Resurrecting my thread!
OK, so, um......I haven't been taking care of the tank. Oh, sure, the basics are always done -- food, topoff water, checking in to make sure everyone is alive and kicking, sitting and enjoying the tank from time to time, but....I've been bad. No water changes since BEFORE the Hawaii trip. And I have the invasive macroalgae to show for it. :-
I promised Flower I'd post this, so here goes. Pre-cleaning tank shot, warts and all:
Pre-water change parameters (the big 4)
pH: 7.8
Amm: 0
Trites: 0
Trates: 40 (eek)
dKh is 10...a little low here.
I didn't bother with Ca or Phosphate. Obviously there's phosphate since the macros are growing, but the challenge is going to be to prune the undesired macros while leaving in the good stuff. Some regular good old elbow grease and regular maintenance will solve that. And the Ca is most likely low, but I never test that until AFTER a water change...to determine if I need to add 2-part or not.
You can tell there's an issue with my acans. My green is coming back, but the red on is probably not long for this world. The horses and the mandarins are all doing well.....Theresa's little girls are now almost as big as my wild caught beauty, and the male is frelling HUGE.