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am I loosing the battle against brown algae?

Rob P said:
Good luck Martin!!

Make sure that gas is off and have you put an air pump on or lifted your outlets?!

Really hope for a positive result for you ;)
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CO2 is off...no light, no need for it...I do hope that the spray bars make enough ripples...I am just wondering if I should feed the fish as they couldn't see the food?
 
Feeding the fish results in environmental conditions which favor algae and pathogens. The fish will not suddenly starve to death. They can go weeks without being fed. There will be plenty of things to eat as the algae turns into food under the blackout. People overfeed their fish anyway, so this might actually have the side benefit of training you how to not overfeed.

Cheers,
 
Can someone explain why there are so many websites that tell you to give more light into a tank in case of brown algae? I know that brown algae can stay dormant in deeper darker water, but mostly they bloom (in ponds) in spring when conditions (read: light and nutrients) are favourable...but than of course disappear when nutrients are getting less because plants (or other algae:confused: ) use them. Or is it the same old story like the phosphate one?
 
When are you uncovering Martin? Fingers crossed you find positive results underneath...

Big wc & clean/filter clean sounds right to me from what i've read :)
 
Rob P said:
When are you uncovering Martin?
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I am going to see what's behind door nr. 1 tomorrow morning (Saturday), it has been 4 days than....Monday I will go on vacation for 10 days, so I also hope it will be ok when I come back. Before I go I will fert. with a liquid fert. which should be ok for one week, when I come home do a large WC again and start with EI fert
 
Rob P said:
How's it looking Martin? :)
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So far I'm not impressed, still pretty brownish. I guess (hope) that this will dissapear after a short while when the plant start growing again....the blackout also seem to have had a negative effect on some of the plants (some leaves melting and some other plants just broke off), but it could be that those plants where already having a bad time cause some just came from te shop and to avoid algaes from those I put them in water with excel for an hour and I may have overdone it with the excel....
 
Martin in China said:
So far I'm not impressed, still pretty brownish. I guess (hope) that this will dissapear after a short while when the plant start growing again....the blackout also seem to have had a negative effect on some of the plants (some leaves melting and some other plants just broke off), but it could be that those plants where already having a bad time cause some just came from te shop and to avoid algaes from those I put them in water with excel for an hour and I may have overdone it with the excel....
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Sounds possibly like you have overdone the excel. Or left them too long soaking.
Hope you get it under control.
 
It seems that the 4 day blackout and lowering the lights to 5 hr helped, but they (brown algae) are not totaly gone yet, also go a bit of BGA under substrate level on the front glas (up the KNO3 and put some black plastic at that spot)....

I will keep the lights down for a couple more weeks and sorting out a better/easier CO2 distribution, keeping up hope that one day it will al be perfect.
 
yes!....the brown algae are retrieving, plant are happy growing (slower than in the beginning but greener without algae covering the new leaves)...
Thanks for your help Clive and everyone else:thumbup: ...less is more in case of light so I keep my lights at 5hours and 3.6Watt per liter

The bit of blue-green algae is already almost gone too after I gave the tank more KNO3

I hope to post some fully grown planted tank pictures soon.....
 
Martin in China said:
Thanks for your help Clive and everyone else:thumbup: ...less is more in case of light so I keep my lights at 5hours and 3.6Watt per liter

I hope to post some fully grown planted tank pictures soon.....
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Great news Martin :)

Glad things are better, but don't let Clive hear you mention watts/litre, he's not a fan lol :D
 
I know that WPL is not accurate...but I'm not the proud owner of a PAR meter, so WPL is the best I can do for now...
Also my lights are hanging about 35 cm above the water which has an impact on PAR ....unless there is a free APP for my androido_O or some other way to measure PAR , a PAR meter is a bit out of range for me:arghh:
 
No, it's not the best you can do.

The best you can do is to look at the data presented in the post Dymax Tropical 36 watt | Page 4 | UK Aquatic Plant Society

Then you will see that the way in which PAR is distributed, fundamentally, is a function of the distance to the leaf from the surface of the bulb. WPL is meaningless because it does not take into account the vertical distance. So depending on the shape of the tank, as well as the shape of the bulb, the actual PAR distribution will vary.

If you use the chart, it will give you a level of accuracy of the PAR distribution that WPL could never dream of doing.

Cheers,
 
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