Thanks Panda and good luck with your nano tank! The BGA seems to be dying off in response to the erythromycin. Still see a little here and there but hopefully it will stay away. I upgraded my filtration to the Aquaclear 50 rated at 200 gph. I know it's a little overkill but my Aquaclear 20 seemed too underpowered and I wanted better circulation in the tank. Also, I might be a tad bit overstocked once the tank is filled with its inhabitants so it should help in that respect too.

My rotala Indica is not looking too good, I think it's probably to do with the bleach dip (20:1) before introducing the plants in the tank. This is the last time I ever use a bleach dip on plants. It killed my hairgrass when I was growing it out in emersed form and also seems to have killed my hornwort which I bought from the LFS yesterday. It only seems to work on Java fern and Anubias nana without causing any major damage.

I've used bleach on crypts and hygrophila without any evident effects either short or long term. I fully expected the crypts to melt but in fact they are growing wonderfully.

Hi Carissa,

I haven't had any trouble with bleaching anubias and java ferns (both are ofcourse very hardy). However a 1-1.5 min dip in a 20:1 bleach dip killed both my hairgrass and the rotala indica. It didn't kill either to the point that it couldn't grow back. In the case of the hairgrass all the leaves turned brown over a week or two and then dried up. I had to instead wait for new leaves to grow, and it took a lot longer for my emersed hairgrass to start spreading.

The rotalas were a bit more of a disaster. Entire stems withered away and the leaves turned mushy. I had a tough time getting them out without fouling the water. Some of the stems have new growth on the top which looks healthy but the entire bottom portion of the stems looks unhealthy and has withered/dead leaves. I just left 2 stems in to see if I could actually salvage the rotala and eventually propagate them out. I don't think I'm going to bleach dip my stem plants which just came in today.

Right now my big concern is the crazy number of planaria thriving in my tank as well as some nitrite readings on my test kit. I'm hoping that addition of some fast growing stem plants will help. The rotalas would have really helped if they hadn't all died