tank plants update

Well, it's the end of a week with lights set back to where they were before on the thirty-eight, and I think it's looking greener. Maintenance day felt easier and quick this morning, because I didn't have a ton of dead foliage to trim out, or loosened stems to replant or anything that needed retying on the driftwood. Just a few ratty aponogenton leaves to remove, light siphoning over the gravel bed. Buces look like they might make it- the melting appears to have halted, even my 'dark godzilla' looks more natural colors now. One elodea stem came loose- a bit surprised I haven't seen any more send down roots. Staurogyne repens and pennywort all dead and gone. Fishes look great.

A bit puzzled about snails and water hardness. I've noticed many of my snails have white/broken looking tips on their shells- nerites and trumpets alike. I thought they needed calcium and have for a long time placed a piece of cuttlebone in the tank. Never see snails on it... Now I understand they need to get extra calcium from food, instead. Also read recently that if you get hard-water deposits (I do, a lot) don't need to add any calcium or mg to the tank it should have enough from the tapwater. So was I amiss in adding cuttlebone and epsom salts? I am going to get a test kit for gh and kh.

It's pretty much the same in the tenner this week. Rotalas are a bit taller, pennywort still only has three leaves but they've grown a bit bigger. Background plants are putting out new growth, tiny leaves at the nodes. I'm not sure of their identity anymore, I thought they were ludwigias but now think some might be alternanthera reineckii hygro compacta. Only one stem of bacopa monnieri left, the other came loose and it had no sign of root growth- just rot at the bottom. Some fissidens came loose and was floating around the tank in little clumps, I lifted rubber band off driftwood and tried to reattach. Buces in here look great, nice color and no sign of melting. Crossing my fingers they will start growing new leaves soon. Duckweed is forming a nice cover- probably a fifth of the surface area now (but spread out). Only three pieces of creeping jenny in there now, all the original leaves on lower part of the stem melted I shoved those further down into the substrate so only new growth on top showing. One is flush against the glass so I can see if it ever starts to grow roots. More dwarf rotala came free earlier in the week but last few days I haven't had any stems come up loose again at all, so hope that what's in there is holding on for good now. In both tanks the downoi is still alive, with new, thinner leaves emerging at center, but not really growing much bigger. In the larger tank they are stretching up on stalk-like stems.

I tried something to kill off BBA. It's growing more and more tufts on sponge prefilter. More in the past week, and the difference wasn't just resetting the light. I had been trying another change- running the smaller sponge filter with airline only at night. Put baffle on the HOB because the current flows differently through the tank that way and doesn't seem to have a dead corner- I see ripples all across the top. Wasn't sure if this would make a big difference for the fishes or plants- it can affect c02 levels in the water but most people who run airline only at night it's because they add c02 during the day. Last night I simply left it off the entire time, and the fish aren't gasping at surface in morn so I assume they're ok. If they don't need it I don't think I should run it. If have to pull out for QT, even a sponge without flow will have some bacteria colonizing it, I think. So the point of all this was- some people say BBA grows when there's too much fluctuation in C02 levels. I figured if I got an outbreak on my sponge the week I had airline running only at night, maybe better if it doesn't run at all (so surface turbulence the same night/day). And I put half the sponge (it comes in two segments) in microwave for 3 minutes, that's supposed to kill the stuff off. Kills my beneficial bacteria, too, but I figure it will recolonize quickly, and I'm keeping an eye on other levels in the tank this week (ammonia, nitrites) to be sure it's ok. If the BBA diminishes significantly on the half I zapped this week, I'll zap the other half next week or the week after (boiling, really).