pat1cp
Member
I went from this diatom outbreak early on.
To this, just regular water changes.
To this, just regular water changes.
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Algae ID?
- Thread starter Sprayman60
- Start date
No I have never found one, often thought of putting one together and never got round to it 🙄
pat1cp
Member
I did some more research on this, looks like I may be talking complete codswallop about the soil leaching into the water column and feeding diatoms.
Regardess, less light and water changes are the way.
Greeny
Member
Hi all,
I'm just about at that point where I think I'm going to tear my scape down and leave it for a while and maybe start up again in a few months' time. I have been suffering from all sorts of algae including BGA for so long now and am just at the end of my tether as it may look pretty nice after a maintenance session but doesn't take long to start up again so just seems pointless now. I have to add blue/green stain remover after each maintainance session to keep it in check. I've also done 2 blackouts and it still keeps coming back.
Anyway, the main reason why I posted is cause my experience may help a little for Sprayman60. I have a twinstar 450 on an ADA 45p with no livestock, I was getting signs of this hair algae way back (at the beginning of the pandemic) which looked like moss, it didn't really get bad and it wasn't difficult to remove. However, a few months ago it started getting bad, I wasn't always doing regular maintenance due to time constraints but there was a time I left it for a month without maintenance and it grew like crazy and I finally identified it. It was blanket weed that you see commonly in ponds. Anyhow, of course, I removed as much as I could and got the tank looking better again but it would grow back quickly. I figured that the twinstar was giving out too much light so got a dimmer and set it to 30% with a 6-hour photoperiod, this slowed the algae down a lot and the blanket weed became brown in color. It certainly looked like it made it less healthy and easier (less sticky) to remove. It's still growing and it looks more like detritus build-up and it's pretty quick to keep looking the same (bear in mind I don't have any fish so how often should I really have detritus in the tank?) I've attached pictures of what it looks like now and seems to look very similar to what Sprayman60 has in his tank. I'm not sure they are the best pictures of it but hopefully, you get an idea.
I'm just about at that point where I think I'm going to tear my scape down and leave it for a while and maybe start up again in a few months' time. I have been suffering from all sorts of algae including BGA for so long now and am just at the end of my tether as it may look pretty nice after a maintenance session but doesn't take long to start up again so just seems pointless now. I have to add blue/green stain remover after each maintainance session to keep it in check. I've also done 2 blackouts and it still keeps coming back.
Anyway, the main reason why I posted is cause my experience may help a little for Sprayman60. I have a twinstar 450 on an ADA 45p with no livestock, I was getting signs of this hair algae way back (at the beginning of the pandemic) which looked like moss, it didn't really get bad and it wasn't difficult to remove. However, a few months ago it started getting bad, I wasn't always doing regular maintenance due to time constraints but there was a time I left it for a month without maintenance and it grew like crazy and I finally identified it. It was blanket weed that you see commonly in ponds. Anyhow, of course, I removed as much as I could and got the tank looking better again but it would grow back quickly. I figured that the twinstar was giving out too much light so got a dimmer and set it to 30% with a 6-hour photoperiod, this slowed the algae down a lot and the blanket weed became brown in color. It certainly looked like it made it less healthy and easier (less sticky) to remove. It's still growing and it looks more like detritus build-up and it's pretty quick to keep looking the same (bear in mind I don't have any fish so how often should I really have detritus in the tank?) I've attached pictures of what it looks like now and seems to look very similar to what Sprayman60 has in his tank. I'm not sure they are the best pictures of it but hopefully, you get an idea.
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If you take the scape down and restart it again with the same gear, isnt it likely to turn out exactly the same way?
Have you had a help thread in the algae section? If youre willing to give it a final try, im sure we could collectively figure it out with you
This forum has fixed some pretty gnarly tanks
Hi
Hair grass is a magnet for collecting waste material
I would remove it give it a good clean or bin it.
If you can source a hob or an internal filter I would run it with filter floss and replace the floss every other day with new floss!
Chop some of those Ludwigia stems and use them as floating plants!
hoggie
Hair grass is a magnet for collecting waste material
I would remove it give it a good clean or bin it.
If you can source a hob or an internal filter I would run it with filter floss and replace the floss every other day with new floss!
Chop some of those Ludwigia stems and use them as floating plants!
hoggie
Greeny
Member
If you take the scape down and restart it again with the same gear, isnt it likely to turn out exactly the same way?
Have you had a help thread in the algae section? If youre willing to give it a final try, im sure we could collectively figure it out with you
This forum has fixed some pretty gnarly tanks
I haven't yet Hufsa but I will cause it's worth a try and I don't think I can solve this issue on my own. I'm not going to post on here anymore cause I don't want to hijack Sprayman60's thread, what he had just looked like what I had, I guess it was a little cry for help if I'm honest, don't know why I didn't post, was reluctant from posting myself trying to find answers from other peoples threads. Anyway, hopefully, I'll get it posted this weekend. Thanks for the offer of help, appreciate it.
Greeny
Member
Thanks, Hoggie for the help. I'll try and give your suggestions a go. I'll also start a new thread so as not to take away from Sprayman60.
Sprayman60
Member
Thanks everyone for the replies I appreciate it. So far I'm seeing an improvement over the last few days. The algea is not growing fast. I have turned the flow up, changed the fertiliser, trimmed some plants and new lighting on 15% power for 8 hours. I've managed to get a lot of the algea away manually
Hopefully does the trick. Will post a pic tomorrow.
Hopefully does the trick. Will post a pic tomorrow.
Sprayman60
Member
Sprayman60
Member
Just thought I'd give another update, seems to be working well
after reading a few posts on pH profiling in UKAPS, I sort of understood it and was able to perform my own pH profiling. At its simplest, you are just measuring the pH of your water in your tank to check whether pH and thus CO2 levels are stable throughout the photo period.
As a starting point you would want to get a stable 1.0pH drop from the pH of degassed water but this should be checked against the drop checker colour (i.e. drop checker should be limegreen / green).
There is a little bit of 'maths' behind the 1.0pH drop. Assuming kH is normal, a 1.0pH drop means your CO2 concentration has increased by 10x from whatever was the starting point. For example - 2pm to 20ppm, or 3pm to 30ppm.
