Day 168 "Metaphor": Blyxa Japonica Removed, Ludwigia Red Added, Monte Carlo Recovering Nicely

Phosphates 
I continue to dose high amounts of KH2PO4 but test kit shows I'm still shows 0.5 mg/L at best. There's been consistent improvement with plants so that's good. Maybe I should consider reducing it next week, probably around 10-15 mg/L.


Trace and Iron Dosing
I measured Fe before dosing anything in one afternoon and I got 0 mg/L. Then I dosed 4 drops of Rexolin APN liquid which is approximately 0.2mg/L of its powder form. With that dosage, I should get at least 0.1 mg/L if my bottle concentration is 100g/120mL. I measured and indeed found 0.1 mg/L! It might be true after all that the concentration of this bottle is as accurate as it says.
However, when I dosed 0.4 mg/L, I'm able to measure only 0.1 mg/L in the tank. Is the soil absorbing excess Fe to limit it to 0.1 mg/L just like phosphates being limited to 0.5 mg/L?


Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo carpet has gone through major trimming last week. I left the back lawn untouched. It is growing well without a problem. After a week it grew nicely. It's still a few more weeks to go before the lawn gets thick and lush but it's on its way there. No more new growth in bad shape.
There's very few older leaves that melted but it's not so bad, still will keep a look at them. Some very old leaves are not as healthy. Their color is dark green. Are they just really healthy? Were they covered by top leaves and are deprived of light? Are they covered by GSA? Not sure... Any ways, here are some pictures.

Middle front starting to grow nicely

Right front corner growing nicely as well

Back lawn spreading

Ammannia Bonsai
Not sure what happened in this plant. There were 4 original stalks planted. About a week or more It has established itself and growth is slow but good. Then I trimmed and replant. Now, all trimmings are gone, and the original 4 are dying... it's in the corner of the tank with poor circulation and CO2 so there's that.
What's interesting is I planted one stalk from the original pack in the Discus (Low-tech) tank. It's growing fine but very slow. I rather not touch it though.

Ammannia Bonsai melted for some reason so I put some MC trimmings in their spot instead

Blyxa Japonica Removed
As planned, I removed this plant in order to give room for Staurogyne Repens and AR mini. Those two are the plants that I'm not able to grow consistently nice. This time, I'm placing them in the best spot to grow.

Ludwigia Red Added
These are trimmings from my an old plant in the  Discus (Low-tech) tank. It's in bad shape and I'm hoping it recovers here and grow well.

And finally, the tank's latest shot...

Day 161 "Metaphor": Good Days Ahead

Increasing Trace, Now Using Rexolin APN

Half way through last week I continue to see poor health on new leaves in Monte Carlo, despite the increase in Fe dosage and dosing frequency. So I decided to start increasing trace dosage as well.

Using Rexolin APN, I start dosing at around 0.2 to 0.4 grams per day until the end of the week. It seems a lot but I just want to saturate to make sure we are not limiting this nutrient. I didn't notice any negative effect though.
In fact, I start to see improvement in Monte Carlo. New growth are now in good shape. The new leaves are much more green now and the leaves are bigger than usual. This is a good thing.
I will continue to dose more trace next week. I will also keep Iron at the same dosage as last week to ensure we are not limiting this nutrient as well.
Even Blyxa Japonica is a lot more green now. It's new leaves look thicker than before and they pearled a lot like I never seen before so obviously we're doing something right here.

Monte Carlo Growh at Middle Back Area of the Tank

Another Shot of Monte Carlo at the Back Area

Monte Carlo Front Lawn is Trimmed to Allow New and Healthy Growth

Increased Phosphates Dosing Continued...

The aquasoil kept buffering it down to 0.5 ppm so that's good. It means I can just keep "overdosing". I don't see any negative effect on plants nor algae bloom trigger.

Dosing Summary From Last Week

Below are the dosing total (in mg/L) from last week. That's a ton of phosphates and Iron right?  It's fine. there were no algae's at all. not a single BBA. Not a stain of green on the glass walls.
Nitrate is naturally high on the tank so don't need to dose any. I will continue to monitor it however because if nitrate bottoms out it will affect plant growth significantly

.NO3	6.140
.PO4	22.373
.K	46.979
.Fe	3.635
.Ca	4.982
.Mg	1.500
.Cu	0.026
.Mn	0.275
.B	0.109
.Zn	0.133
.dGH	1.032
.Co	0.004
.Mo	0.025
.Na	0.020
.Cl	0.177
.S	9.951

Replanting Staurogyne Repens

Since increasing phosphate and iron dosing I see improvement in these plants. New leaves look healthy and green. It used to be that "burns" appear all of a sudden on middle leaves but I don't see any melting ones like that anymore.

However, older leaves that were already suffering from GSA long before increasing phosphates and iron continue to be covered by GSA. This make the plants look unsightly and gives a false impression that they are still suffering from nutrient deficiency. They are also likely to remain this way and die off eventually. 

So the best option is to pull out the plants, remove all infected leaves and replant them. But the long term plan is to remove Blyxa Japonica in the tank and move Staurogyne Repens to their spot.
I intended to do all these this weekend during maintenance but decided to hold off this plan for now.

Staurogyne Repens Getting Better But Older Leaves are Still in Poor State

New Filter Outlet Pipe

This is not just for aesthetics. I find this design is the best outlet lily pipe for canister filters with in-line CO2 Reactor. It has minimum resistance to flow and the opening mouth does not twirl the water coming out so much. It also points downward so CO2 gets dispersed far and low reaching the carpet plants conveniently.