what is this? And more importantly, how do I get rid? EI dosing 36watt powercompact, 7 hour photoperiod. ADA amazonia substrate pressurised CO2 eheim 2224 18x12x12
Hi, It almost looks like diatom algae, but you normally only get that during the first weeks of tank startup. It usually goes away after a few weeks but I'm unsure what it is if it appears in an established tank. Hand removal and frequent water changes normally do the trick. Aquasoil does leech ammonia exacerbating the problem. JamesC will have a better idea. Cheers,
It's not a new tank, see previous thread. It appeared after the rescape I carried out on Sunday, It seems to be water bound rather than plant bound like similar algae. I've been doing/will be continuing doing 30% water changes every other day and keeping dosing high. I don't think it's diatoms, my otos wont touch the stuff.
It's rhizoclonium. http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm Usually down to neglect and ammonia problems. Shouldn't be too hard to clear with good CO2 and nutrients. Remove as much as you can whenever it appears. James
Cheer's james, do you think it was caused by me rearranging plants etc? I'll keep on manually removing and up my co2 a fraction. Thank you. How long does it take to clear?
Yep, rescaping means substrate disturbance means ammonia spikes. Green filamentous algaes can sometimes be more problematic than types of algae. Good stable CO2 is important. Keep dosing well and large water changes should get it under control. A bit controversial but if it doesn't improve after a couple of weeks then try this. As you've got AS you can get away with reducing dosing right back, maybe to about 1/4 EI levels and if you can reduce light levels a bit. Raising light higher will have the same effect as reducing intensity if you only have a single unit. I know it goes against the grain but reducing ferts a lot and light a bit can help with problematic filamentous algae. You may have to reduce CO2 a tad to compensate for reduced uptake. 2-3 weeks normally does the trick. Slowly bring dosing and lighting back up over a few days. When rescaping do large water change and cleaning of any mulm that has settled on substrate to reduce risk of ammonia spikes. HTH James
Thanks james, These are all things I wish I'd known when I started. I'll look into the light thing,my light could easily be suspended so I'll give it a try.
I went through the same thing in my Iwagumi. Rhizoclonium on newly planted HC. Getting it out of HC is nigh on impossible, so I went for a three day black out. It worked amazingly well, but 10% of the Rhizo remained, and showed every sign of growing back and taking over the tank again. What I did was use some hose to keep sucking up the Rhizo as it appeared. After a week of this, it stopped coming back and I haven`t seen any since. Dave.
The good thing about Rhizo is it doesn't attach it just sticks so when I had some appear a few months back I sucked it out at water change (just like DS above) and after a few weeks it was gone and haven't seen it since. Andy
Hmm. Thanks for the tip Dave, I too have found it absolutely impossible to remove, what diameter hose are you using out of curiosity? also what measures did you take when you ran your black out? did you dose anything before hand? Also I have hairgrass and the last blackout I did did nothing but knock it side ways.
Any more tips? So far mechanical removal isn't working for me, It only pulls the HC and the substrate up?
Patience I'm afraid. If you want to hit it hard then this method hurts most algae hard, but may not kill it. Remove as much as possible first. Three day blackout with large water changes every evening. No CO2. Dose with KNO3 and PO4 as normal dose amounts. After three days lights on and dose as normal. CO2 on. Three times overdose with excel for one to two weeks. Some plants may suffer a bit. I'd only use this as a last resort though. James
Cheers james, good call, patience is understandable, but today it was twice as bad as it was the day I posted this thread, yet I've been removing as much as possible every day. The biggest problem I'm finding is getting it out of the hair grass and hc without it tearing it out. I could try and comb the hair grass but its really difficult to manoeuvre in my tank. I'll try and get some Amano shrimp and some excel and then if not, I'll just have to take the last resort.
