I have never seen anything like it in my life! My tank has gone into
athletic hyperactivity.

After changing the substrate to Fluorite and adding a DIY hood delivering
close to 3.7 watts/gallon I did not get much of a response. I then added a
DIY CO2 source diffused through an airstone and started dosing Seachem
Flourish. That gave me brush/beard alga on the Java fern and dwarf hair
grass. Last Friday, I removed the air stone, inserted the CO2 tubing right
into the intake of my power filter, and raised the water level of the tank
to meet the lower level of the glass top to minimize water disturbance
caused by the return water of the power filter. I had 2 CO2 bottles running.
Overnight, my pH dropped from 7.5 to 6.3!!! The fish were going nuts! By
10:00 am, one of the Otocinclus affinis was dead.

Immediately, I removed one of the CO2 bottles and dropped the water level in
the tank by a couple of inches to create a strong aeration. I let that run
until the pH climbed to 6.7-6.8. I then brought the water level back up and
kept only one CO2 bottle running. That seemed to stabilize things, including
the pH at 6.8-6.6. The kH in the tank is a steady 4 dkH.

On Sunday, I was mesmerized by the most delightful display of underwater
plant activity. It was as if the plants were actually playing and enjoying
themselves!

Most of the plants were sending steady columns of small bubbles (O2
presumably) to the surface, especially the annubias and the swords. The
others were just bubbling up intermittently. Shoots, shoots .. everywhere,
from all of the stem plants. You can actually see them growing!!! The Banana
plant sent out a shoot/root from the top of the bananas. It reached the
substrate by the end of the day (that is about 1.5 inches). The Ambulia and
Ludwigia repens sent half a dozen shoots each!

Ok .. The brush/hair grass seemed to get a little kick too when I
fertilized. But it was not sustained. I think from now on I'll be dosing on
a daily basis to minimize the availability of excess nutrients.

Now what? What do I do with all of the "white hairs" (shoots) growing from
the stems of stem plants?