Hi all.

I am moving to a new address and I am wondering what would be the most
cost effective way to go about it.

I have 190L tank full of plants and no fish (used to have heaps of
fish though 2 months ago). It has a bit of an algae problem ie. hair
algae (I suspect the iron levels are too high 0.25pmm+). The tank has
been going for about 18 months. It has substrate heating and Dupla
substrate fertiliser. I am wondering whether to wash the gravel clean
and buy new bag of fertiliser (Dupla costs a fair bit) OR to reuse the
substrate I have but top it up with 1-2cm of finer gravel so that the
nutrients don't leak into the water column? Which would be the better
option?

Also should I keep the plants with hair algae on them or throw them
out and buy new ones which will hopefully be hair algae free.

Once I set up the tank I am planning to get 4-6 SAEs to help to keep
the algae at bay.

Any advice appreciated.

(BruceKGeist) wrote in message ...
What ingredients are in the Dupla fertilizer?

My guess is that it has very similar ingredients to Laterite (so iron
and traces). It's red-brown and makes a mess when you pull a plant out
of the substrate.

May I ask, where did you get your dupla cables? Do they work well for you?
Are they controlled with some sort of thermostat?

I got them from my LFS here in Melbourne. I haven't had any problems
with them. All you do is lay them on the bottom, cover with gravel and
forget about them. All they have is a transformer which reduces the
voltage to 12V I think. They are about 20 Watts.

I cannot tell whether they positively contribute to the plant growth.
The only way to tell would be to have half the tank with cables and
half without.

Thanks!

Greg.