Nick16 said:
but surely dosing more than 2.5mls of liquid carbon and TPN will have an adverse effect upon the inhabitants?
Well this is always a possibility but is this a certainty? How can you be so sure? Have you actually tried it? Have you ever dumped enough TPN in a tank to kill or in any way harm it's inhabitants? I've not seen anyone actually demonstrate this. What I
have done is dump massive quantities of nutrients in a tank and the only problem I had was too much growth. The inhabitants were unharmed.
Nick16 said:
im sure you dont normally need to dose than much. i know the same old... every case is unique... but there must be another way round. cutting back on lighting for example by moving the tank (as you are going to do) this IME is a much better method, rather than using the ferts in such heavy doses to fight the algae, if the tank didnt have a lot o exposure to sunlight you woulnt need to do this, and could save on the W/C and £££
Yes, I absolutely agree that the lighting in the tank is the main culprit. However, there is an even more fundamental issue at stake. The notion that the OP's algae problem was due to adding too much nutrition is the equivalent of saying that people starve when they are given too much food. This thinking leads to trouble ultimately. As far as I can see, it's a lot more trouble to build a cabinet to house a tank just because there is sunlight? Lower the light intensity add more flow, keep up with water changes/maintenance and dose more nutrients. And there is really no need to worry about TPN harming the tank inhabitants, thats for sure. The liquid carbon products are possibly a hazard to inverts but fish are a bit hardier.
This is what a tank looks like when given "such heavy doses of ferts":
This is what a plant can look like under heavy sunlight and "such heavy doses of ferts":
This tank get massive amounts of sunlight and "such heavy doses of ferts", yet there is no algae:
I don't see this as such a burden. I mean, isn't this the point? Why shove your tank in a closet and avoid dosing just so that you can practice mediocrity? If I had to choose between amazing and mediocre, I'd choose amazing, even if it meant that I didn't "save on the W/C and £££".
Cheers,