Is this considered healthy?

[greenaqua]

My 3 ft plant tank with CO2. Starting to notice some BBA coming back. Is this water quality acceptable or am I expecting an algae bloom soon? Tested with strip.

GH 60ppm
KH 10ppm
pH 6.0
NO2 0ppm (I guess my bacteria colony in filter working well)
NO3 40ppm (plant don't seem to use this up quick enough, not enough light or nutrients?)

I put some Yamato shrimps and they died after 1-2 days.

[Jimmy]

When you put in your yamato from the time you set the tank up?

[Cross]

Hey Greenaqua,

Are you using a diffuser or reactor for your co2? Any drop checker to test the co2 levels?

[greenaqua]

I use a co2 reactor and pump the co2 into the reactor at 2-3 bubbles per second.
the reactor is connected to the output from the external filter. as the water gets pumped back from the external filter, it goes to the reactor and gets mixed with the co2.

I have not changed my tank setup for the past 6 months and added the yamato 1 week after water change.

[christopher.wtc]

Hi greenaqua,
Your water parameter is good. Base on your pH and kH, you have a CO2 concentration of 18ppm. A recommended CO2 concentration will be from 20ppm to 30ppm which I think you head it before. Suggest you up your CO2 to 30ppm so your plants will be able to consume the nitrate. I believed you have lots of CO2 hungry plants and high lighting.
Yamatos dying after 1 or 2 days, makes me wonder if you aclaimed them to your tank correctly. Based on your tank size, maybe adding 5 faunas per week should be good. Coz you wont want to stress your bacteria colony.

[Cross]

Other points to consider:

What Fertilizers are you dosing for your tank? Shrimps are intolerant to higher levels of certain metals from fertilizers.

Recurrence of BBA could be due to your co2 levels. Can try to up your bubble rate to 4-6 ps.

Also, might want to consider your filter, when was the last time it was changed? Might be clogged up, impeding the flowrate which could lead to some deadspots for bba.

Hope this might be of some help

[greenaqua]

Thanks for your advice guys. I will up the CO2 and see the effect. I am using Excel and Lushgrow. I used to have a nice and thriving plant tank where the plants were growing gangbusters even the water lettuce were growing well. However I went away for a week overseas and when I came back they were all dying. I suspect that the change in weather and the higher temperature these few weeks may be affecting my plants as well.

I changed the filter today. Will monitor and see.