[AGA Member] Re: newbie here with some questions...

[June Olberding <jdolb1@attbi.com>]

> And I certainly don't have to spend any time mixing or
> dosing or chasing down chemicals..  well, so far anyway.

As you know water change resets the nutrients and helps avoid imbalance.
Depending on your water source, it may also be adding nutrients. Some water
sources have good KH, GH,  nitrate and phosphate balance to take care of
plant needs, depending of course on how much light you have. In such case
you would be replenishing your tank with water changes.
Might be worth finding out what is in your water. It may have most of what
you need.
My water comes out of the tap like R/O water so even with Flourite, I end up
adding  stuff or tank crashes and neither plants or fish do real well. :-(

> I figured if the substrate, lights, and CO2 were right to begin with,
> everything else takes care of itself. I only have problems if I neglect the
> water changes for too long.  I tend to overfeed the fish and if I get lazy
> the nitrates creep up. When the nitrates get too high I start seeing algae
> developing on the plants. Usually a 50% water change gets things back to
> normal. If I regularly do a 20% change once a week I never see any problems.
> But the tank is only 6 months old and I'm still swapping plants in and out
> trying to get the 'look' we want..
Over the long haul, you may  need to add at least some trace elements.
Plants store nutrients and will grow for a time before deficiencies show up.
I notice this when I go on vacation. Plants will "do ok" for 4-5 weeks and
will quickly bounce back when given TLC again but go 8 weeks and it takes
them couple months to recover.
Regards
June

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