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Re: GW Algae


 Dr Athale writes:

> If blackout is done for green water alge, will it not cause problems for
> photosynthesis by other plants and affect their growth or kill them?

 I just signed on to this forum and after reading a few digests
 saw this thread dealing with green water algae. I just converted
 a 20gal to a planted aquarium. I'm using one of these high output
 florescents (55W) along with a Hagan filter. Things were going
 very well. I was also using Tropica Master Grow for trace elements.
 I'll not go into all the details of this setup. The gist of it
 is that after a few months of wonderful growth with regular
 water changes things changed. For reasons, I was not able to
 change the water for a month and had a magnificent bloom of
 volvox which I think is also referred to as green water algae.
 I also was overun with green hair algae. What a mess. I removed
 as much hair algae as I could by hand and started large regular
 water changes. The water changes reduced the volvox but only
 by diluting it.  Nothing affected the hair algae.

 I purchased Diane Walstad's book and applied her suggested
 solution of replacing the light source with a cool white
 and regularly replacing the charcoal in the filter. The cool
 white would limit the Fe availability to the algae and the
 charcoal changes would eliminate the toxins from the dead
 algae. I was skeptical but this was a pretty cheap solution.
 After 4 days the water is now almost crystal clear and the
 hair algae is mostly gone - it is definitely on a rapid decline.
 The rest of the plants (slow growers and many fast growers) are
 all doing well. They show no signs of stress. When I feel the
 infestation is over I'll go back to my original light and see
 how goes.

 I expect to continue with a lot of experimentation in this and
 I have no idea how permanent this solution is. I'm not suggesting
 that this is THE solution by any means, but it is working right
 now for me. I just pass it on for what's worth. If you feel like
 you've tried just about everything with no success you may want
 to give it a try.

 Jim Cocks - Louisville, Ky