On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 06:26:39 -0500, Dick
wrote:

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 04:13:36 GMT, Rikko wrote:

On Fri, 4 Jun 2004 15:00:29 -0400, "RedForeman ©®"
wrote:

I just noticed a single branch of staghorn.... yes I pulled it but am
worried it'll show up again. There's also some hair here and there, and some
amano shrimp were said to deal with that. Both will be on order, but I'm
curious to know if anyone here's had good results from FFF and Amano
shrimp....??

I've read oodles of testimonials that FFF are the best algae eaters in
the world. I took a few home but couldn't really tell you how they're
doing because my tank has since turned pure green. I've decided to
find it quaint since there's not much to be done about it.

Err.. Speaking of which, has anyone used the Terrapur fert cones and
found their algae picked up?

I am glad to find out that the FFF and the American Flag fish are the
same fish. I have read about this fish in the past and want to buy
some one day.

Curious, "tank has ...turned pure green." The water, the plants, or
the glass? How much light, what size tank, how many hours and are you
overfeeding? I get a lot of brown algae on one of my 10 gallon tanks.
I keep the front and sides clean by wiping or scraping, but the back
is harder to clean, so I don't. Mostly I have to clean small dots of
green off the tanks glass. So your description doesn't fit any of my
experience.

Good luck. I too look forward to some testimonials about the FFF/AFF.

The water has gone green - the glass is actually spotless, thanks to a
new rubber lip pleco and zebra snails. The plants always had a fair
bit of black algae dating back several months (rather than rip at them
I'm hoping the FFF and new setup get to it) but the water was crystal
clean.
The bloom began around the time I did a number of things:
- added a couple of new plants. I could look up the names but I doubt
they are culprits.
- added another Terrapur tab to my substrate - the first 1/2 tab was
under my lotus lily which has a very vigorous root structure. The new
one was placed under some cuttings which aren't as fast growing - I'm
wondering if it's possible that the tab began leeching something that
triggered the algae. (Going to do a PO4 test..... Shows 0 though I
don't really trust this Hagen test kit)
- added a new CO2 diffuser I made that diffuses 100% of the bubbles
rather than a fair bit of waste as before

It's a 77 gallon FW with 4x28W T5s on it. Light is very intense. The
fixture has been there for about 2 months and I did notice an increase
in algae, but it was solid algaes growing on the plants and glass and
that slowed down and stopped after a couple of weeks. It's been stable
since then. Photoperiod is about 15 hours/day on a timer, and has been
so for years. Filtration is a Penguin 170, Fluval 303 and a Rainbow
Lifegard FBF powered by a Hagen powerhead with a Quick Filter on it. I
stagger their cleaning but haven't touched them for weeks.
pH - 6.8ish
NH4/NO2/NO3/PO4 = 0.0 to my test (due to bloody giant water change,
though they were all very low before).
The tank is so heavily planted I can't gravel vac anymore.

For the first couple of days the tank turned more of a milky colour
than green - I first thought that I'd filled my CO2 reactor too full
and some of the mix had ended up in the tank. I did a small water
change and left it. Soon it turned green and a week after the initial
cloudiness it was an absolute haze. I got fed up and did a 90% water
change (the tap water around here is great to allow that), thinking
that it was some CO2 spillage that must have caused it. No dice. A few
days later and the milkiness returned, and now it's pea soup again. I
hesitate to keep changing water because then I just fuel the algae
with trace elements in the tap water. Leaving it alone works, but I
hate to wait the 2-3 months that it took the pond outside.
I'm reducing photoperiod to about 7 hours for the next while and
washing out the Quick Filter every evening. Ecch. I almost broke down
and bought a UV sterilizer.

Any thoughts? I'm not going to be putting any herbicides in the tank
and I'm dubious of anything store-bought that will magically fix the
problem (I work in a LFS.. I've yet to be amazed by anything off the
shelf, except a very old bottle of Aqua Safe that smelled surprisingly
like rotten eggs).

On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 06:08:39 GMT, Rikko wrote:

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 06:26:39 -0500, Dick
wrote:

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 04:13:36 GMT, Rikko wrote:

On Fri, 4 Jun 2004 15:00:29 -0400, "RedForeman ©®"
wrote:

I just noticed a single branch of staghorn.... yes I pulled it but am
worried it'll show up again. There's also some hair here and there, and some
amano shrimp were said to deal with that. Both will be on order, but I'm
curious to know if anyone here's had good results from FFF and Amano
shrimp....??

I've read oodles of testimonials that FFF are the best algae eaters in
the world. I took a few home but couldn't really tell you how they're
doing because my tank has since turned pure green. I've decided to
find it quaint since there's not much to be done about it.

Err.. Speaking of which, has anyone used the Terrapur fert cones and
found their algae picked up?

I am glad to find out that the FFF and the American Flag fish are the
same fish. I have read about this fish in the past and want to buy
some one day.

Curious, "tank has ...turned pure green." The water, the plants, or
the glass? How much light, what size tank, how many hours and are you
overfeeding? I get a lot of brown algae on one of my 10 gallon tanks.
I keep the front and sides clean by wiping or scraping, but the back
is harder to clean, so I don't. Mostly I have to clean small dots of
green off the tanks glass. So your description doesn't fit any of my
experience.

Good luck. I too look forward to some testimonials about the FFF/AFF.

The water has gone green - the glass is actually spotless, thanks to a
new rubber lip pleco and zebra snails. The plants always had a fair
bit of black algae dating back several months (rather than rip at them
I'm hoping the FFF and new setup get to it) but the water was crystal
clean.
The bloom began around the time I did a number of things:
- added a couple of new plants. I could look up the names but I doubt
they are culprits.
- added another Terrapur tab to my substrate - the first 1/2 tab was
under my lotus lily which has a very vigorous root structure. The new
one was placed under some cuttings which aren't as fast growing - I'm
wondering if it's possible that the tab began leeching something that
triggered the algae. (Going to do a PO4 test..... Shows 0 though I
don't really trust this Hagen test kit)
- added a new CO2 diffuser I made that diffuses 100% of the bubbles
rather than a fair bit of waste as before

It's a 77 gallon FW with 4x28W T5s on it. Light is very intense. The
fixture has been there for about 2 months and I did notice an increase
in algae, but it was solid algaes growing on the plants and glass and
that slowed down and stopped after a couple of weeks. It's been stable
since then. Photoperiod is about 15 hours/day on a timer, and has been
so for years. Filtration is a Penguin 170, Fluval 303 and a Rainbow
Lifegard FBF powered by a Hagen powerhead with a Quick Filter on it. I
stagger their cleaning but haven't touched them for weeks.
pH - 6.8ish
NH4/NO2/NO3/PO4 = 0.0 to my test (due to bloody giant water change,
though they were all very low before).
The tank is so heavily planted I can't gravel vac anymore.

For the first couple of days the tank turned more of a milky colour
than green - I first thought that I'd filled my CO2 reactor too full
and some of the mix had ended up in the tank. I did a small water
change and left it. Soon it turned green and a week after the initial
cloudiness it was an absolute haze. I got fed up and did a 90% water
change (the tap water around here is great to allow that), thinking
that it was some CO2 spillage that must have caused it. No dice. A few
days later and the milkiness returned, and now it's pea soup again. I
hesitate to keep changing water because then I just fuel the algae
with trace elements in the tap water. Leaving it alone works, but I
hate to wait the 2-3 months that it took the pond outside.
I'm reducing photoperiod to about 7 hours for the next while and
washing out the Quick Filter every evening. Ecch. I almost broke down
and bought a UV sterilizer.

Any thoughts? I'm not going to be putting any herbicides in the tank
and I'm dubious of anything store-bought that will magically fix the
problem (I work in a LFS.. I've yet to be amazed by anything off the
shelf, except a very old bottle of Aqua Safe that smelled surprisingly
like rotten eggs).

I have never had green water. Maybe by focusing on the green water,
someone will have an idea or experience.

You suspect algae in your tap water? What is your tap water source?
Community water chlorine would eliminate algae, wouldn't it? I would
think water changes to be part of the treatment.

Yeah, I hate to add chemicals to my water. You praise your local tap
water, so why suspect it now? I would go back to water changes along
with the reduced photo period.

I can't shed the idea that an algae bloom is promoted by light and
nutrients. I would stop feeding, and leave the lights off for two
days. I have done that once when trying to treat ich while waiting
for mail delivery of ich medicine. Didn't do any good for the ich,
but didn't hurt the plants or fish either.

Any thoughts? I'm not going to be putting any herbicides in the tank
and I'm dubious of anything store-bought that will magically fix the
problem (I work in a LFS.. I've yet to be amazed by anything off the
shelf, except a very old bottle of Aqua Safe that smelled surprisingly
like rotten eggs).

Look back on Green water on this list and also the APD etc. Green
water will not be cured through nutrients/snake oils etc. Diatom
filtration, UV, Micron filtration(eg Hagen quik filters are 5
microns), Daphnia, blackouts(not very effective in most cases) all
work. UV./Diatoms are the best IMO/IME.

Once you remove it, let the UV/Diatom etc run another 2-3 days.

Large distubances combined with poor plant growth/low CO2/high light,
fish loads etc, will help induce GW.

Once you get rid of it, it will not likely come back again.
But once induced, it is very difficult to get rid of with mechanically
removing it or UV.

You need to work on providing good CO2, macro and traces elements to
your tank if you want the plants to grow.

Generally you want 5ppm or more NO3, .5ppm or more PO5, 10-20K+, GH of
3-5, traces dosed 3-4x a week etc.

So a routine for your tank:
1/2 teaspoon of KNO3 3x a week
1/8th teaspoon of KH2PO4 2-3x a week
Traces 15mls 3x a week

50% weekly water change.

The dosing will keep anything from running out while the weekly water
changes will prevent any build up.

In that manner you can easily control the parameters with a testing at
all, except for CO2.

Regards,
Tom Barr