Mistergreen, at your comment about BBA - I have the exact same results. I'll have to post up some of my older articles as time allows. I'd like to see your outcome if you continue with your experience.
I think you are right about neglecting to see the beauty of algae. It became an obsession of mine after I started looking under a microscope that my brother used for coins. The first pictures weren't even that close up. Getting that microscope as a present was awesome. Best gift ever.
My belief is that there is a lot of algae problems are not algae but rather bacteria. For instance, a friend of mine was having constant brown stringy algae issues. People on the other forum kept saying it was Rhizoclonium and it was low nutrients. So he added nutrients and the algae flourished. People told him it was because he needed to up the co2. He did. It got worse. Lower your lighting levels. Check, worse. Finally he sent it to me. It was iron bacteria, Gallionella ferruginea. As an experiment, he agreed to treat the tank with low levels of antibiotics. Wiped it out nearly overnight. It is common in this side of the country and it feeds off iron, which we have plenty. Adding more micro-nutrients just made it happier. Once he got it eliminated, it was easier to stay "algae" free. The one thing that is interesting is the fact this stuff is in our water supply and you are just adding it in every time you change the water. So if you have high iron in your water, you don't necessarily want to add an iron supplement as you may get an outbreak of this so called algae.
My issue with people giving blanket statements usually don't take the time to investigate what is going on with the individual's tank. So if you receive the following advice and you still aren't getting results, look elsewhere.:
I don't have algae.
Lower your lights.
Up your co2
Up your nutrients.
Anyway, I'll be posting up more pictures and comments in the future weeks. I am in the middle of sewing a large project so I'll be infrequent for a while.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
