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Furcata thrives on high everything, particularly Fe/micros. Its one of the only plants that seems to actually need pretty high micros. This is in my set ups with either sand sub or older soils and rich water
Idk how it does in rich soil/lean water. Its pretty fast when happy and fast stems tend to stunt in that scenario when you just replant a top. Have to let them root for a couple weeks then cut the bad tops off. New stems that come from the rooted bottom tend to do better. So you might need to handle it that way
Furcata thrives on high everything, particularly Fe/micros. Its one of the only plants that seems to actually need pretty high micros. This is in my set ups with either sand sub or older soils and rich water
Idk how it does in rich soil/lean water. Its pretty fast when happy and fast stems tend to stunt in that scenario when you just replant a top. Have to let them root for a couple weeks then cut the bad tops off. New stems that come from the rooted bottom tend to do better. So you might need to handle it that way
We had been on vacation in June and had done a minor rescape and added quite bit of fresh aquasoil before I left. This triggered a BBA outbreak. Although I was able to trim plants with it and do the usual replant, the BBA grew a lot on the aquasoil. I tried removing them one by one but just too many
Couldn’t really figure out how to get rid of them and spot dosing was not possible given how spread out it was.
That is how I came up with what I now realize was a bad solution.
I drained the tank completely, used a paper towel on the aquasoil surface and placed a gravel vac so all water got sucked up. Then took APT fix on a small sprayer bottle and misted all the aquasoil. Then refilled the tank.
Lo and behold, there was die back of all the BBA and was feeling quite smart about myself of finding a new way to apply APT fix.
Then the problem started happening, what I did not realize that it was quite heard to prevent the APT fix from landing on the plants when I misted the aquasoil and then started the die back….. the thing is it was not a quick process it was slow death of beautiful rotalas and other plants
Ended up removing massive chunks of plants
Then started the Cyanobacteria slow but steadily spreading on plants. Tried APT fix, excel, ultra life with no much avail.
Ended up doing a major rescape, and tried my best to remove the cyano and the dying plants from the original injury. Got some nice tropical TC plants from @FreshTides_Neal for the foreground and replanted them.
Things are starting to get stable now, cyano and bba still around the corner, found that hydrogen peroxide injected with a syringe and needle works well against it. For the BBA I now resort to Misting it underwater with APT fix which I find easier than spot dosing. Hopefully things get stable again. Let’s see
With the aquasoil getting older, the plant growth is not that fast. But I don’t want to add new aquasoil which to me seems to trigger algae. Resorted to adding root tabs. Let’s see how the tank does by next month when it would be a year of setup.
Fwiw I’ve had really good success beating back my bba outbreak with the APT lite version. I’ve used over 3/4 of a 300ml bottle so far spot dosing with the pipette 7-8ml per around 18 gallons twice a week with no water change directly after. I work a small section and let it sit with filter off for 10-15 minutes then fire it back up and go about my day.
It gets shot directly on spots with mini pellia and I’ve had no adverse effects so far.
Same with caridina shrimp, I think the goobers actually like the smell of it as they come out and start picking away in the section I just treated. Totally freaked me out the first time but so far no issues.
It may be a bit less potent but it does work well.
Sunlight & Tank Relocation
Decided to ultimately change the position of the tank away from direct sunlight given all the algae issues that i have had. One of the learning points that i have had with this tank is that direct sunlight results in variable PAR based on season and even weekly variation. I find that the advice of cut and replant might not apply since the PAR is so different that there is constant re-adaptation with the changes in amount of sunlight. The best times that i have had with this tank was in the Feb/March time and maybe that was to do with the sunlight.
Anyways the new position is shielded away from direct sunlight and has actually been a nice spot close to the no filter bowl. Will have to see how this turns out.
Algae:
Continue to struggle with cyanobacteria. Tried using Ultralife blue green slime remover, but no effect on multiple use. Did H2O2 but, the spot dosing just does not cover all areas and it soon comes back. Trying to up my nitrate based on @Dennis Wong recommendation on the 2Hr website on beating Cyano.
Do have some BBA , but quite manageable. I ended up taking the route that i recommended to @ScaperHaynes and let everything grow out and that has pretty much covered most of the Aquasoil. One of the terms that i think is not used often are "Filler plants" these are plants that just grow to fill up empty spots in the tanks and give more plant volume. I find pearlweed and Penthorum sedoides have been working out well and so are the Helanthium Tennelum (i think - @FreshTides_Neal could confirm - in the foreground i mixed it up with the eleocharis and it is filling up lot of spaces - but definitely a little bigger than i thought but has nice thick grass like blade and speads by runners).
Continue to get GDA even in this location away from sunlight usually by the end of the week.
Plants:
The Samolus parviflorus 'Red' (lysimachia) seems to be struggling quite a bit not sure why maybe it did not like being transferred. The AR mini is taking its time quite slow even with few root tabs under.
The rest are growing stable. Interestingly the L.Cardinalis mini is not a mini anymore!
Fertilizer:
Added few root tabs. Upped my dosing to 3 ml APT 3 daily and stopped APT 1. Also started dosing about 6 ml APT 3 after 75% water change. This should provide about 1.2 ppm of No3/day which i am estimating would be close to the consumption/day and the dose after water change of about 2.4 ppm should keep the levels steady of > 1 but <5 ppm of No3. I will remeasure NO3 at mid week and prior to WC and decide if i need to change anything. If i continue to have cyano, will plan to increase this further and target close to 5 ppm of NO3.
I've been slowly starting a multi-year campaign to get people to understand Cyanobacteria (BGA) better. There's a lot of misinformation in this hobby, but it's 2025, and times are changing. So let's give it a try! There will be a simple summary at the bottom.
Cyanobacteria are a special "algae" in aquaria because they are actually bacteria. These bacteria can utilize free N2 nitrogen gas from the atmosphere to provide the necessary Nitrogen for growth (source, source). Approx 78% of regular...
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