75 gallon Planted Office Tank Journal

Otos are doing an amazing job on algae, but I am so overgrown on algae that it will take them a long time I think to really get it in check. They are going after the "easy" algae on the glass, on the silicone, etc. right now for the the most part. Occasionally I see on cleaning a leaf, the "before" and "after" leaves on the same plant are amazing. These should be the #1 default choice among algae eaters for FW tanks IMHO. I maybe should have gotten 15 or 20 instead of just 10 maybe. What was crazy about these Otos is that after floating them for 1 hour and then netting them, as soon as they hit the water, they immediately started munching on Algae. No warm-up, no looking around at their new surroundings, no checking out their new tank buddies, they were sucking algae within seconds!

None of the other fish really even notice them or bug them. People are saying tank is looking "brighter", by that I think they mean it's more "green" and less dark from thick algae all over tha plants. This is a total guess, but I think probably 15% of algae has been eaten so far. :thm:

FTS with new plants and new fish coming later today.
 
FTS

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New plants (little razzled since they were in the mail for 5 days)

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I tested for Ammonia today, as I am thinking I might have staghorn algae, which according to Rex could be caused by Ammonia + low CO2. As I thought, my Ammonia is 0 ppm. My Co2 is not low according to my drop checker, which has new indicator solution. So either I dont have staghorn alage, or I do, but it's not from low co2 or ammonia.

It might be Cladophora. According to Rex, caused by Low nitrate + Low CO2. Again, no low co2, but I am not sure about my nitrate. Just tested, and I cetainly dont have excessively HIGH nitrate, my color says 0 ppm. But next color is 5.0 ppm and I dont have that. I just read that for the planted tank, it's probably good for 5-10 ppm. So I need to boost this. Since I just started EI method this week, I think I will wait for a full week and test again. But this could seriously be my issue, low nitrates.

My GH as of today (after using GH booster last two water changes) is ppm 140 or 7.88 degrees. This is in a good spot.

More testing tomorrow. I really want to solve the algae issue, I dont want to have to depend on cleanup crew after the fact. I see plants come in the mail that are perfect, not a spec on algae, and once they are in my tank, they get consumed.
 
NIce looking tank!
 
Tank looks great, LOTS of growth. Good luck with the Stag Horn. High CO2 did the trick for my tank. That and remove as much as you can get your hands on.
 
Tank is really starting to take off GP! I'm glad I subscribed to this thread. Keep up the good work.:thumbsup:
 
JimL said:
Tank looks great, LOTS of growth. Good luck with the Stag Horn. High CO2 did the trick for my tank. That and remove as much as you can get your hands on.
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I am not positive on the ID, and I think I may have more than one type. My Otos are going to work on most of it, so we'll see. I stare at photos of algae, but nothing quite looks like what I have, so it's hard to tell. Growth seems to be limited to 4 plants only. The Rotala, Ludwigia, Pennywort, and mostly the Limno Indica have great growth. My foreground growth has been terrible. And I am not sure why yet, but my red plants are not red. Even the red plants I received in the mail yesturday, which were still red after 5 days in mail, have started to have the red drain out of them once they were in my tank. Odd. Some say Fe, Tom Barr says otherwise I believe. Most say it's a light issue, but according to PAR, I should have plenty of light. :confused:

Thanks for checking it out! :thm:
 
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