does a black out work for all algae problems?

i would definitely not do a blackout on that tank, personally.

i'm going to stand by my original post and add...

manually remove as much of that as you can whenever you can followed immediately by a large water change each time.

cut down on your light (i know i'm repeating my self here, but... ) if you have to, only light the tank every other day.

remove that nana from the tank, clean it up good and re-place it back into the tank under your lotus to give it some shade.
 
do you agree that the black out should be 2-3 weeks? I will set up CO2 as soon as the black out is over. The nana is on a piece of driftwood I'll clean it up. And yes it is very close to the light. how hig 6" - 8" above the tank? I will go ahead and get the dry ferts from Bob's tropical for when I put the lights back on.
I appreciate your help.
 
oops misread that you said NOT to do a blackout. I'll get the co2 up and running. I took the nana out and removed most of the algae, did you decide what kind it was or was the pic not close enough? I'm double dosing the excel with a syringe so I can measure it accurately. I will bleach the heater. How often do I do water changes during this time? every other day? And I'll order the dry ferts now. thanks again
linda
 
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no blackout necessary, imo. it's probably not going to do much in the way of ridding your BBA/staghorn issues and 3 weeks can be a long time without light even for some healthy plants.

i would start the light maybe 12" above the tank and adjust from there depending on the light source.

you should have no problems dipping the anubias in a 1/3 3% peroxide to 2/3 water bath for up to 15-20 minutes. then rinse it off and put it back in the tank. i'd definitely try to remove as much algae as possible before dipping, though. definitely do a large w/c the next day after this treatment if you choose to do it.
 
hmmm... w/c's...

you're definitely going to want to do them as you need to;

  • enough to get the substrate clear of mulm
  • enough to make sure your filter stays clean
  • enough to minimize any rogue algae spores that may be released into the water column during maintenance
  • the day after any algae dip or treatment
  • maybe twice a week once things seem to be under control for a couple weeks
  • then slowly reduce that to once weekly or bi-weekly, etc. to get back to your schedule making sure to keep other things in check
for now, it seems you'll want to do a few to get things cleaned up nice and well to avoid negative biological processes, reduce mulm and make sure ammo isn't an issue. daily might be a good goal just to break up the process of cleaning the tank up into smaller bits. this might take half a week to a week or so at this frequency.



i don't want to say for sure, but that really does resemble staghorn and BBA to me.
 
Ok
lights on for 6 hours only
co2 set up
CSM+B NPK Iron combo pack from Bobstropicalplants.com
2 ml excel daily
water changes every other day
Clean the fiter tomorrow.
already looks better since I cleaned off the nana
temp 72 F
 
Turned lights on a t 4:00 algae has gone from deep green/black to purple/pink
CO2 azoo mini pwer head is shooting micro bubbles 2/3 acroos the tank.
I hope the java moss survives
snails and otos will have plenty to munch on, but I'll take the nana out and remove more algae, should be easier since it 's dead, don't want to muck up my water quality.
dario darios seem un phased.
 
:clap:
 
ok, added frogbit to tank to help block some light, the algae did not come off with a toothbrush but is slowly releasing, I cleaned the intake tubes of algae this morning. I tripled the initial dose to start and lost 1 pygmy corie, but all others have recovered and are fine. I am currently dosing 2x's the daily dose and doing water changes before dosing the excel and ferts. all fish are fine. I was not dosing ferts on this tank, so I am preparing the ferts for my 36bf and pouring a little in the 10 and the rest in the 36, don't want to over do it.
 
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