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BrownAlgae/ Flourish
Z28Camaro2000 at aol_com wrote:
> My tank is lighted by 160 watts of 3 40 watt Spectralite full spectrum
bulbs
> and 1 chrom 50 light bulb. The light is on 12 hours per day. My Co2 is not
> diy and with the needle valve comes out 1 to 3 bubbles per second. My
filter
> is the new fluval 404. I have many different plants cryptocornes,
hygrophlia
> stricta, hygro difformis, hygro polysperma, alternathera reinekki,
cabomba,
> ambulia, the cardinal plant, glosstigma, etc. I fertilize by 4 ml of
> flourish iron every day and 4 ml of flourish every other day. My substrate
is
> fertilized by jobes plant spikes. I do a 1/3 water change every 10 days.
> This brown algae seems to be choking my plants like Ambulia's fine leaves,
> Diliplis diandra, parrots feather. Surprisingly the cabomba does not have
any
> algae and is looking very good. Now other plants like the bottom of the
> hygro stems their leaves have green spot algae developing and glosstigmas
> > leaves have the green spots and so do all the the cryptocornes. My
ammonia
> and nitrite levels are undetectable. No sunlight really gets to the tank.
You don't say how large your tank is, but if you're growing Cabomba
successfully it's probably safe to assume you've got a good watt/gallon
ratio. Do you know what your phosphate level is? With 0 nitrate you're
likely nitrate-limited, meaning there is likely to be PO4 available for
algae consumption. If that's the case then you'll want to shift your
nutient mix a bit until the tank is phosphate-limited, meaning you'll see
measurable NO3 in the water column. I've had horrible, suffocating green
spot algae on my Anubias barteri when my tank was nitrate-limited. Once I
changed strategies (phosphate-limited) the algae never returned - after
manually cleaning it off.
Is your brown algae really a diatom? I've had this problem (seems I've had
a LOT of these types of problems) when initially setting up my tank. My
otos loved the stuff. It disappeared as things progressed - can't really
tell you why.
--------------------------------
michael rubin
mrubin at visa_com
1(650) 432-4685