Re: %&$@!&# algae

["Hopkins, Samuel" <Samuel.Hopkins at marconi_com>]

>>  Ok I am having a serious algae problem. I thinks its my own fault. I
wrote 
>> a week or two ago (rookie needs help) I was using a phosphate buffer to 
>> adjust ph. This causes algae bloom. ok stop using it do some water
changes 
>> easy enough:( well I think I have more problems then that I have a new 
>> algae! :) It looks like black hairs growing mostly on plants, I read some

>> where that this is usually caused by excessive iron. 

I had the same thing. It killed all of my plants. I scraped the whole tank
(75g) tossing all of whatever plants were left. I had tried raising the
nitrates to 15ppm as someone had suggested (mine were at 0-5) to no avail.
With my newly built tank I took the oppurtunity to put in flourite. I love
flourite but it's a mess for the first month or two. Anyways within 2 weeks
I got the black hair algae back in full force. I turned the lights off for
1-2 weeks and it looked like it was subsiding. As soon as the lights came on
it came right back. Since I only had a few plants I decided to go chemical
on this beast. I purchased jungle buddy algaecide and tossed it in and
turned off the lights for a week. After I turned on the lights I noticed
that the plants were still alive, the "green" algae on the rocks was still
alive but the black hair algae was getting it's butt kicked. It's almost all
gone right now and I suspect a few more doses of algaecide will get rid of
it. 

Take it from me, just kill it with chemicals, you'll never be happy living
with it. It'll always be that algae that stopped you from having your dream
tank and you'll have to look at it every day.

Sam