Algae on top of water

[Torf]

Get rid of the algae and you can lose the UV. I am told that it is not conducive to nutrient dosing. I've never used one so I am not real familiar with it's ramifications.

Len

Makes sense. UV light can break down chemical bonds, causing your nutrients to take on *different* forms, or kill microorganisms. UV can break down some fairly strong bonds, such as oxygen. Ozone is produced by the application of UV light.

 

[djlen]

I'm told it play's heck with chelated Fe, and other traces.
Most people use it very sporadically, when the need is there. If you take care of the balance, there should be no need for it at all, IMO.

Len

 

[cbster]

I tested with two different test kits one is a Aquarium pharmaceutical that is about one year old and the other is a Red Sea that is brand new and they both read the same. I will be doing my weekly water change tomorrow so I will change about 70% and turn the UV off and see what happens.

I was thinking about getting some red plants since I was told there is a place not to far from here that sells them so do I have enough light and if so what plants would you recommend?

So you think I can use tap water instead of RO/DI for my Discus if I can that would really cut down on the time spent on the tank. do you think I should change like 25% with tap and 25% with RO/DI for a couple weeks to adjust them to the tap water?

And if I can use tap water does anyone want to buy a water filtration unit?

 

[djlen]

When you go to the LFS, take a sample of tap water and ask them to check for ammonia.
How is your Red Foxtail doing? It's a 55(18" tall), with almost 3 watts/gal. My guess is that you will get some pink/red in Ludwegia and plants similar, especially as they get a bit taller. Just about any red/bronze varieties of Cryptocoryne will color up nicely for you at that wattage. I've got some Crypts. growing in a 55(2.0 watts/gal.) and in a 40(3.0 watts/gal.) that are bright red. Barclaya Longifolia is a beautiful red/pink plant in my 40. I just love that plant. Red Tiger Lotus will come up fairly nicely.
Nitrates play a big roll in the redness in plants. When the tank mavens want to show their tanks, they cut back on N for a week or so and the reds tend to come out more pronounced. I would not recommend messing with your N for affect at this time, however. Let's get the green slop out of it and get it balanced first.
If it were my tank, I would go with 25% tap the first week, and see how everyone responds. Then go from there with it.
I would dose no Fe, and shoot for P=1.0, N=1.0(you probably won't need to dose much with your fish load), and K=10 - 15. Since you will probably not be dosing a lot of KNO3, K2SO4 will bring that up for you. Mg is good.
What is your dosage of Flourish? In other words, how many mls. are you dosing per week?

Len

 

[cbster]

My Red Foxtail was taken out by hair algae I just forgot to delete it from my tank specs sorry. I dose 5 ML of flourish every other or third day. I was thinking about using a PMDD regime with Sears and Conlin recipe it would be cheaper than flourish what do you think about dosing that way?

 

[djlen]

A suggestion. Go to the pharmacy and pick up a baby dropper with the little squeeze thing on the top. It should have gradations of from 1ml. to 5 mls. Use it to dose your Flourish every day. Start with 2mls./day, and see how the tank responds.
I don't like PMDDs because your tank and my tank are completely different.
Why then, would we both dose the same quantity of elements. In my opinion that's a recipe for disaster. Start dosing lightly, and see how the tank reacts to one change at a time. Learn what it uses and then you can make up your own recipe for PMDDs down the road.
Better to under dose and let the plants show you, than over dose and end up doing black outs or whatever to correct mistakes.
One other thing......the cheapest plants in the LFS are generally the best nutrient hogs. Resist the temptation to be fancy at this time. Load up on cheapie stems to get the algae issues straightened out, and then later you can replace them with nicer plants. Just my opinion.........
Were you able to get the LFS to check your tap water for Ammonia?


Len

 

[cbster]

well now it looks like from what I can guess from a description on a different forum that I have stag horn algae growing on the top part of my Sagittaria plants that float kind of on top of the water there so long. it looks like little trees or antlers that are a real dull greenish Grey. so I guess I will do a big water change to reset the fert in the water and this weekend bleach everything. I am going to try and get a digital camera so I can take some pics to show you what the tank looks like plant size and density. if there is anything else I could do please let me know.