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Yet more algae...

Yes, detritus that settles in the carpet beds decay and attract algae. Many people try to be gentle during a water change but I prefer to be as violent as practicable. That way I can dislodge any weak, dead or marginal leaves and other junk. Pointing a powerhead or pump output at the plants can help with the dislodging while avoiding physical contact. Getting rid of dirt, junk and muck should be a top priority...

Cheers,
 
ceg4048 said:
Yes, detritus that settles in the carpet beds decay and attract algae. Many people try to be gentle during a water change but I prefer to be as violent as practicable.....
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Me too. I find my Bolbitis heudolotii attracts a fair amount of detritus. When I add the new water via a hose I also use a bucket and jug to pour over the Bolbitis leaves and flush them through.

Dave.
 
I had loads of dead plant matter hiding all over the place and the wafting and then siphoning certainly helps.

On the side of the ferts, recently I've been overdosing from what the maths tells us on the calculators. As Clive has pointed out, flow means that the concentration of everything (ferts & Co2 etc) will not be equal all over the tank. Therefore, you need to make sure that even at the point of lowest concentration (say for example, at the roots of my crypts) has the concentrations that EI dosing requires. To ensure this, you need to overdose and to be honest, once you've moved to the dry ferts, its cheapish anyway. If you read enough posts on here, people say that having excess nutrients does not cause algae.

My HC tends to take a week or so to get established and then goes like a rocket, hopefully when I send you some of mine, it'll do the same for you.

I know it might be a pain, but you do need to get rid of all the decaying plant matter in the aquarium or you'll be treating algae issues all the time.

My Tiger Vallis does seem to melt a little bit but I'm not sure if that's my EasyCarbo or not. Because one leaf will do well and the one next to it will be melting. I dose 5mls a day on my 180ltr.
 
cleaning of substrate even on AS i think is important. i've made that mistake twice. both times after water turns green very fast, like less than 2 days after water change. each time after clearing away as much detritus as much as possible, the water quality improves.
so now i try to suck out the debris during water change as much as i can
 
I'm hoping to do another water change today or tomorrow. I shall use a pump with hose attached to blow the debris into the water column, before removing it during the change. This should hopefully get the worst off, and then I shall in future use the syphon to suck up the debris. I'll also spot dose some Easy Carbo, until the algae's died, and then just revert to normal dosing for a while.

I'm also going to bleach my CO2 diffuser tonight, as it's a bit brown. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the help,
Alistair
 
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