art_b

Further research on barley straw, it does not kill algae but prevent formation of algae cells. So maybe it is not a good idea for fish tank

I went to Palmers this morning. I saw this Extract of Barley Straw which states eliminate green water and algae on ponds. I think this should also work with fish tank. I've read about barley straw somewhere on the web regarding algae control. Maybe it is a better alternative to algaecide as a last resort.

My hair algae is mostly gone. The floating indian fern has multiplied and growing like weeds and is blocking the light below, so I increased my photoperiod to 10 hrs/day. It has been a week now. I stopped doing trace fertilizers. Just dosing nitrate, potassium, and magnesium daily, and did 50% WC weekly. I think it is the excess iron and the intensity of T5 lights that is contributing to hair algae. Removing infected leaves, and injecting excel with a syringe also helped. FYI, I have pressurized CO2. For cyanobacteria, I have used erythromycin, but it kept coming back until I started injecting CO2 (yeast method initially).

Maybe you can try algae vs algae. By promoting another algae which is less harmful and easy to control like green spot algae, it will out compete the staghorn algae. See this long but informative article http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/foru ... mmary.html

Try adding floating plants such as indian fern. They suck up nutrients quickly and block a bit of light coming through. My hair algae are on top of the stem plants which indicates too intense light at the top. I reduce my photoperiod to 8 hours (4 hours on, 4 hours off, 4 hours on). Excel also helped. After 2 week, the hair algae doesn't look too bad. When the my indian fern started to grow, I noticed that it is not affected by algae. I will probably increase the photoperiod back to 10 or 12 hours (eliminating the siesta period) when the indian fern starts to block a fair amount of light below.

I don't know how much H2O2 you put in your tank, but if there were fish death, then you put more H2O2 than you should. See this thread http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/foru ... mover.html which discussed people's experience with H2O2. I've dosed 2ml/gallon 3% H2O2 solution directly with a syringe, and reduce my lights down to 8 hours per day. There are still algae, but it is not as bad as before. Maybe I can bump it up to 3ml/gallon without affecting the fish, but then I've decided to use Flourish Excel.

Try increasing nitrates to at least 10. At some point you might have bottomed out to 0 ppm nitrates which triggers cyanobacteria. Mine kept coming back even after dosing erythromycin. But after I added CO2, and not let my nitrates go to 0 ppm, the algae did not come back.

35% H2O2. That is way too much. I only used 3% H2O2 with a syringe directly on the algae.

I have the same tank dimension as yours 36x18x18. I have the Hagen Glo T5HO 39x2 watts. For me, it is too much light if I don't have CO2. I have problems with algae. Now I have CO2. If you want to go for 4 lights ( more than 2 watts per gallon ), you must have lots of plants, pressurized CO2, and not missed on your fertilising regime.

I see ... now I get it :lol:

Forgive my ignorance. What is Red Shed ? When I google, it shows the Warehouse, a storage rental, an art studio, etc. When I searched for Red Shed in Auckland on whitepages.co.nz, it did not find anything.

Thanks for the info. The Pure Dew water from Foodtown cost me $2.80 for 3L.

I found one in Foodtown. It is Pure Dew ultra-pure water bottled by NZ Distilled Water, Ltd. Thanks for your replies.

I went to Countdown, petrol stations, a chemist and I couldn't find distilled water. Hope you there can tell me where I can get one. Wanted to mix a 4dKH solution for my drop checker. So I really don't need that much.

I've seen this online store on ebay which is based in Hong Kong. It sells CO2 regulator dual gauged + solenoid magnetic valve for normal CO2 cylinders (not disposable). The CO2 equipment is very affordable and it is made in Taiwan by UP. Has anybody used this and what is your experience with it. I am looking at getting one at some point. I also want to know if it will fit NZ cylinders. The specs is 22mm in diameter and thread is UK, Europe, Japan, Taiwan standard (JIS m22-14). I'm getting tired of DIY CO2 which slows down during winter.

This algae is also an indication of calcium / magnesium imbalance. Are you fertilising with magnesium (eg. epsom salts) ?

My heater was not calibrated properly and tank temp was 31 C for about a month ! Fish seems ok. Adjusted my heater temp. Now I get 27C in am and 29C in afternoon. This is because of the hot weather, and not the heater.

I always have cloudy water after doing a big water change after medicating the tank. There is not enough good bacteria in your filter to fight the bad bacteria that cause cloudy water. Water change does not work, because you also remove the good bacteria as well as the bad. You need time for the good bacteria to colonise your filter. Just ignore the tank for about a week or so, don't feed the fish, don't prune the plants, and the cloudy water should go away. The trick is not to feed the bad bacteria and get the good bacteria colonised. If you are impatient, you can used a UV sterilizer. It will clear it in 3 days. I used green killing machine uv sterizer which is reasonable in price. I got mine in Hollywood Fish Farm. This will kill bacteria and free algae floating in the water. You can try Seachem Stability to fast track populating the good bacteria on your filter, although I have not tried this method on cloudy water. I use stability after I clean the filter or add new fish.

Thanks for your ideas. There is no sodium from calcium sources above. I'm just quoting from Seachem http://www.seachem.com/Products/product ... brium.html that chloride and sodium may not be good for plants. If I use aragonite in a filter, how quick and how much will it increase my GH, (and KH and PH) and how do you control it. Regards

Calcium chloride was my first choice when I started looking for a calcium source. But from Seachem website, they mentioned that chloride and sodium at elevated levels are not very good to plants. Has anyone has success with calcium chloride on planted tanks ? How long have you been dosing with calcium chloride ? And how much ? Regards

My tap water is too soft (2 dGH). I want to harden the water that goes to my tank by adding calcium and magnesium. Magnesium is easy to get as epsom salt (MgSO4·7H2O). I'm trying to look for lab grade calcium sulfate (CaSO4). Does anybody know where I can get them ? Regards

Anybody have experience with rainbow fish ? First, they ate all my duckweed. Now, they are taking bites out of my hygrophila polysmerma. I feed them standard flakes, and also spirulina flakes. Are there any other food I should be feeding them, so they will leave my plants alone.

In my case, the old leaves of my hygrophila and crypts rot when new leaves grow. This is a deficiency in either potassium, phosphorous, or nitrogen. I dosed with Flourish Potassium, and problem solved. When my DIY CO2 is working, I am more adventurous and keep my nitrate level to 10 ppm and phosphate to 2 ppm. My hygrophila will grow like weeds requiring pruning once or twice weekly.

Steves, Did you use normal dose of excel to get rid of your green thread algae, or did you double-dose ?

It looks like black beard algae. Have a look around at this site http://aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/2006/ ... algae.html . It has lots of information on algae. I got rid of this algae by using fast growing plants and CO2. IMO, SAE does not help much unless you starve them.