Short non glamorous update.
Christmas holiday abroad and then a chest infection resulted in the tanks getting neglected for 3 weeks. Prior to going away I had a small amount of bba that I suspect was being caused by the tanks being ridiculously overgrown, 3 weeks of no mantainance, slip shody ferts dosing and no water changes.... boom...
My daughter was feeding the fish whilst away but wasn't adding any algae wafers or the occasional courgette, the Ancistrus took umbrage and decided she'd find alternative fare.
Full tank shots after removing a total of 5L of plants from each tank and much needed 60% water change, still overgrown, still work to do.
Note the drop checker colour far right in the last pic, this is the result of removing to much plant mass in one go and not tweaking the gas, also suspect the undernourished plants couldn't utilise the excess co2 that was present.
The fix? Manually remove as much of the bba as I can, spot dose the hardscape and anything I can't remove. Increased water changes for a few weeks and regular trimming sessions to try and thin out the plants to restore some flow, hopefully that will banish the bba.
I've also increased the ferts by 20% across the board, rational is the plants stores may well be depleted and need topping up, just enough might not cut it atm so excess is the goal.
Will the fix work? Time will tell.
Toodle pip.
... it just looks brighter than it actually is... I have no idea about my PAR levels... barely double digits. I am continuously astounded by the fact that some of my plants are able to "grow in the dark" 😉 
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