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RE: SEVERE algae problem - HELP!
First off, you have more light than me, so take this with that in mind,
since requirements with lower light are generally different... Also,
all my measurements are for a 70 gal tank.
>30 gallons
>1 96 watt AH PCF
>2 Zoomed T8s - 146 watts total
Almost 5W/gal, that's kinda high, isn't it? I'm running about 1.7W/gal.
I wouldn't mind 2.5W/gal or so though...
>1 ml Flourish per day
I'm dosing about 3 ml/week on a 70 gal.
>9 ml Flourish Potassium per week
I'm dosing Potassium Nitrate (green light stump remover).
About 1/4tsp/week. Don't know how that compares though.
>2 ml Flourish Iron per week
That seems real low compared to the above. IIRC, I'm dosing about
15ml/week.
>ph 6.8 -pressurized co2 fed into Duetto internal
>filter
>1 additional Duetto for circulation
That looks good to me.
>GH 7 dGH
>KH 6 (currently- usually 5)
No problem there...
>After I hooked up the pressurized co2, things grew
>like crazy and pearled heavily for a while before stopping.
Nutrient limited at that point. Don't know what though.
>Longer internodes, more algae, and a stringy, greyish
>green slime crap. Erythromycin did not kill the slime
>strands, which look kind of like bacteria.
I try to use meds as a last resort. If you can balance your
nutrients, it should clear up. Prior to getting my nutrients
balanced, I had a MAJOR problem with BGA. It was everywhere.
When I got my nutrients balanced, I saw it slowly retreat.
Took over two months for it to go away completely.
>Adding two Seachem acid buffer scoops of kno3 (.87
>grams each) three times a week produced a reading of
>zero using a Lamotte kit a day after adding the dose.
Not knowing the concentration, that sounds high. That's
almost 6 grams of kno3/week.
<snip more chemistry...>
Ok... This is what I'd recommend. STOP adding all the
chemicals. Do a 25% water change twice a week for a
month or so. Manually remove whatever algae you can as
often as you can and vacuum the gravel. This will also
remove some of the chemicals and provide more light for
your plants. Hopefully this will get your chemistry
back in line if not a little deficient. (not necessarily
a bad thing!) I'd back off on the light as well.
After you get the chemistry down a bit, consider a much more
conservative dosing schedule. I'd start with the conlin/sears
methodology and tweak it for your situation. That's what I did,
and it seems to be working pretty well. You appear to be
nitrate limited at one point, then you added a bunch of
nitrate, then I was thinking phosphate, but you added a bunch
of that as well. Its possible you just have too much stuff in
your water and are not limited at all, so the algae is going
nuts. The idea is to limit nutrients to the point that algae
is out competed by the plants. When there is no limit, the
algae WILL go nuts. DAMHIKT :)