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Re: Green hell



> >> Is it a film? Slimy and semi soft?
> > [some stuff snipped]
> > - --------------------------
> > Mine was a very fine film, a little slimy and soft.  It was 
> NOT BGA.  When
> > passing an algae magnet over it, a cloud of green _dust_ 
> would float off.
> > As Tom said, within hours it was back.  This tank was more 
> than a year old
> > at the time.  160 watts NO fluorescent, CO2 injected with 
> cylinder/needle
> > valve, heavily planted, plants all healthy, and tank stable 
> to this point.
> 
> Well I did get a sample and will take a look tomorrow. It's 
> bright green
> filamentous, of that there's no doubt.

Filamentous when viewed unde a microscope I presume?

> > 
> > I treated it like green water:  Scrape, followed by water 
> change, followed
> > by micron filter overnight.  It was back in the morning.  
> Tried 4 day
> > blackout.  It came back.
> 
> The fellow who's tank I saw had the same problem he said. He 
> did not try
> blackout. Do you have some green water blooms ever? Is your 
> water on the
> softer side (less than 5KH/GH)?

I have never had a green water bloom in this tank.  It was started with less
light though, increased after several months.  I think this is a good new
tank strategy if practical.

Water is actually quite hard:  12KH 10GH.  Tap has 0.6ppm PO4

> 
> > Tried starving it by stopping water column
> > fertilizers.  This only hurt the plants.
> 
> This method never seems to work very well.
> 
[snip] 
  It appeared to be caused by ambient room 
> light from the large
> > window.  Being spring time, with longer daylight hours, 
> perhaps this was it.
[snip]
 
> The tank where this one was at was not anywhere near window 
> light. He has it
> in the basement on the north side......it grew all over the 
> tank regardless
> of the lighting pretty much.
> BGA along the baseline below the gravel near ambient window 
> light seems to
> follow a pattern of growth in a number of tanks I've seen.
 
The strange thing is I didn't notice it much on the plants.  Certainly not
like brown diatoms.  Probably because the film was thin, and green, so much
easier to see on the glass.  If left alone though, it would significantly
block the view into the tank in 4-5 days.

> > 
> > About that time there were discussions on the APD about 
> actually dosing more
> > water column fertilizer, perhaps double, to get rid of _some_ algae
> > problems.  It seemed a bit counterintuitive to me but I was getting
> > desperate.  I had been dealing with this for weeks, one 
> change at a time,
> > wait a week, blah..blah.  I don't believe I doubled my dose of Karl
> > Schoeler's Natural Gold, but I increased it at least 50 
> percent.  I can't
> > say for sure that this alone cured the problem but within 
> two weeks the
> > green film from hell was gone, and I have not seen it 
> return, nor show in
> > any other tank.
> 
> This method is still much better than the starving your 
> plants method. It
> has not done me wrong. You do need CO2 and good lighting and 
> enough macro's
> to add more traces...CO2 and the lighting are easy. Making sure enough
> Macro's are there is the real part for myself behind keeping 
> plants. I add a
> slight excess of traces if these other items are watched.
> Doesn't seem right at first but it works.
> > 
[snip] 
> The tank's I've
> seen had either a big influx of fish or a removal of fish 
> even though the
> ammonia etc reads zero. Do you have a light fish load?

The fish load at the time was a bit high.  2 Angels (1 inch body), 30
Cardinals, 2 SAE, 8 Ottos, 4 Corys, 3 Platys.
Although I still had to dose KNO3.

> Something that grows that fast is interesting to me. It's not 
> particularly
> common but does flair up from time to time. Why this one 
> flaired up and not
> Green water for instance, is an unanswered question. The set 
> up is quite
> similar to tanks I have or take care of.
> Regards, 
> Tom Barr 

Yeah, it was interesting for the first few weeks, then it was a real pain,
then it just ticked me off :-/

Mike Grace