twenty oops

Something has gone awry in my twenty gallon. I did notice I've had to clean algae off broad leaves the past maintenance day, and this morning realized the tank overall is looking awfully yellow. Not bright green as before. And the watersprite in corners is faltering, not growing crazily like it used to.

So I think and look back at my record here: what changed? Dosing less KN03 was probably an error- and recently I had increased the photoperiod from 8.5 to 9 hrs as well (my tenner is doing so well on 9 hours, but every tank is different). And I've turned off the air pump- going to move the sponge filter over to help seed the 40gal. I didn't think that would make a big difference to the plants, but maybe it has. As soon as I realized the algae was taking over, I checked the nitrates- it was lower than I usually see near end of the week, just 10ppm. I don't know why I still automatically think: too much waste! nitrates! and cut back on things when I see algae, when instead I should think: hungry plants! and give them something. That's what experience is telling me, at least.

So I did. Cut out a bunch of algae-coated leaves: crypts, apono, watersprite. Put the light timer back on 8 hrs where it was before, and dosed small amount micros just because I felt I had to do something although tomorrow is day scheduled for water change and ferts dosing.

Feeling inept again, that I'd adjusted things the wrong way. But at least I noticed before it got too bad- overall my crypts still look nice.

Edit to add: I think the bubbling sponge filter is beneficial in the case of my tank. There's lots of conflicting opinions about this on the fish forums, due to how surface agitation changes the oxygen and carbon monoxide content/exchange in the water, which I don't completely understand. But I turned the airline back on a few hours ago, and noticed a change in the fishes behavior. The barbs for some time now have been hanging around near the water surface, blipping up and down, as if feeding even when there's no food on offer- I did not really recognize that they were probably gasping for extra oxygen. Now I think about it they've been doing this more or less for two weeks, since I turned off the air. Now they're moving about lower areas of the tank looking more at ease.

I guess I won't be moving that sponge filter over to the forty. Instead might take portion of the filter media out of the HOB (it does have three media panels in it and I've been thinking of replacing with squarish sponge media anyway) and seeding the new tank with that... could even just cut a piece off one of the media panels...