. The plants seemed to have transplanted well. My Ph
has been moderate, and I have been using occasional liquid fertilizer,
for 2-3 months. The plants seem to have good color, and have shown
some growth, and rooting. I installed a generic Co2 system 1 month
ago. ThisCo2 uses the sugar, and activators mixed together which
states it last up to 30 days a fill. I have done one small water
change (1/6?) with bottled spring water that I treated, and have
always used bottled thunderstorm rainwater for evaporation. My pH
levels seem to still be moderate, and I use two 70g filters. Within
the last 1-2 months, several of the plants have been forming a 'muck'
or 'sandlike' grain on them. Some of the narrow plants, like grasses
are getting covered so heavily it seems they are turning a light
brown. The discuss plant's leaves seem to have several strands or
strings of the sand growing off of them. I can brush or rub the
discuss leaves clean, but a few days later will be, again, covered in
strands. Is this a form of algae, or is this a plant disease? My
filters seem to be effective, and I have replaced the filters
components with new media a few times.

Any suggestions highly appreciated!

Newbie