Time to clean

OK, I did my water tests yesterday, and my Nitrates were starting to climb. I did a 50% water change, recharged my Co2, and decided to clean my Fluval. Oh man I should have done this a little earlier. Well now I know where the Nitrates were coming from. I could not believe how dirty the filter floss was, and the 2 foam sponges were actually a dirt brown color.

I will do my water tests tonight, and hopefully things will start balancing out.

Housecleaning

I did some serious housecleaning the other day, and now I am a bit worried about having an algae bloom. The plants I had across the back of the tank started looking like a tangled mess. I was going to thin them out a bit to get some light to the bottom of the plants. Once I got started I decided to go all out and pull everything from the back. I then trimmed the good section of the plants, and replanted them. I only used four or five of them, as the rest just didn't look good enough to put back in. I moved my tall grass to the center, and my green crypt to the side. I removed the banana plant because it was showing BBA, and I don't want that to take over.

Once I was done I realised I removed about a third of my plants, and now I am watching closely for algae. I cleaned the glass well, and I have good Co2, but still I am afraid of what may happen.

I also feed the fish blood worms the other day. The Cory cats went nuts over them same as the Betta's.

Anyhow everything is looking great, fish are healthy as horses. I did find a ramshorn snail the other day, but he disappeared before I could catch him. I will be watching close for this guy. I sure don't need them taking off.

Test Results

OK, I have my test results from yesterday.
Am = 0
Ni = 0
Na = 20
Ph = 6.4
Gh = 9
Kh = 5
Po4 = 2
Co2 = 47

The Co2 showed high, but the fish are fine, so I am not going to worry about it.

I put some Java Moss in the tank last week, and the Cory Cats picked it all off the rock it came on, and now I am having a heck of a time cleaning it out of the tank.

Just an update

It has been a while since my last update, but not much has changed. My tanks are all doing well, and everything is growing like a weed.

My new diffuser is working great, and I now feel like I am getting my money's worth out of my DIY co2 setup.

New diffuser.

Yesterday I stopped at Petland and purchased a new diffuser. It is a Nutrafin ladder type. I hooked it up, and after a while it started working. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works, and how inefficient the air stone that I had in there before was. I put it on the right side glass in the back, and it is not the ugly thing I thought it was going to be, but instead it is like modern art. You can watch the bubbles get smaller and smaller until they are almost gone.

My tests for yesterday were
Temp 78
Am = 0
Ni - 0
Na = 5
Ph = 6.8
Gh = 8
Kh = 5
Po4 = 2
Co2 = 23

I added KNO3, and CSMP+B