Midposted

1) I have dosed phosphate, to continuous detectable levels,
and have triggered algae in an otherwise stable, long term
stable, tank. Yea, like-like, no other changes made.

How much lighting do you have on this tank.? I'll bet its round about 2
watts per gallon or less, right?
My small 10 gallon is running just over 3wpg, 2 two litre DIY bottles
pumping about 1-2 bubbles per second into the intake of a slow running AC. I
have used the Barr method for the last 6 months or so. It took a while for
the tank to settle into this routine but the results have been great. In
fact better than ever. I understand this method is "balls to the wall" as
far as the ammount of light, co2 and ferts go. But if you keep up on it, it
works astoundingly. I dump about 8ppm no3 and 3-5 drops of fleet enema twice
a week into the tank with ZERO algae, a whisp of BBA on one or two leaves
but nothing to stress about.
I think as far as your light and co2 are strong/high you can pretty much go
well above the recommended dosing levels.


2) Ammonia is indeed a preferred form for plant/algae. But,
what do bio-filters do? Convert Ammonia to Nitrate, they do
that quite quickly, and adjust to sustained higher levels
also quite quickly. In light of how many tanks face algal
issues, are we saying that "everyone" is running material
levels of Ammonia, routinely?

Its hard to say, I think each tank's algae problems are unique, some may be
co2 or light issues while others may be from a high fishload resulting in an
influx of NH4. If the bacteria cannot convert the NH4 to less harmful NO3
quick enough then it stands to reason that there's alot of NH4 floating
around the water column. Thus plants and algae alike would help themselves
to the more preferred form of NH4.


My tried and true recommendation... Obviously, don't dose
Ammonia, Urea, or other forms of Ammonium - it's flat out
fish poison, if nothing else.

Ditto. If I did not have fish in the tank I would really like to experiment
with this. It would be good to see the effects on the algae and plants by
adding certain ammounts of NH4 . I'm sure Tom has done this but he does not
state at which levels the algae take off.


If you don't have algae, then make no mistake, you are
limiting it in some way. YOU may be depending on limits in
N, P, Fe, heck, even B or any of the other dozen odd
nutrients plants need. Algae has a fast turnover rate
compared to plants, and plants will, ultimately, "win" on
the uptake of rare nutrients.

Not necessarily. Is'nt this what this thread is about, the algae will do
better with 'rare nutrients' (do you mean urea?) than the plants will if the
other nutrients are not in a good range, thats why were all dosing another
form of Nitrate, NO3. As long as you have all nutrients in a certain range
and not limit ANYTHING, things will be fine. Ultimately it will be the tank
that decides whats good and whats not, I think its best just to play it by
ear.

*I* AM P limited. Item 1 above made that completely clear.
*YOU* may be able to dump tons of P into your tank, and
live a long and algae free life - if you are in fact
limiting on something else.

I have all nutrients in a good range, so far so good (6 months). Why not add
Light to this as a limiting growth factor?? Dose all your ferts within a
good range, get the co2 bubbling and play with different ammounts of light
until you find the 'sweet spot'. Limiting a plant with ferts is just to much
trouble for me.

Bill, got any pics of your tanks? I'd love to see
--
**So long, and thanks for all the fish!**