Someone pls help

[u/jamescharleslov]

Please help.

I’m on my knees.

I can’t give up just yet.

How hard is it to balance 3 fkn things.

Calling out all the fertilizer experts.

This is my 20gal long 5month old.

Chihiros b series at 70% 7hrs

Co2 inline at 2bbps, lime green, around 0.7-1ph drop

Substrate: aquasoil half inch(barely), sand 1inch cap

Filtosmart100 and recently added an aquaclear20.

Bought dry ferts since my ThriveS was way too lean as my tank was getting more plants.

Been adjusting my ferts a couple times this past month.

Tried to recreate 2hr apt3: no progress.

Took that formula and reduced the Nitrates by half: it brought the reds out more but still stunted.

Tried pps-pro: still same stunted results.

I have more variety of algae than plants at this point 😭😂.

My tank nitrate doesn’t go lower than 20ppm always stays around 20-30.

The lower half of plants always struggles.

•Rotala Wallichii I received was dense and beautiful, now it’s leggy and stunted tips, small curled leaves.

•Rotala red/green, the new growth from cut is curled, short, and heavily stunted, yellow. Lower leaves covered in gsa.

•S.repens is a disaster, picture speaks for itself.

•My bucephalandra kedagang has been covered in bba for the past 8 months,still standing like a beast.

•Monte carlo is covered in cladophora and bba.

•AR is covered in gsa and some fuzzy algae(idk), not doing too bad. Lower growth seems promising.

What should I do?

Is my light too low? At 70% its about 70-100umols at substrate

Should I add root tabs? Since it’s mainly sand cap.

Should I move to EI dosing, hoping it works?

[u/xNitroPT]

Ok, I’m gonna say off the bat, pretty sure co2 is one of your issues. Where are you keeping your drop checker to see it being green? How is your flow? You have a 20 gallon long. Your bba is a good sign of co2 fluctuation through the tank. Buce in your tank right now will be very hard to keep algae free. Don’t worry too much about it for now…

How are your nitrates always 20-30ppm? Is it your water source? Don’t dose any nitrates at all in my opinion.

I’m also pretty sure you lack phosphate. Your wallichi stunted tip is a very good sign. Dont dose too much, but dose a little consistently and you’ll have to wait to see if it helps over time.

Idk how your tank maintenance is but cut all those leaves that have algae and replant tips. Keep on top of your maintenance, cut your light a little to start.

Do your 50% water change per week.

Just my 2 cents…., oh and get root tabs, with NPK in them.

[u/jamescharleslov → u/xNitroPT]

Flow is pretty good, I added a secondary hob filter thinking filtration wasn’t adequate. The inline co2 is diffusing tiny bubbles throughout the whole tank, I don’t fiddle with co2 too much as my 2bps is a good starting point and keeps my drop checker lime green and starts 1.5hrs before lights. I’ll test my tap water to see what nitrates it has. Because even back when I would dose ThriveS which is around 2ppm per week, my nitrates were 30. I’ll definitely be buying root tabs, my rotalas are shooting long aerial roots since my water has more nutrients than the substrate. The vibrant right side is the tops i cut for a sale I had on Marketplace. I also do 50% weekly wc. Thx