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Re: Starting over



>Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 16:30:10 -0500
>From: jwilson at mnw_net (Jon Wilson)
>
>I'm thinking about just putting in plants, and the cleaning crew (SAEs,
>ottos, clown plecos, etc), before I worry about schooling fish. Anyone
>want to point out anything I should look at? I've only kept goldfish
>over the last ten years, and know NOTHING about any other fish.

I guess I'm just response-happy today or something.  :-)

In addition to the fish you've mentioned, platies and ghost shrimp are good
choices for your algae crew.  If your water is harder or slightly saline,
mollies are also a good choice.

Your best response to algae in the tank can be in the following two areas: 

1.  Don't feed.  Let the plants outcompete the algae.  This will sort
itself out over the space of about 2 months, with the cyanobacteria being
the last to depart.

2.  Use the cleanup crew to help keep the algae down.

Both of these together is a very effective way of starting a plant tank,
but I will add that there are other ways too, such as using PMDD from the
start and maintaining balanced nutrient levels in the tank.  The method I
describe doesn't try to achieve an optimal nutrient balance, but rather
tries to starve the algae out, since the plants have larger nutrient
reserves than algaes do.

David W. Webb           Corporate Business Systems
Texas Instruments Inc.  Dallas, TX USA
(972) 575-3443 (voice)  dwebb at ti_com
(972) 575-4853 (fax)    http://www.dallas.net/~dwebb
(214) 581-2380 (pager)  2145812380 at alphapage_airtouch.com