I just left for almost two weeks. I left my son dosing my ferts and feeding my fish. He also monitored my CO2. I did a water change before I left. I came back to plants floating all over the top blocking out the light to the rest of the tank. I had tons of dead leaves all over. I am sure if I had tested I would have had ammonia. My son said I lost 3 fish. One was a molly and they are particularly sensitive to high ammonia so.... I have BBA beginning to grow in several places. The cause, I believe, no water change, not enough lights to grow the plants underneath, dead leaves. So I just changed water and cleaned up the dead leaves, pruned heavily. I will test now and fertilize again. In two weeks it can get out of control. Next time I'll prune heavily before I go, turn my lights way back, dose 2Xs excell and do a low feed and then won't have this happen. Thought my son could do it but he didn't want to fiddle with the plants. (Don't blame him, it's my passion, not his.)

Did you look at Carissa's web site? http://beginneraquarist.petfish.net Look under her fertilization section. If you have excell you just plug in your tank size and it tells you what to dose. It also has some great basic into.

Here is another site which tells you how much to dose for different size tanks. I like this because you can just follow the low dosage for a low tech tank.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...ing-guide.html

You can also look here. This is Rex Griggs site. He sells dry ferts. He tells you how much for a 20 gallon and you would just do 2x times to start.
Rex's Guide to Fertilizers

Since fertilizing is not an exact science and depends on how many plants you have you should start shy and then bulild up to what your plants are using. By changing water you are also removing any excess fertilizers you have built up.

Since I found out about water changes using 2 hoses I don't dread them at all. In a 125g tank it takes me 15 min tops. That includes rolling up both hoses and putting them away. I love to see how happy it makes the fish!

I think your on your way! Enjoy your fish and your plants at the same time. It's like having your cake and eating it too!

Hi gingerinaustin
Sorry to hear about the problems with your tank. About 3 months ago I started resurrecting my 50 gallon tank which had developed a horrible infestation of Cladophora after a long period of neglect. After removing as much as I could manually I added a number or Rosy Barbs to help eat the rest. I once again started weekly water changes, replaced my aging PC bulbs and started dosing the tank EI style along with daily dosing of Excel. I had used Excel and added micros before but never tried EI style dosing. I have a bit more light than you (2.6 wpg — 11 hour photoperiod) but since I am not planning to add pressurized CO2 at this point I also found myself wondering at first how much to dose since I don't quite have a high light, high tech tank yet I don't have a low light tank either. The EI dosing guidelines are simply guidelines, the main thing is to always have enough nutrients available. What I did was start out using the dosing amounts for a 20-40 gallon aquarium and then increased dosing a bit over time to get to where I am now. It is best to wait at least 3 weeks to see how one dosage level works before adjusting. Following is my current dosing schedule. With your light levels and if you don't add CO2 or Excel you may only want to dose once or twice a week ( I started off dosing 2x a week before increasing to 3x). I recommend considering Excel dosing if you are not going to run CO2. My tank has always done much better when I am using Excel but in my case I believe that is because I have just enough light that a carbon source becomes an issue. You could probably add it every other day or twice a week and still get a growth benefit. My tank now looks the best it has in its 6 year odyssey and so far no algae.

Sat. 50% water change, 3/8 tsp KNO3, 1/8 tsp + 2 nips K2HPO4, 4 nips K2SO4, 20ml Excel
Sunday 5 ml Flourish, 5 ml Excel, 2.5 ml Flourish iron
Monday 3/8 tsp KNO3, 1/8 tsp + 2 nips K2HPO4, 4 nips K2SO4, 5ml Excel
Tuesday same as Sunday
Wednesday same as Monday
Thursday same as Tuesday
Friday 5 ml Excel only

The 20 ml of Excel after the water change is based on Seachem's recommendation for dosing after a water change of 40% or more. I add potassium and iron since a few plants were yellowing and developing pinholes, no longer an issue. I bumped up my Phosphates a little ( 1 extra nip at a time) since I was getting a light dusting of GDA each week and I no longer have a problem with it. The nips I am referring to are the smallest sized measuring spoon from a set with nips, dashes, etc.

I also have a 12 gallon stock Eclipse tank with 1 wpg, a sword, crypt and java fern, 3 Cardinals and 2 Pelvicachromis teniautus. Originally a breeding tank which I never paid much attention to. I have always had diatoms covering the sword leaves and a small amount of GSA on the glass. Recently started dosing the tank once every week or so... 1/8 tsp KNO3 and 2 nips K2HPO4 just to see what would happen. It has been about a month or so since I started doing this and almost all of the diatoms and GSA is gone. I also add 1 ml of Excel per day to this tank now. I consider this tank to be as low tech as you can go yet it appears to respond quite nicely to being dosed from time to time. I do a very small water change every few weeks for this tank.

Carissa has given you some excellent advice hope the info as to how I dose my two tanks is helpful too.... best of luck getting your tank back into shape. Pick a plan, follow it, make changes slowly and you should be fine.

Captain bu brings up a good point, algae eating fish are always an asset. Even if you have to bring some fish back to the pet store for a trade, you do want to get some. Six to eight oto's or three bristlenose plecos, or one regular pleco of moderate size, 4" or so (you can trade him in later on if he gets too big) would be good for your size tank. It cuts down on manual labor dramatically.

Thanks, you guys! This is really helpful information. I have hope now. Carissa, thanks for the link to your site, I've read through it all. I'll start with the once weekly doses to start, test at the end of the week before the water change and see how it goes. I guess I should get some "real" dry ferts from Rex or Greg instead of the stuff I've been using i.e. stump remover, No Salt, Fleet's, etc. so I can dose it correctly. Thank god I don't see any BGA. Of course, just because I can't see any BGA doesn't mean it isn't there, I'm sure it's there, waiting for its opportunity to strike, just like a bacterial cobra...! I did have a fair amount of GDA on the driftwood and rocks, which would start showing up on the glass over time; I honestly didn't mind it, in fact I kinda liked it's mossy look, but it all got bleached/scrubbed/pruned away along with the BBA. I've also seen a tiny amount of GSA on the pennywort and Marsilea (and the glass at times); I've scrubbed and pruned off every bit I could see, there's hardly any Marsilea left now. The only BBA I see left is in a couple of spots on the driftwood, and on the tubers of my banana plant. I can pull the driftwood out again and treat those spots again with Excel or H2CO3 (I've been shooting the daily Excel dose directly on those spots using a pipette but it doesn't seem to be getting rid of it). I'm debating whether to pull up the banana plant and treat the tubers properly; I suppose I should.

Tex Gal, sorry to hear about your tank woes. Can you tell me more about the two-hose water change technique? I've been using the Python, it's way better than buckets but it's still kind of a drag. I feel like I waste a lot of water especially while siphoning. During the summer I can use a regular gravel vac to siphon and the garden hose on the back patio to refill, which seems a lot easier, but it's too cold right now for the garden hose, so I'm stuck using the Python to refill, and it seems to take forever to get the temperature just right.

Captain_bu, thanks for your input, I appreciate hearing about your experience, clado is a big fear of mine. I'm resigned now to dosing Excel daily, it really isn't all that expensive if I get the big bottles online. I do have two baby bristlenose plecos in quarantine right now, they'll be ready to go in the big tank in a couple of weeks. They do impressive work; in a matter of days the two little fellers scrubbed off all the GDA off the driftwood in the quarantine tank, leaving nothing for the apple snail! Hope they like BBA...

I have taken a regular gravel vac and attached it to a garden hose. (I used about 1 inch of the clear tubing it came with and got an adapter in the sprinkler system aisle to fasten that to my hose.) I put the other end in a shower. It doesn't matter how long the hose is as you're just siphoning. I got another hose and hooked it up to the bathroom sink. You can get the adapters to screw into your sink faucet and your hose at Home Depot or Lowes. I got the kind that you can snap your hose onto it. I think it's easier. Anyway, I start my siphon to the shower drain. You only need to suck on the hose to get it over the bend at the tank of your hose, (below surface water level). Gravity takes care of the rest. I dose the tank where I am going to put my fill hose in with prime measured for the 100% water replacement, (i.e. 10 gallon tank, I dose prime for 10 gallons). After I have removed about an inch of water I turn on my sink faucet to my fill hose and start filling. I try to match by simple feel the temperature of my tank water. I am removing water at one end (or all over to keep surface of substrate clean) and filling at the same time. No water is wasted. First, I stop my siphon hose when I think I have exchanged about 50% of my water. Then I remove the fill hose. The only thing to remember is to take the end of the fill hose out of your tank before you unhook it from your sink or that hose will start to siphon your water out. It goes really easy and I got cheap hoses for about $5 each. The faucet adapter cost me about $9. Easy!

That sounds like a great idea for larger tanks. My biggest is only 32 so it only takes me 10 minutes tops with my diy python. Which beats bucket lugging by a long shot which I did for several months before I finally got fed up.

Talk to me about bucket lugging!!.. FOR YEARS!!! I just found out that you could do the fill directly into the tank. I used to do buckets for siphon out and in. Finally I got the idea to do hose out but still didn't know you could go directly in. Water changes were always the bane to my existence! NOW they are great!!

Yeah I did bucket lugging for years too, but I only had a 10g so no big deal.