amtiskaw

Personally, I think you got too emotional in that thread, and calling that guy a moron was OTT. :dunno: Nice to see DavidR jump in to give you a hand, though

That's very high. Even for a high light tank with CO2 that'd be way too much. Assuming your phosphate is also high, it could be iron phosphate killing the leaves. IMHO you need to do a big water change, and if you are dosing ferts, reduce your dosing regime.

What's your phosphate and nitrate reading on this tank?

Stockers sell potassium nitrate by the kg. Heaps cheaper than buying Seachem 8)

How much light do you have in this tank?

Cool, it'll be interesting seeing how the dry start method works out. I was thinking of doing the same when I rescaped recently, but I was too impatient :facepalm: I like your hardscape - this tank's gonna look great

Hah, checked mine and the year of manufacture was 09 :facepalm: Off to get a replacement tomorrow. Found some guides to longevity of API stuff here

Drifting off topic here, but I don't think it's reasonable to compare breasts with testes. Breasts aren't part of a female's endocrine system. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of breasts, but you're comparing apples and oranges. And removing an animals nads doesn't make him less of a male? Of course it does - that's kind of the point. I'm in favour of de-sexing dogs and cats, but your reasoning is flawed Cute puppy - I love that last pic

Hi Jen - what were you finding it deficient in, if you don't mind me asking?

Can anyone recommend a dosing rate for Stoker's trace mix? If not, I can test for iron and was thinking of dosing enough mix to get iron to recommended levels. How do people find the trace mix overall?

Ha ha, I'm not sure if that's really sad or really awesome :slfg:

I think if it's a planted tank with reasonable light and no CO2, then you should be dosing, but no where near as much as you would for a high light and CO2 injected tank. Ferts don't cause algae - you want them to not be a limiting factor in your tank. As Alan said, it's finding a balance. I had a read of a non-CO2 thread on the Barr Report, and he's recommending about 1/8" and 1/32" teaspoon of KNO3 and KH2PO4 respectively once a week or two for a 75 litre tank. You have to take into account your fish load and how many plants you have. He also recommends few water changes, as they cause CO2 swings, which is another cause of algae. Have a squiz at http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.ph ... hods/page2 - He sometimes takes a long time to say nothing, when all you want is a straight "How much, how often" answer, but it's worth a read

I did some reading on the Barr Report (great site) last night, and Tom Barr seems to think it's more a lack of nitrate than excess phosphate. That still fits in with my experience as I was dosing less of my macro mix to get the phosphate down, so had less nitrate. "Low NO3 is part of it, and often the main issue in newer tanks and tanks that are really clean and prepped well. For other tanks, often clogged filters, a lot of organic matter, dirty filters etc, seems to be more the issue. Also, if you have a lull in plant growth in general, something it will infest some plants, a bit, maybe at the growing tips. Excel might help a little, not much, but the overall effect of a large water change+ cleaning filters, + dosing more KNO3, + tweaking CO2 a bit more, etc, jujst run down all the basic items that you need to do and check them off and make sure they are in good shape."

Yep, excess phosphate seemed to be what triggered it in my tank. The macro fert mix I was using had too much phosphate for my tanks requirements. These days I use separate KNO3 and KH2PO4 dosing solutions Liam, if your BGA made a comeback in 4 days your tank must have been waaaay out of wack Mine took 6 weeks to re establish and then adjusting the nitrate/phosphate, and another blackout, got rid of it for good.

That's good to know - I'll check the dates tonight. Cheers

Does anyone else have trouble seeing the colour change in API GH test kits? It's supposed to go from orange to green, but I can't see the difference :smln: I'm pretty sure I'm not colour-blind - according to this online test, I'm not. The kit's only about four months old and the kH test that it came with is fine :-?

Good idea, Caryl :thup:

Try a three day blackout to kill the cyano. Get some thick garden bags from the supermarket and cover up the whole thing. No peeking! If you can house your fishies elsewhere during the blackout, it might be worth it as you can get an ammonia spike from the cyano dying off :dead%fish Give it a good vac and water change after the three days are up. If you see it start to reappear, do another blackout. Long term, you might need more water flow/aeration, and/or adjust your ferts/light/CO2 so the plants out-compete the cyano for resources. Good luck, it's nasty stuff but you can get rid of it

is similar to the AoE 4 Chord song

Radiohead - OK Computer + In Rainbows - 01 and 10 mix Check out this post for an explanation Great for a rainy Sun arvo tank clean session

Best you sell all your fish keeping gear and donate the proceeds to charity then. Each to their own, is what I'm getting at :roll:

Nerds! :smln: I do networking and IT security for a large private company. Used to do consulting, but I got sick of the constant travel and pressure. I still get a few international trips each year, but it's usually for audits rather than troubleshooting and roll-outs. We have a great in-house team, and the exec and board are closely aligned with IT - they don't mind spending if the benefits are there. A nice change from the public sector! Investigating Splunk for SIEM plus centralised logging and reporting at the moment - pretty cool stuff. I'll be off to Vegas for a Splunk user conference later in the year :bounce: That's one of the cool things about IT, lots of new toys to play with. If you are thinking of IT for a career, I suggest getting just enough education to get you a foot in the door with an IT provider, then learn on the job and do industry specific courses. A co-worker who left for her OE a few years ago got me into fishies. Now I wonder why I didn't do it sooner

Hi and welcome Sorry to hear about your friend. I just finished reading about the scumbag who caused the accident on the Herald site. Bit of a coincidence... I'm an IT guy too

*Crosses legs* You pay the airfare then, and I'll go for a swim :thup:

I thought their urethra seeking behaviour was an urban myth? Or are you taking the piss? :slfg: