Mermaid wrote:
Just need a heads up on Algae Control. Since that was one of the main
culprits of me ditching a sal****er reef system.
Can you send me to some good articles on preventing it before it happens or
recommend some good books for me to read?
I was thinking my RO/DI unit might give me an advantage on the algae dept.
Hope so.
Also, can algae problems start with old tank syndrome? The last freshwater
planted tank I had was up for 5 years and I knew I needed to start over
because of all the accumulating crud in the undergravel filter ( for which I
am not going to do this time). That is when I decided to try a reef tank.
Bad decision on my part. I struggled for 3 years off and on. Not fun for me.
Don't want to scrub rocks every weekend. Guess I learned the hard way and
also I could not get any very good local support so maybe freshwater is my
domain.

Can's start yet on the tank because I am still trying to sell all of my
rock, corals, equipment, etc. But chomping at the bit to give it a go.
Patience, Grasshoppa. That coralline is going to be fun scrubbing off. My
living room will smell like vinegar.

A freshwater wantabe.

Paulette



Algae control is pretty easy. OTS can cause algae. The crud in the UGF
breaks down and releases phosphate. So start with a good substrate -
either a plant tank one like Flourite (rinse WELL), Onyx, or Eco
Complete, or fine gravel or coarse sand with laterite clay in the bottom
half (messy). My ideal setup would be Flourite over heating cables, but
they don't make heating cables for small tanks.

Second, pack the tank with healthy plants and provide them with good
lighting (put daylight bulbs in your reef lights), CO2 or Flourish
Excel, and fertilizer. www.gregwatson.com has great bulk stuff. Look
for Tom Barr's old posts here to find out how to balance fertilizers.
You can search on Google Groups. If you get NPK at 8-1-16, with
adequate light, carbon, and trace elements, conditions are optimal for
plants and they will mostly outcompete the algae.

Third, populate the tank with algae eating fish, shrimp, and snails as
you start to see some algae. You'll add Otocinclus first for diatoms
and soft green algae, an Ancistrus spp. once you get enough fuzzy green
algae for a pleco (be sure he has some wood too), a mystery snail (go to
applesnail.net to learn the right kind) to eat dead plant leaves, and
possibly siamese algae eaters if you get black brush algae showing up.
Some folks are lucky enough to find the FW/brackish Nerites snails,
which eat algae but not plants.

Japanese (Amano) shrimp are cool too, but require a stable, well-cycled
tank like all inverts. They will eat green algae off of your plants.
Farlowella spp. (twig catfish) are good algae eaters for broadleaved
plants like swords and also require a well-cycled tank and good water.

Overall fish stocking should be light so phosphates aren't in excess,
and yes your DI/RO unit will come in handy although you'll have to add
buffer back. Seachem makes one that Tom Barr recommends, but I forget
which. I'm sure you'll find it on Google because he's said it a million
times.

--
Elaine T __
http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com

So excess PO4 causes algae does it?
Really?
How much would you like to bet in a fully planted tank on this?

I have had 1ppm of available PO4 for over 15 years and no algae issues
related in any way to PO4. So have 1000's of others.

Where is my algae?
I add KH2PO4 3-4x a week

Regards,
Tom Barr


3rd annual Plant Fest July 8-14th 2005!
Get connected
www.BarrReport.com Get the information

Ditch the RO/DI idea. Plants don't care. They prefer harder water in
99% of the species and even those 2-3 plants will grow in harder water.

UFG's can and do work but they are not needed and plants will do fine
without them. I'd remove it and add Flourite with a little ground
peat(about 1 handful, per sq ft)
Focus on the plant's needs, light, CO2 and nutrients.

Good plant growth and lots of plant biomass = poor algae growth.

So add lots of weeds from day one.
I mean pack the tank!

Next, are you going to add CO2, or Excel?

And how big is the tank and what is the GH and KH of your tap water?

Regards,
Tom Barr

3rd annual Plant Fest July 8-14th 2005!
Get connected
www.BarrReport.com Get the information

wrote:
So excess PO4 causes algae does it?
Really?
How much would you like to bet in a fully planted tank on this?

I have had 1ppm of available PO4 for over 15 years and no algae issues
related in any way to PO4. So have 1000's of others.

Where is my algae?
I add KH2PO4 3-4x a week

Regards,
Tom Barr


3rd annual Plant Fest July 8-14th 2005!
Get connected
www.BarrReport.com Get the information

I DID send Mermaid to Google for your posts on fertilizer balance and
buffers. :-)

Horst and Kipper (yeah, you probably know them personally) say in The
Optimum Aquarium that phosphate over 1.0 ppm in addition to high nitrate
is the most common cause of algae. That's where I got the idea. I
thought that book was supposed to be pretty accurate.

As for your tanks, I assume if there's 1 ppm of phosphate, then there's
8 ppm nitrate, 16 ppm potash, and everything else present in the proper
quantities needed for plants to use it. I suspect those are some pretty
happy and fast-growing plants too! ;-)

--
Elaine T __
http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com

Thanks to you all for helping me and giving me advice.

I guess I will be using Excel because I will not have the money to invest in
CO2.

My Tank is a 75 gal and I plan to use a Magnum 350 and my wet/dry trickle
with the bioballs submerged. That will give me somewhere to put my heater
instead of the tank. Unless they make heater cables for a 75? If you use
cables do you need any other heater? Does it have a thermostat?
Don't know what my tap water is. Going to have to get some tests for
freshwater if I don't still have them in the cabinet.
If I use my RO/DI unit then what buffer do I add to it. Someone told me that
the RO/DI unit would be good if I decided to breed fish.
Otherwise I guess I will sell it too. My husband will kill me on that one as
much as the unit cost.

So as I understand that if you pack the tank with plants from day one you
can forget about cycling. Amazing. Even with having eventually angels?

I have a powercompact lighting unit that has 110 watts. The bulbs are not
new and they are not actinic. They are daylight balanced.
I also have 1 strip 48" light that I thought I could add a plant light with.
Would that work?

Also if I put 3" of gravel+flourite in the 75, how much do I buy?

Thanks for your time,
Paulette


wrote in message
ups.com...
Ditch the RO/DI idea. Plants don't care. They prefer harder water in
99% of the species and even those 2-3 plants will grow in harder water.

UFG's can and do work but they are not needed and plants will do fine
without them. I'd remove it and add Flourite with a little ground
peat(about 1 handful, per sq ft)
Focus on the plant's needs, light, CO2 and nutrients.

Good plant growth and lots of plant biomass = poor algae growth.

So add lots of weeds from day one.
I mean pack the tank!

Next, are you going to add CO2, or Excel?

And how big is the tank and what is the GH and KH of your tap water?

Regards,
Tom Barr

3rd annual Plant Fest July 8-14th 2005!
Get connected
www.BarrReport.com Get the information

On 2005-04-27, Mermaid wrote:
So as I understand that if you pack the tank with plants from day one you
can forget about cycling. Amazing. Even with having eventually angels?


http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_newtank.htm

--
"I have to decide between two equally frightening options.
If I wanted to do that, I'd vote." --Duckman

Mermaid wrote:
Thanks to you all for helping me and giving me advice.

I guess I will be using Excel because I will not have the money to invest in
CO2.

My Tank is a 75 gal and I plan to use a Magnum 350 and my wet/dry trickle
with the bioballs submerged. That will give me somewhere to put my heater
instead of the tank. Unless they make heater cables for a 75? If you use
cables do you need any other heater? Does it have a thermostat?
Don't know what my tap water is. Going to have to get some tests for
freshwater if I don't still have them in the cabinet.
If I use my RO/DI unit then what buffer do I add to it. Someone told me that
the RO/DI unit would be good if I decided to breed fish.
Otherwise I guess I will sell it too. My husband will kill me on that one as
much as the unit cost.

They make heater cabels for 75 gallon tanks. I think you do still need
a heater because the wattage is low on the cables. The cables create a
very slow convective current through the substrate, keeping it aerobic
and bringing nutrients down to be trapped on the laterite where the
plant roots can use them.

As for RO/DI, how's your tapwater? If you have good tapwater, then
there's no reason not to use it since it comes with free buffering and
trace elements. :-) My tapwater is hard and alkaline, pH 7.8, tastes
bad, reeks of chlorine, and sometimes stresses my fish after water
changes. I wish I had RO, despite what Tom says. For breeding sof****er
species, RO/DI is very useful.

I looked up the buffer for RO/DI, and it's Seachem Equilibrium to give
some hardness, plus baking soda to give some alkalinity.

So as I understand that if you pack the tank with plants from day one you
can forget about cycling. Amazing. Even with having eventually angels?

Yep. BUT you still have to start with only a few fish and add fish
slowly. What's happened to me is that there are no ammonia or nitrite
spikes, and bacteria gradually build up in the filter. As long as I add
fish slowly, there's no real "cycle." There's actually a concept called
the Dutch Aquarium (very similar to the Berlin reef) where only water
movement is used, the tank is lightly stocked, and the plants provide
all of the filtration.

I have a powercompact lighting unit that has 110 watts. The bulbs are not
new and they are not actinic. They are daylight balanced.
I also have 1 strip 48" light that I thought I could add a plant light with.
Would that work?

Sounds like plenty of light to me. I personally prefer high CRI bulbs
to plant lights but if you don't mind the purplish cast they're good for
plants.

Also if I put 3" of gravel+flourite in the 75, how much do I buy?

Here's Seachem's recommendation.
http://www.seachem.com/products/prod.../Flourite.html
They actually say 2" rather than 3". I'm not sure why. I've had big
sword plants put roots all the way to the bottom in 3" of gravel/laterite.

Also, you have to rinse Flourite pretty extensively. Here's the best
instructions I've seen so far.
http://www.vickisaquaticplace.com/fluorite.html

Thanks for your time,
Paulette


wrote in message
ups.com...

Ditch the RO/DI idea. Plants don't care. They prefer harder water in
99% of the species and even those 2-3 plants will grow in harder water.

UFG's can and do work but they are not needed and plants will do fine
without them. I'd remove it and add Flourite with a little ground
peat(about 1 handful, per sq ft)
Focus on the plant's needs, light, CO2 and nutrients.

Good plant growth and lots of plant biomass = poor algae growth.

So add lots of weeds from day one.
I mean pack the tank!

Next, are you going to add CO2, or Excel?

And how big is the tank and what is the GH and KH of your tap water?

Regards,
Tom Barr

3rd annual Plant Fest July 8-14th 2005!
Get connected
www.BarrReport.com Get the information






--
Elaine T __
http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com

Mermaid wrote:
Thanks to you all for helping me and giving me advice.

I guess I will be using Excel because I will not have the money to invest in
CO2.

You may also want to look at setting up a soda-bottle DIY system.
Depending on how you do it, it can be cheap (most of the cost is in the
soda bottles, and you can drink that anyway.)

Elaine, there is a new all aerobic bacteria mix available state-side that nearly breaks down all the phosphate laden detritus. It would go a long way at eliminating the phosphate residues in a UGF. You will find the info at: http://www.hdltd.com/orders.html, and it is called Right Now! Bacteria. I have no interest in the firm, but I am using it.