"Alex R" wrote in message
news:ri5Q9.506484$P31.162392@rwcrnsc53...

It's obvious from your description here that your fertilization is
insufficient, considering your high lighting level. In order for plants to
be healthy and photosynthesize, you have to provide ALL the nutrients they
need, most importantly CO2. Otherwise, you're in for a big algae outbreak,
which coincides with poor plant health. I strongly suggest getting
pressurized CO2, but until you do, you should turn off one or two of your
bulbs. Even 3 W/g is very high lighting.

I did. Right now I have only 110W

In addition, you need a lot more macronutrients and micronutrients than
you're putting in there. I see that your NO3 is 0. I aim for 10-20 ppm
NO3,
which gives me less algae problems than 5-10 ppm. I also add 20 ppm or so
of
potassium from K2SO4 per week. I suggest doing the same. It's better to
dose
the nutrients from separate bottles than from a combined PMDD solution. It
would also be helpful to add some phosphate, but only when you've sorted
out
the other nutrients. I try to keep mine at not less than 1.0 ppm. As for
mic
ronutrients, I add 1 mL of Flourish Iron per day to my 30-gal. tank, as
well
as about 2x the recommended dose of Tropica Master Grow. That's several
times more than what you're adding. It seems to me that the 2 mL of
Flourish
that you're adding per week is very low, almost insignificant.

Here is where my confusion comes to the picture.
Allow me to quote from the krib:

"But, to get started, for each ten gallons, try around 1/12 ml of PMDD a day
(roughly 2 drops). A 29 gallon tank would then get 1/4 ml a day (roughly 6
drops). If you don't do many partial water changes, dose less. If you have a
"high tech", densely planted, CO2 injected, VHO lit tank, you might want to
double the dose to 1/6 ml of PMDD per 10 gallons a day (roughly 4 drops). "

You guys talking about many many cc of fertilizer, PPMD, Fluorish, Fluoris
Iron, additional KNO3, K2SO4, Magnezium,
I started my dosing according the Krib guys, and slowly increased the doses,
but I have to admit what you are telling me make more sense

snip
2 Oto ( they lost 3 of their friends)
I have no idea what happened I found these poor guys floating one
morning.... It was no fun. :-(

Maybe it was all those Jobes spikes you added? They do contain ammonia.

Yes it is possible but I think it was a Ph crash due to too much CO2. or
perhaps the combinations of the two.
It was a very very sad day.

The symptoms you describe are consistent with improper fertilization. Take
care of the nutrient problem in the water column and you should see a lot
of
pearling at your light level. That is, dose your nutrients by following
the
recommended levels. Use Chuck's nutrient calculator at
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_p...osage_calc.htm to figure out how
to make the nutrient solutions. Or just add them dry. It's important to
remember that if the plants are even limited by one nutrient, such as CO2,
N, P, or K, then increasing the quantity of the others will not matter.
For
example, if your plants are not getting enough N, then increasing the
lighting will not help. (Lighting can be considered a nutrient.) Or if
they're missing iron, then adding more Jobes spikes will not do anything.
Don't worry about the substrate fertilization so much. Take care of the
water column in the first place.

Thanks for sharing the knowledge. I'll try what you guys suggested.
laz