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Black beard and power outages

kschyff

Member
Joined
29 Jun 2020
Messages
132
Location
Dundee, Scotland
Hi all, In my country we have regular rolling power outages. Sometimes for up to 3 or 4 days in an off manner.

I have black beard algae. This is a result of these outages right? It really messes with the co2 delivery.

I now have to consider a ups to keep things running. Should I consider anything specific when looking at purchasing these? Juat checking before I buy.

To fix things in the interim should I simply do a blackout for a week?

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That's a real dilemma with no power for that length of time. Think myself l would go low energy rather than CO2 . Why not add a couple of juvenile Siamese Algae Eaters after removing as much BBA as you can and without knowing your set up plenty of stem plants. How about a daylight location to keep things going in a outage
 
@PARAGUAY thank you for the advice. I was also thinkimg tjat I should switch to low tech. I have stem plants that will probably die off but I could add more lava stone and add low tech plants.

The tank is in a blackout now but what should I do to conveet this tank to low tech? I have macrandra and wallichi so I assume they have to go.

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I think your right plants for a low energy set up and you need to adjust your lighting and fertiliser regime . Still think you may need the help of a daylight location if you lose pwer
 
@PARAGUAY thank you for the help. I am going to stop the blackout today and clean things up included the filter. I wonder if I should introduce some new media aa well.

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I don't think you need to introduce new media. Simply do a good clean up of the tank. Trim all plants showing signs of deterioration. If your filter has not been cleaned up for some time maybe do a quick rinse with you tank water to remove any extra organics that may have accumulated in the canister.

I am not a fan of blackouts. I think they do more harm than anything because plants also take a hit in the process and you need to account for that. If you want to transition to low tech, then do it progressively in the course of several weeks, progressively reducing CO2 and light by small increments. Start with light first, then CO2.

I have macrandra and wallichi so I assume they have to go.
No they don't. R. Wallichi should be fine. It will adapt but coloration will be different. R. macandara are usually more CO2 hungry but can grow on low CO2 as long as there is no fluctuations.
 
@Hanuman thank you. I stopped the blackout this morning and all actually looks ok. Not all the blackbeard has gone though so I will trim and do a very good clean tonight.

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