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Re: Algae and Peat filtration

> From: "John Y. Ching" <jyching at watnow_uwaterloo.ca>
> [snip]
> My water is relatively hard, even with peat filtration, it is 130ppm Total
> Hardness, 120ppm Alkalinity, and pH is around 7.6 with 2 bottles of the
> yeast thing going. I don't have a fancy co2 reactor - just a couple of
> airstones.
I don't think you're going to get there with CO2 alone. I think your pH
is what's encouraging the dark algae growth. It still sounds like red algae
to me. SAEs should help considerably according to the reports from others
(but I don't have any so can't corroborate). You mention putting peat in
the filter. Perhaps soaking a bucket of water overnight in a much larger
amount will be more efficacious. Perhaps reducing the amount and frequency
of water changes will help too. You only need to do that to replenish some
of the trace minerals like iron and magnesium which can be found in tap
water and to remove excess nitrates if you have an excessive bio load. If
your tap water contains phosphates, you might even be exacerbating the
algae situation. Perhaps someone can comment on the use of peat for reducing
hardness. An excellent alternative is to use an RO unit to obtain soft
water, or, if you have a plentiful supply, use rain water.

Another option for reducing pH would be to use a pH reducing buffer such
as those sold at the aquarium store. I believe one of my kits came with
sodium biphosphate for that purpose but someone may have useful comments
about this.

Don't give up John! ;-) The SAEs may be just the ticket for you. If your
plants are healthy and you still have algae, look at it this way; it's an
excellent food source for the fish. Get some platys, sword tails and mollies
and let 'em go hungry for a while ;-) My fish were fine for over a week with
only what grows in the tank. I feed only sparingly. After my vacation, I have
over ten baby platys in the 75 gal. Darn hard to count with all the plants
in there now. Only the Echinodorus (unknown) has suffered from brush algae
for some reason but it has new leaves so, off with the old ones.

 - Steve