OK, I'm assuming I'm either short of something important, or I've got too much of something.

This is a 46 gal tank, started in Dec 2007. Pressurized CO2 on a timer, air stone at night, 200 watts PC bulbs, daily EI fertilization for a high light tank. Using RO water for water changes (my tap water is not usable and the rain water cistern is turned off for the winter). I'm adding a bit of Seachem Equilibrium for hardness at every water change. Everything else seems to be growing well, and other leaves on this lily look fine. But this one grew in really odd.

I'm adding KNO3, Seachem Iron, Seachem Flourish, and Excel one day and KH2PO4 and Excel the next.

I was out of town for a week the beginning of January and I don't think the tanks got dosed (my sitter missed several days), but everything was fine when I got back. In fact, I had to trim a LOT when I got back, the poor fish were plastered against the front! Things have been fine since then.

Help? Ideas? A leaf on the other red lily is showing a hole as well...

I think it might just need more water changes, better CO2, and good consistent conditions.

EI can work pretty well if you apply if often and consistently, nothing wrong with doing 2-3x a week water changes to re set things to see.

When you leave town, and things go sour a bit, it can take some time to see the effects, they are not immediate often times, so be patient and try and reset the tank more often till things seem to bounce back.

You are adding everything right, so just reset good and go from there.
CO2 is the only thing to really tweak.

Regards,
Tom Barr

OK, Tom, thanks! I was worried that I was missing some additive somehow... I'll try to do a water change tomorrow, it's due anyway. And the rest of the tank looks pretty good, to me anyway. I tried some red ludwigia a couple weeks ago but I think it's dead. I never can seem to grow that plant. Everything else seems happy and the red lilies need to be pruned before they cover the entire surface! The little foreground grass-thingie (I don't remember the name right now) is taking over the tank. I need to prune it back pretty seriously!

When you say "better CO2", do you mean more of it? I have it on a timer, on an hour before lights, off an hour or so before lights out. I have been tweaking with the bubble count, trying to get a balance between pearling, the amount of current from the canister filter, and fish that seem happy. The adult guppies definitely seem more active at night, after the airstone comes on. All the guppies love the strong current!

I don't know if you remember in December, when I was having a panic attack about ICH and trying to finalize a stocking list. I did get rid of the ICH. I lost two guppies this month but not from the ICH, I suspect from shipping stress and/or some sort of generalized weakness/internal parasites. Everybody else seems healthy and I have something like 30-50 baby guppies swimming around, from several batches. I took the male gourami back and gave up on the idea of angels. <sigh> He was beautiful, but he was bullying the entire tank. The female seems much more peaceful, and now the cherry barbs show themselves occasionally. I think they were trying to breed last week, but I haven't seen any babies. Somebody probably ate the eggs.