purplecatfish
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Posts posted by purplecatfish
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Blue/green algae is an older term for photosynthetic bacteria. There are at least five groups including purple sulphur bacteria and cyanobacteria. Most obvious aquarium cases of blue/green algae are cyanobacteria which are killed by antibiotics.
Amongst the divisions of algae there are diatoms, red, brown and green algae (there are others). Brown algae (Phaeophyta) are almost all marine and flourish in cold oceans. (Thus why we can probably exclude it as being the problem.)
Or in simple terms, Alan is right.
When you get technical there are a few holes in my comments regarding Spidersweb quote (ie. damn I forgot about chlorophyll c :oops: ) in that diatoms are photosynthetic although they don't produce starch. (apologies to spidersweb
).But I'll stand by them when you consider the quote from the krib:
Usually indicates a lack of light -
Increasing the light hours benefits both the plants and the algae, so this isn't really a cure I'm affraid.
Normally I'd agree, but in this case the algae is brown so it's not a photosynthetic one.
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Yeah a photo would definitely help.
lights need to be on for at least 10hrs a day.You might need to increase the hours even more. (mine are on from 6:30am to 9pm)
Have you done a nitrate and/or phosphate tests?
How often are your water changes? And how much?
What fertilisers are you using?
Do you use anything like flourish excell?
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I know what you mean about the box and instructions not describing the filter very well.
From what I could work out the water comes in through the top of the baskets, so the top layer should be mechanical to stop the biological media clogging up with dirt. I've put JBL micromec and sinomec in the other two layers because it creates a huge surface area. The noodles (and chips?) that come with it are biological media but there is a lot of space for extra noodles.
But the order of the foam didn't look right to me. I would have thought that you would place the sheets with the largest holes at the beginning of the flow and the polywool later. Can anyone shed light on this?
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I have no problems with my guppies, bristlenoses, peppered corys, or lemon and cardinal tetras. I'm double dosing everyday because I have heavily planted tanks.
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We're in
. I've convinced my wife and son that a little holiday out of Auckalnd is a necessity and that there's a volcano nearby.
Looking forward to putting faces to names.
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Sounds like a lovely tank, lots of my favourite plants
. The only things I can think of are the amount of time that the lights are on and incidental light from windows.
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Yeah I try not to put any chemicals in my tank if I can avoid ityou could also use purgin, as the biochem zorb it will keep the water crystal clear
I've seen a friend use one of those products or something similar (sorry but I can't be sure which one) and it worked really well at removing the tannins. But it totally upset the balance and the tank took a dive and he lost all his fish. He now swears that he won't put anything in to remove tannins, instead he recommends patience. The colour will disappear.
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It looks like a fungus mycelium to me as opposed to algae because it's grey, not green. If that's the case then the fungus threads will be inside the drift wood so any scrubbing etc won't actually remove it and it'll just grow again.
You could try a bath of something like furan2. PM me if you'd like to try it.
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:evil: Gambusia also attack other fish and are known to eat the eyeballs of native fish and various fry :evil: .
Throughout the world they have been introduced for mossie control only to be shown that they are less effective than the native fish and creating enviromental havoc at the same time. NZ isn't the only country that has them on a hit list.
We have a few stormwater ponds at work that have them in and I was looking at removing them and introducing natives for the mossies. But both DOC and Fish and Game would have to approve the process and it would cost over $5000 for the permit :evil: .
They can't make us get rid of them, so at this stage they'll just have to allow them to continue escaping into the harbour.
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Imagine if you cauld get humungous algae which devoured fish whole
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Venus Fish Traps? :lol:
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I'm after suggestions for a plant in a corner of my tank that looks similar to Tiger Lotus but without the variagation (spots).
Either green or red would be ok as there is an Echinodorus osirus in the centre of the tank and a couple of pieces of bogwood for colour co-ordination. Just in front of where I want to put it is some dwarf Sag.
The tank is 600mm tall and there are 4xT5 54watt lamps, pH 6.6, temp 27 deg C.
Thanks in advance
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What type of algae? And how big is the tank?
I've found that the 3 types of fish mentioned plus borneo suckers all help with control but not eradication of algae. Somewhere in the system there will most likely be: too much light or nutrients or not enough plants to outcompete the algae or possibly not enough algae eating fish.
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As well as what Caryl just asked, how big are the fish at the moment?
I think I can see another MTS (multiple tank syndrome) case coming up in the near future, so welcome to the club :lol:
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It's international flights going through the US.
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Your tank won't start cycling until you add some fish. So I would suggest getting a couple of fish that eat algae as your first two e.g. Bristlenose, Otto, or Siamese Algae Eater. Then slowly add the rest of the fish over a few weeks. Plan the whole community now (plants and fish) as it helps to avoid a few of the common mistakes.
It would help to know what lights you have, what's their wattage? and how long are they on for?
Also what filter do you have? and what are the dimensions of the tank?
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www.hydroponics.co.nz is the web site for Stockers. The recipe I gave is the equivalent to Flourish Potassium, so you get approx 100 times the amount of fert as you would get off the shelf of your LFS (including freight). Definitely worth making your own.
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I've found the cheapest source of epsom salts in Auckland to be the local supermarket
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I've seen a commercial breeder use bottles of ice to induce spawning in his corys....
They actually lay their eggs on the side of the bottle.
8) cool cats 8)?
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Don't ask me how the fish know what the atmospheric pressure is when they are under water.
The atmosphere is pushing down on the surface of the pond.
This relates to inducing spawning by doing a water change and not filling the tank up fully so that the fish get tricked into thinking there is a low pressure system from the "rainy season". When you top the tank up after a couple of days the nitrates etc are diluted again which confirms the "rainy season".
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Forget Switched on Gardener, they only have mixed solutions with too much phosphorus. Try Stocker Hort & Hydroponic Supplies in Tirau. 1 kg of Potassium Sulphate ($5.33 +GST) and 1 kg of Potassium Nitrate ($5.78 +GST) cost me $28.10 incl freight to Auckland.
Because I'm using Aquabasis under my substrate I'm not adding the micronutrients at the moment.
So I made up the following solution:
22.3g of Potassium Sulphate in 1 litre of water to be dosed at 1ml per 10 litres of aquarium. This gives 1mg of Potassium per litre of aquarium.
For the Potassium Nitrate it's 25.9g but I'm only using that when the nitrates are less than 5ppm.
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Hi, I've just found a couple of quotes (it's too humid to sleep, so I thought I'd tidy up some of my fish files)
"Brown Algae. Forms in soft brown clumpy patches. In the freshwater aquarium these are usually diatoms. Usually indicates a lack of light or an excess of silicates. Increased light levels will usually make it disappear. Easily removed by wiping glass or siphon vacuuming the affected area" from http:/faq.thekrib.com/algae.html
"The brown algae appears when the aquarium is young, is brown in colour, and covers everything from walls to driftwood to leaves like a thin curtain. It is easily dealt with by adding a natural enemy, the best of which is Otocinclus." attributed to Takashi Amano.
Sounds like longer daylength will be your answer, start with 8 hours per day but clear as much as possible with a water change.
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Did you know that angels naturally prey on neon tetras in the wild? At least that's what I was told.
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What I'm doing for my algae control is:
Using Flourish excel at double to quadriple dose (I have very heavily planted tanks, and I have slowly increased the dosage to this level).
Regular Water Changes, probably the most important task as it stops build up of excess nutrients.
I have aquabasis as a substrate so that provides the micronutrient requirement for the plants.
I now avoid any ferts with iron or phosphates, I know what iron deficiency will look like and I won't put any in until I see symptoms. Several blooms that I have had seem to have been linked to one particular fert.
I fertilise with either Potassium Sulphate or Potassium Nitrate depending on the nitrate levels. I used to use an off the shelf potassium fert but now I use hydroponic nutrients.
I have strong lights with long daylength (probably too long, causing what problems I do have).
I have phosphate remover in my canisters, and I prefer to over filter e.g. running a Aqua One Aquis 2200 on a 200L tank. The high filtration allows me to heavily stock my tanks but the down side is that the high food per volume of water leads to high phosphates (the second cause of my problems).
Have a species of fish or snail that fills the roll of algae eater, (I also have at least one species fish for snail control in each of my tanks).
The theory I have adopted is: to identify the algae, then the cause of the algae outbreak, and then try to get plant growth to outcompete the algae. Trying to find the balance.
Have you been able to identify your algae. The colour helps to identify the problem. Brown algae can be diatoms from too much silicates. But it sounds like you might have black beard algae?
Plants & Algae
in Beginners Corner
Posted
From the photos it looks like the algae is on the older leaves and you have some nice fresh growth. Is it possible for you to prune most/all the problem leaves off.
You may be in the process of having corrected most of the imbalance, but be unable to see that because of the dead/dying/starving algae.