KH ~17.9ppm (AQ test kit showed color change nearly immediately)
GH ~36-54ppm (AQ test - hard to tell)

Your water is very soft. You might benefit from harder water. Is it this soft
coming out of the tap?

ARgghh....I knew I forgot to measure someting....was going to do that.
I'll meaure it later.


NO3 ZERO (AQ test)

That could be your problem. Nitrate should not be zero in a planted tank. See
Chuck's article on adding nitrate:


.....and that's even after not having done any vacuuming for several
weeks.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nitrate.htm

I suspect what's happened is that you recently added some fast-growing stem
plants, and they are out-competing the slower-growing plants for nutrients.

Actually, I had a bunch of Cabomba in there....which grew fast but
thinned out so much and started dissentigrating and making a mess that
I just pulled it out......then about 4 stalks starting growing out of
the gravel.....so I just let them grow....and GROW they did!

Otherwise, the Red Ludwiga that I've had in there for about 1-2 weeks
is growing like CRAZY!


It can be difficult to keep both fast and slow-growing plants in the same tank.
Some people do it, but I haven't been able to. My java fern turned black and
died, my anubias got covered with algae and stopped growing. I ended up
setting up a tank just for slower growing plants like java fern, anubias,
Bolbitis, and various mosses. They just didn't do well in my high-light,
high-tech tank. Not, I suspect, because they didn't like bright light and CO2
injection, but because they couldn't compete with the fast growing plants I
keep in that tank.


Would someting like Duplaplant gravel sticks (or whatever they're
called) help this situation? Can I somehow fertizize?

I plan on migrating to a 10 gal shortly and using the Flourite
substrate (wish I'd done this the first time)
Will this help the situation?

Chris


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