Ok, got it. The idea is the water before CO2 addition is fully equilibrated with the atmosphere to provide the baseline pH reading, correct? Then the goal is to measure the pH in the tank after CO2 addition to look for the pH drop. The way the original comment read sounded to me like they were equilibrating the CO2-injected sample as well as the baseline sample.
Both contain the same ingredient "glutaraldehyde" easylife is slightly more concentrated and cheaper, so use that.
I fear that boiling the water would affect the purpose of having water with all the acidities and alcalinities of the tank water, but at equilibrium with the atmospheric CO2. It could maybe destroy/denature or similarly alter the molecules of whatever is in the water changing the pH.
For me, I find EL Carbo slightly more viscous than Excel, which seems to make Carbo better spread over and stay on affected materials vs. running straight off. My £0.02 anyway.
I'm still none the wiser. I'm away for the next ~ ten days, but when I'm back I'll try and have a trawl through the scientific literature.
For now 25.5, because weather getting warmer, but usually 24.
Staghorn algae, IMO, is most often associated with organic pollution. I've only ever personally seen it when the tank needed a clean and/or the flow wasn't correctly sweeping everything to the filter intake.
Thank you for your answer.Staghorn algae, IMO, is most often associated with organic pollution. I've only ever personally seen it when the tank needed a clean and/or the flow wasn't correctly sweeping everything to the filter intake.
I've also seen it when grossly overdosing liquid microbial products - I had put large amounts of Seachem's 'stability' in the tank early on, mainly because I was inexperienced and assumed that the extra bacteria would be beneficial. I now assume that the excess bacteria just died off and contributed to a massive algae bloom. I even squirted the product over some Sieryu stone in order to inoculate it, and very thick clumps of staghorn grew in the exact spots that I squirted the bacteria. This, to me, is evidence that organics play a key role in staghorn algae. I've also seen it when my flow has been suboptimal, with organics collecting on the sand. Once the flow was properly directed to the filter, that particular area of staghorn stopped growing.
I would try a good clean up - when you next do maintenance, replace at least 50% of the tank water. Use a gravel vacuum to brush over the substrate and all the plant leaves - it can also help to use your hands to gently rub the larger leaves to get rid of anything settled on them. Double check your flow to make sure there are no deadspots where organic material is settling (it should be being swept to the filter). Also give the filters and pipes a good clean. I would also double check your CO2's stability, because unhealthy plants will themselves eject organics in to the water column.
Edit: I found a picture of my first tank, with these big staghorn blooms
It can be tough to get at the substrate when a tank is densely planted, but it's still useful to hover the vacuum just above the visible parts, as well as the plant leaves.
The staghorn in my example didn't die by itself, I had to manually remove it. It just stopped growing when the tank was cleaned up. It was trickier in my example though because it was all over the hardscape. It's much easier to deal with staghorn on plants because you can just replant the tops and discard the parts infected with the algae.
