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Staghorn Algae - Tips

jameson_uk

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10 Jun 2016
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879
Location
Birmingham
I have generally had a bit of BBA here and there and little bit of GSA on some Anubias but nothing that has really been out of control.

If the last couple of months I seem to have had an explosion of staghorn algae appear. I have been treating bits here and there with some Excel but it seems to be getting worse. I don't think much has changed in the tank and plants are no better / worse then they have been. There are a load of floaters to suck up and excess nutrients (and this is one thing that did cross my mind as I used the last of the bottle of all in one mix I made up a few months ago)

Is this potentially related to a build up of organics? Filter media was last cleaned about six weeks ago and there is another six weeks before I was scheduled to clean it again. Is it worth cleaning the filter and giving any pipework a blast?

Other than stepping up spot treatment with Excel is there anything else I should look at doing? ISTR seeing that this red algae was less linked to light than green algae but might reducing my lighting levels help? (They have been set at something like 70% for well over a year now).
 
Well my tank has/does also suffer from BBA/GSA a bit like yours, but less since I started cleaning the filter meida every week and Turkey blasting the carpet. Slowly since Xmas and the fitting of my Maxspect Gyres the BBA/GSA does seem to be slowly disappaering even though I have increased the photoperiod.
Fitting the gyre reduced my pipwork quite a bit that rarely got/gets cleaned and I have better Tank Turnover OFC
 
Fitting the gyre reduced my pipwork quite a bit that rarely got/gets cleaned and I have better Tank Turnover OFC
Wow, the smallest one seems to do 8,000 lph on it's lowest setting :eek: How big is your tank?

I do wonder whether flow is an issue but I have my 1,000 lph rated Eheim classic 600 feeding a spraybar across half the tank and a 500 lph feeding a spraybar across the other half. I only run low tech, tank is 180l and LED lights are set down to 70% and flow seems to be well over what most people say I should need. 1,500 lph for a 180l tank should be more than sufficient flow.

Last time I cleaned the filter media it was quite clean anyway. I have the Eheim pre-filter which gets cleaned every week which must help a lot. I do have some new Purigen that I haven't added to the tank so I think I might look at cleaning all the pipework and adding some Purigen over the weekend. Just seems a bit off why it has suddenly made an appearance given I don't think much has changed.
 
Wow, the smallest one seems to do 8,000 lph on it's lowest setting :eek: How big is your tank?

500litres :D so I fitted twin XF330 so 9000lph each plus FX6 3500lph so 21500LPH so x43 tank to output ratio :angelic: But the FX6 is setup so it does very little tank turnover wise and the gyres are both mounted next to each other at one end of the tank 1.5m long and 60cm deep/wide, so its far from optimal to get good flow/turnover so I make up for it with powerful powerheads. Plus they are fully programmable and rarely about 50% output together, but I do have short burst in output.

I have the Eheim pre-filter which gets cleaned every week which must help a lot.

:thumbup: if the filters sponges are clean the prefilter is doing it job - cant fitprefilter on mine not enough room but have thought about it as it can be a pain to do the FX6 weekly - its Turkey blasting the carpet that gets my filters sponges dirty

I do have some new Purigen

was chatting with Clive about Purigen -

I like Purigen - except for the price, of course.

I really dislike the term "polishing of water" because it's a meaningless phrase invented by someone who didn't really understand what these types of resins actually do. They use it, the water gets clearer but no one know why, so they invent a phrase based on some kind of metaphor, like polishing furniture.

In fact Purigen, like activated carbon has an electrostatic affinity for organic Nitrogen compounds. Have a study of the thread https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/can-purigen-strip-down-useful-nutritients.26850/ for more information.
Some of the links may have died, the thread is about 4 years old.

There are also some similarly old threads floating around discussing regenerating the Purigen to save money.

At the end of the day though frequent large water changes does what all these resins do, so I stopped spending money on these.

Cheers,
Clive

I think I might look at cleaning all the pipework and adding some Purigen over the weekend.

clean the pipes :thumbup: but adding the Purigen will/may decrease the filters output and decrease the flow/tankturnover and compound the issue
 
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