Fish settling in, plants still slow going

The fish in the top half of the picture here are Congo Tetras, particularly cool because of the tendency of the edges of their fins to catch the light and make it look like they're glowing. The fish below them are mostly German Blue Rams, with a clown loach at the bottom right corner.


Our two orange Discus have become more outgoing and are willing to spend time at the front of the tank now.


As you can see, the plants haven't exactly taken off, but they were inadvertently nutrient deprived and have only been on the new fertilizer a short time by this point.


Though the brown algae has diminished, the so-called Blue-Green Algae (BGA) has made an appearance. Interestingly, BGA isn't actually algae, but a cyano-bacteria. It can be killed by adding antibiotics to the tank, however it would also kill the beneficial bacteria in the filter system and that is more important. Instead, we will just remove the BGA as much as possible and try to get the plants going. Once the plants are growing well, they will out compete the BGA for nutrients and it will go away on its own... at least that's the hope!