I have a heavily planted 80 gallon with CO2 injected and 190 watts of CF.
Lately I have been fighting a horrible case of thread algae. I think it is
because my macros are not dosed enough. My question is this. Do you think
it is ok to dose 1/4 tsp of KNO3 a few times a week? I never register
nitrates even after using 5 ml per day of a solution of 3 tsp KNO3 per 500
ml water. I think this method is just too little nitrate. I also use K2SO4
to supplement the K. I use approx. 4 ml of iron per week and 4 ml of
Flourish per week. thoughts....

"Mike" wrote in message igy.com...
I have a heavily planted 80 gallon with CO2 injected and 190 watts of CF.
Lately I have been fighting a horrible case of thread algae. I think it is
because my macros are not dosed enough. My question is this. Do you think
it is ok to dose 1/4 tsp of KNO3 a few times a week? I never register
nitrates even after using 5 ml per day of a solution of 3 tsp KNO3 per 500
ml water. I think this method is just too little nitrate. I also use K2SO4
to supplement the K. I use approx. 4 ml of iron per week and 4 ml of
Flourish per week. thoughts....

Here you go Mike:
This is an easy method:
First trim off all algae, prune as needed well, try to get all the
algae off.
Then clean filter etc and do a 50% water change.
Check the CO2 twice at least. Make sue it's 20-30ppm for the entire
day cycle.

Then:
1/2 teaspoon 2x a week till your plants grow back and get lush again.
3x a week thereafter.
This should yield 6 ppm or extremely close(+-1ppm) if the tap water
has none and there's none in the tank per dose.

1/2 teaspoon K2SO4 after water change only

1/8 teaspoon KH2PO4/(or Fleet enema/H3PO4 etc) 2x a week, 3x a week
after the tank grows out

15mls of traces 2x a week then 3x later.

Pick on the algae good, add SAE's, Amano Shrimps. Otto cats, snails,
Mollies, Barbs, Flag fish etc.

Scrub tank good and be very thorough about picking off algae and
maintaining this for 2-3 weeks. You should be in good shape right away
and it should be in very good shape after 3 weeks.
Make sure you have at least a KH and GH of 3 or more.

Keep on this routine and you'll be good.
Now get to work and keep the tank fed and clean.
It's not some secret, it's plain old work and thereafter it's
relatively easy to keep up.

Regards,
TomBarr