I think I might try doing diy co2 again. Something else I wondered though, is using carbon in my filter simply taking out all of the fertilizers that I'm putting in? I'm kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place here. If I run the cold water from my tap (to remove any chance of copper) and then age it, it's not warm enough for the tank. If I use tap water, some of it will of necessity be coming from my hot water tank, and probably have copper in it, no matter how long the tap runs beforehand. So then I have to use carbon, but then I'm probably removing fertilizers and trace elements. Maybe I should go with the aged water, no carbon, and hope that the fish can stand the temperature change.