UPDATE
Oh well, finally I could find some spare time to update this journal, I am sorry guys, but the past 3 weeks have been crazy!
Ok, here is the deal: The past Saturday (February 3rd) I got my trimming and water change (as you may recall, I change 60-70% water once every 2 weeks), and so I assessed my tank situation.
Until the past Saturday for the previous 2 weeks, I have been dosing this for macros (I increased them, almost doubled them):
3x a week (6x before WC):
No3: 9.18 ppm
K: 7.37 ppm
PO4: 0.87 ppm
And for micros, the following based on latest Burr's recipe, a little bit modified for B and Cu (almost daily, 6x a week, 12x before WC):
Fe DTPA 10%: 0.2 ppm
Mn: 0.09 ppm
Zn: 0.75 ppm
Mo: 0.0013 ppm
Cu: 0.00165 ppm
Ni: 0.0005 ppm
B: 0.25 ppm
NOTE: The above ppms are based on a 60gl tank, despite this tank is 75gl with a big, oversized wet/dry, cerges, 2 reactors, tubings, etc... as water capacity I'd have around 85-90gl in total, but if you leave out all the hardscape (substrate, wood, rocks, filter media, etc), I guess the water column should be around 60-70? Not sure though! That's another doubt I have, maybe I should dose more? Calculating for a 75gl tank? I am eager to know your thoughts on this, more later below...
Anyway, after 2 weeks of the above dosing regime, the results have been mixed... I mean, overall plants got better (I could clearly see higher macros helped), but the ones with problems before didn't improve that much.
Here is an overall picture of the tank before I performed trimming and WC:
Some plants got just perfect like Lobelia Cardinalis:
Or Limno Aromantica (much more dense), Ludwigia Repens got gigantic, and Rotala Rotundifolia also put out nice sprouts:
Mirio also got better, despite it is in a pretty shaded area of the tank:
Cabomba Furcata finally put out 1-2 good stems, despite the rest were still stunted, but Ambulia didn't improve that much (damn plant, that's supposed to be easy! What's worng with it??!):
Here are some more closeup pics of the stunted Ambulia I took the past week before WC:
What the heck's wrong with that plant, I really don't know.
AR also was still in pretty bad shape:
So... you see how was my situation, the same plants still had the same issues, only Cabomba Furcata got a little bit better... not enough though.
So, for the past week, I decided to cut on micros and see what was going to happen. I have been dosing this for the past 5 days, daily for micros (macros didn't change):
Fe DTPA 10%: 0.15 ppm
Mn: 0.06 ppm
Zn: 0.25 ppm
Mo: 0.0008 ppm
Cu: 0.00110 ppm
Ni: 0.0003 ppm
B: NONE
Yes, I decided to skip Boron completely since my tap should have around 0.11 ppm of it (super crazy high). Also, cut more on Zn because I noticed Ambulia got stuck several months ago when I increased Zn (maybe not a direct effect, but an indirect one?)... anyway, I wanted to try to reduce it.
Well, the results of this new regime has been worse for the past week.
Rotala Rotundifolia appears to have stunted tips so far:
AR didn't improve, and instead showed clear stunted tips for some stems:
Cabomba Furcata didn't change at all, the only good stem is still there, but the other ones are still stunted, look at the closeup of this stem tip below:
Ambulia is still stunted, no difference at all, here are two closeups of a couple of stems:
So.. I am still lost here. I think I'll revert back to the previous micros regime, leaving still out Boron. Also, I could try to increase K a little bit (maybe 1 ppm more) and I also though to add some Ca and Mg more. I mix some RO with tap (something like 15% TO and 85% tap) and my GH is around 180 ppm, so I should have plenty, but I don't think adding some more would hurt, and could also help with excess Boron?
Happi on the plantedtank.net wrote about that... I don't know what else to try with that damn Ambulia. As we know, Ambulia should't be sensitive to micros, and should be a very easy plant to grow (I used to trash away pounds of it without even dosing 10 years ago!)... something else is missing in that plant, and I have no idea what.
As I mentioned above, I could have more water column in this tank than I think (maybe 70-75 gl? or more?), and I might need to dose more overall... what are your thoughts on all this?
I am eager to know your thoughts. Please, bring them on!