[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Victory over Blue Green Algae!
Hi,
I've been plagued for the last nine months with cyanobacteria (BG Algae)
and finally it has waned. I stopped fertilizing the water column except for
occasional KNO3 and MgSO4. I supplemented the soil/vermiculite substrate
with Job's Palm and Fern Fertilizer sticks, but this did not mkes much
difference in the BGA.
The BGA started to retreat when I made change in my CO2 brew. I've been
using two 1 liter bottles on a 29 galllon tank. When I made a new batch, an
inch of brew was left in the bottle to innoculate the next batch. The brew
would take a few days to really get going and CO2 output rate was low but
the bottles would bubble for two months, but with two bottles and
alternating the start dates, I always had a supply of CO2.
With the El Nino rains and nothing else to do, we opened and tried the
bread maker my wife got for christmas a couple of years ago. I found some
pakages of 1992 expiration yeast, and tried making a loaf of wheat bread.
The bread was like lead, the yeast was too slow.
So next time around, I dumped a full packet of this expired yeast in the
brew, figuring at least it would provide nutrients for the yeast from the
previous culture. The brew bubbled up a storm, even overwhelming the
capacity of my CO2 reactor. Within a few days I noticed the great green
gobs of BGA were not coming back as fast after I scraped them off the
plants and sides of the aquarium. Instead, very thin light gossamer sheets
of BGA were growing on some of the plants. After a few more days, even the
light sheets stopped growing.
After observing the sudden reduction in BGA, I dumped in three capsules of
erythromyacin this weekend. That has accelerated the demise of the BGA and
my tank only has a few small clumps of it left.
My suspicion is that my tank was CO2 limited, and the PMDD fertilizer
regimen that I had been using helped both the BGA and the plants. After the
CO2 increase, the plants appear to be outcompeting the BGA for nutrients.
Paul
"BRONX ANODD" (tm) in organic forms with full American violence emitting,
is three-dimensional curves demonstrate mystic movements as if they were of
unknown life. The body with well trained muscles but no extra flesh dashes
is the dark with sharpened knife-like brilliance emitting. Now, nobody can
stand in his way "BRONX ANODD" has just released hot.
-- English language ad copy for alloy wheels from "Option, Communication
Car Magazine", March 1998 issue, Japan.