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Lighting duration and intensity
> From: "John Y. Ching" <jyching at watnow_uwaterloo.ca>
>
> Ok, George. Not an algae "problem". What constitutes "a little more than
> you like"? Do you need to clean the glass every now and then?
We clean the glass every two weeks during water changes. We expect
some algae to grow on the glass; not a problem. The various algae
eaters in the tanks generally do a great job of keeping "visible"
algae off the plants and decorations. Algae becomes a problem when
they can't keep up with it.
BTW, we still haven't found a plant-compatible fish that will eat the
green "mat" aglae that tends to grow in fine-structure plants like E.
tennellus. We still must remove this by hand. I was hoping the
Japanese Marsh Shrimp mentioned in "Nature World Aquarium" would take
care of that, but so far we haven't found a source for them.
> Not an "algae problem" - just a little more than I like :-). Well,
> actually a lot more than I like. My tank is relatively new (12 days) and
> I already had what I thought was a red/brush algae attack (I think it was
> actually just green algae since when I boiled some sample in hot water,
A new tank will cycle through many types of aglae before it
stabilizes. If you have enough algae eaters in the tank right from
the start, algae should not be a serious problem. Our 120 g tank took
four months before it was "algae free". Perhaps you need more (or a
different assortment) of algae eaters. I would recommend SAE, otos,
one or two farlowellas and some lyre-tail mollies for a new tank such
as yours. The mollies will tend to die off in 6-8 weeks due to the
lack of salt in the water, but will nibble algae quite well during
their stay.
> Oh yes, I have a 48x18x24 tank and 75% of the tank is planted mainly with
> Hygrophila polysperma, Hygro. corymbosa, Hygro. difformis, Rotala
> rotundifolia and macrandra, Cardamine lyrata, Vallisneria gigantea,
24" high, 90 gallon tank, right? I've now forgotten the types of
bulbs you have (1 Triton, 1 Ultra Tri-Lix, 2 "lesser" 48" 40w bulbs?),
but I suspect a problem because of the depth. Four "very bright"
bulbs like Triton and Ultra Tri-Lux are adequate for our 18-20" tanks.
I think they would be less than ideal in a 24" tank. Six might be
better. As always, your situation is different than mine, your
results may vary, etc. I believe Dan Resler has a 90 gallon tank with
four FL bulbs - perhaps he could comment (I think he is on this list).
> The giant vals are all turning yellow and falling apart, and
> the little "grass" plants are yet to recover from the initial bleach
> treatment. One thing I notice is that all my stem plants have a lot of
> roots growing at seemingly every branch - hopefully it's a good sign...
Lot's of roots are good. Other problems could be transplant shock,
lack of light, lack of nutrients, lack of "everything", new tank
sundrome, they were 90% dead when you bought them or almost anything.
Keep trying different plants and go with the ones that like your
environment. Try different sources. Don't panic. Reread the part
on our initial planting of our 90 gallon tank in the WWW Krib pages.
George