Algal Rollercoaster Ride

[SuperColey1]

I'd be looking for anything that is suitable for the mid-ground or foreground of the tank since I have quite a few tall plants at the back.

Loads of options there. Anubias, Crypts, Blyxa Many other midground plants.

It turns out there is a flap that can be opened on the back of the hood which is where an auto-feeder can be installed; instead of putting an autofeeder into this area I'd be sticking the inlet and outlet pipes through it. This isn't ideal as it limits where I can put the pipes and it would be hard to stop them slipping out of the tank as theres no grip.

If it is anything like my original one that 'flap' is not for a feeder at all. IF IT IS LIKE MINE WAS. The only visible thing was the groove around the section and the section snapped out. There was one at both ends of the rear. It was for external filter pipes. Maybe yours is the same or maybe entirely different and it/they are indeed for a feeder. Very strange having the feeding flap on the back though. They are normally on the front somewhere for obvious accessibility reasons.

The guy who I spoke to still said that my algae issues are down to the brand of my 2 x 28w T5's which I believe is Philips. I believe he recommended I switch to Aquaflora T5 tubes with the same wattage as they "provide more vitamins". I don't see his logic sadly, and I believe you didn't either.

Laughable. Those Philips may well be the problem. Not anything to do with vitamins. He's been reading too many myth articles or listening to what the old school say. If anything it will because the Philips tubes will be miles better than the ones he wants you to buy and are putting out way more actual light. Forget the spectrum and K ratings. PAR is PAR and Philips are very good tubes. You already knew that though

He also believes that my Cayman 05 internal filter has an adequate LPH rate for a planted aquarium and suggested I keep it and just add shrimps to deal with any staghorn/green algae issues.

Adequate is not really a word we use. In theory you can have no filter on a planted tank but would you go that route? Adding shrimps is fine however thats not curing the cause of the algae. And they won't eat all types of algae. You would still have BBA and staghorn even with shrimps.

He then showed me the external filters he had in stock and suggested I use an Eheim Ecco 300. Would this be any good? In short, will swapping my internal for this solve my algae problems?

Lol. Your LFS man is having a bad day in my (and many of us's) eyes. Eheim are superb filters, however the Ecco range is not up there there with all their other type of flters. It has an extremely bad reputation, possibly worse than it's other 'budget' competition, whereas all other types of Eheim have virtually the best reputation (not going into ridiculous price filters)

Flow rate is 750lph which as you know is already below what we have been suggesting. My Eheim 2224 is 700lph however if using CO2 and more than minimal light I supplement that with powerheads. If you are thinking of replacing all the internal gubbins with an external you may as well just get a 1200lph+ filter rather than a smaller filter and a circulation pump.

The problem with most LFS is not really their fault. If they're not really into planted tanks or aquascaping they have missed out on all the progress of the last 5 or so years. It really has moved on immensely since then. Not just a case of adding more of everything. We have actually moved down the scale with lighting the more we understand.

If you trust me then take a picture of the lead (s) from the appliances all the way to the 'box' and all the way to the power. As long as there is no transformer involved and is just a simple case of it being 3 appliances wired into a switch box and then 1 input from the mains then it is very very simple. I will lead you through it step by step on MSN or Yahoo or something so will be live (<-----excuse the pun) and not a case of waiting for another post etc.

When I got mine I thought it would be a good idea. I cut the plugs off my filter, heater and lights and then wired them into a box (which I assume is similar to yours) and then wired the input. Was really pleased for all of a week until it came to cleaning the filter time lol. I removed it straight away as there was no way I was dragging the lights, heater and filter powerhead to the sink just to clean the filter impellor and housing.

If indeed it is as I suspect then it will be no problem for me to show you how to wire a plug onto the (now exposed) wires of all 3 appliances. 2 of which you want to keep and the Cayman which the LFS who rates it so highly will be pleased to buy. lol.

Trust me Mark. This is really simple as long as there is no transformer involved (which I very much doubt) and we will check that out as we go along.

If I am to switch to using an external, which would be ideal as I think everyone agrees that the Cayman 05 is too bulky

I would suggest a 2224 or 2217 allied with one of those cheap 2000lph wavemakers I detailed earlier....

OR

....for a stand alone filter with the turnover required Eheim 2050, 2060, 2080, 2180 should be fine. Eheims are expensive but worth it IME and the cost would be abated by the sale of the Cayman (plus the internals if it were me)

As for the UV. I used to have a full on Vecton2 rigged into my external. Not because of parasite or algae problems. Just because I was on a bit of a gadget trip at the time.

I got rid of it in the end because I wanted less restrictions on flow and of course that means fewer inline items. Didn't suffer from not having it.

No difference from before I had it, when I had it or after I got rid off it. lol

If you need a UV then there is a problem that needs sorting. Its another 'cure the symptom rather than the cause' scenario.

Let me know and we can have a look. Don't be scared matey. You'll find this very easy. Not tonight though. I'm in a big poker tourney. lol

EDIT - I'll take a picture of my box tomorrow and post it up. I used it to wire 2 lights in my emersed cupboard. lol. Saved using 2 timers or a multiple block in the wall powerpoint I mounted myself (Shhh Don't tell the landlord. lol)

AC

 

[mark4785]

If it is anything like my original one that 'flap' is not for a feeder at all. IF IT IS LIKE MINE WAS. The only visible thing was the groove around the section and the section snapped out. There was one at both ends of the rear. It was for external filter pipes. Maybe yours is the same or maybe entirely different and it/they are indeed for a feeder. Very strange having the feeding flap on the back though. They are normally on the front somewhere for obvious accessibility reasons.

Well he was right because the instruction manual is consistent with what he was saying. I don't know much about auto-feeders so I also wouldn't know where they are best situated.

If anything it will because the Philips tubes will be miles better than the ones he wants you to buy and are putting out way more actual light. Forget the spectrum and K ratings. PAR is PAR and Philips are very good tubes. You already knew that though

Could I possibly switch to lower lighting using the ballast supplied with my Cayman? After thinking over the last few hours I really think I'd benefit from less powerful fluorescent tubes. I just don't know what constitutes less powerful.

Adequate is not really a word we use. In theory you can have no filter on a planted tank but would you go that route? Adding shrimps is fine however thats not curing the cause of the algae. And they won't eat all types of algae. You would still have BBA and staghorn even with shrimps.

He said they'd eat the staghorn but didn't comment on BGA. I found it to be a little interesting how he was giving me advice on a high-light plant when he was responsible for maintaining a low-light 7-10 litre tank containing shrimp. The plants in that didn't look too good and one shrimp was dead.

Lol. Your LFS man is having a bad day in my (and many of us's) eyes. Eheim are superb filters, however the Ecco range is not up there there with all their other type of flters. It has an extremely bad reputation, possibly worse than it's other 'budget' competition, whereas all other types of Eheim have virtually the best reputation (not going into ridiculous price filters)

Well he pointed out the Ecco range because he said the "professionel 3 electronic" range (only other range they had to offer) "contained too many electrical components that are produced cheaply and they are therefore liable to breaking". Also adding this: "we have received more faulty professional 3's back than we have sold". Hopefully that statement wasn't mean't to be taken literally as it wouldn't make much sense.

Flow rate is 750lph which as you know is already below what we have been suggesting. My Eheim 2224 is 700lph however if using CO2 and more than minimal light I supplement that with powerheads. If you are thinking of replacing all the internal gubbins with an external you may as well just get a 1200lph+ filter rather than a smaller filter and a circulation pump.

He didn't seem to understand that high light equals more circulation, which should be transporting more macro-nutrients and more c02. I wouldn't mind a smaller external because my 'fish room' is very small. I never intended to have a c02 cylinder on the floor, let alone a filter bigger than my pond filter in there lol.

The problem with most LFS is not really their fault. If they're not really into planted tanks or aquascaping they have missed out on all the progress of the last 5 or so years. It really has moved on immensely since then. Not just a case of adding more of everything. We have actually moved down the scale with lighting the more we understand.

I think the arguably bad advice I received was down to lack of knowledge with high-light planted tanks.

If you trust me then take a picture of the lead (s) from the appliances all the way to the 'box' and all the way to the power. As long as there is no transformer involved and is just a simple case of it being 3 appliances wired into a switch box and then 1 input from the mains then it is very very simple. I will lead you through it step by step on MSN or Yahoo or something so will be live (<-----excuse the pun) and not a case of waiting for another post etc.

When I got mine I thought it would be a good idea. I cut the plugs off my filter, heater and lights and then wired them into a box (which I assume is similar to yours) and then wired the input. Was really pleased for all of a week until it came to cleaning the filter time lol. I removed it straight away as there was no way I was dragging the lights, heater and filter powerhead to the sink just to clean the filter impellor and housing.

If indeed it is as I suspect then it will be no problem for me to show you how to wire a plug onto the (now exposed) wires of all 3 appliances. 2 of which you want to keep and the Cayman which the LFS who rates it so highly will be pleased to buy. lol.

Trust me Mark. This is really simple as long as there is no transformer involved (which I very much doubt) and we will check that out as we go along.

Thanks for kindly offering to help, however I made some more smaller changes to the tank yesterday based on other info you and Ianho gave me earlier in this thread.

Here are the changes I've made:

-Taken my Limnophila sessiflora out and cut off 5 branches/shoots (that don't have roots) and stuck them in the substrate. So the branches are no longer close together and trapping c02/nutrients in between each of them. By the way, the amount of detritus and dead snails that fell out of this plant when I placed it upside down in the bucket was unbelievable.

- I've separated my Bacopa's and thrown the one's away that had staghorn and hair algae on.

- I've thrown away 50% of the foilage of my Cryptocoryne broad leaf plant as 'green hairs' were all over it and were impossible to remove. I cut the roots down (they were very long) and also managed to separate it into 5 different mini cryptocoryne broad leaf stems.

- I've removed 50-75% of the foilage on my Anubias Sp Nana because again hair algae was on it and it would have spread to another plant. The only remaining leaves are new growth with no such algae.

- On advice of my LFS I've lowered my tank temperature from 28 degrees C to 26 degrees C. This may slow down tank metabolism, but they actually adviced I made this change because it may have been causing my Ram "to rub/itch". Quality advice? I'm a bit sceptical.

- Lowered my macro-dosage in response to advice from James' planted tank. It says there that if you are sparsely planted then you should lower the dosage accordingly. So instead of dosing 10ml of potassium phosphate and nitrate, I am now dosing 6ml. If I get BGA as a result of this at least I know what to do to get rid of it quick.

- Lowered the photo period from 8 hours to 6 hours.

If I am to switch to using an external, which would be ideal as I think everyone agrees that the Cayman 05 is too bulky

I would suggest a 2224 or 2217 allied with one of those cheap 2000lph wavemakers I detailed earlier....

Right ok. Is the 2224 a model of Eheim?

OR

....for a stand alone filter with the turnover required Eheim 2050, 2060, 2080, 2180 should be fine.

Ok thank you.

As for the UV. I used to have a full on Vecton2 rigged into my external. Not because of parasite or algae problems. Just because I was on a bit of a gadget trip at the time.

I got rid of it in the end because I wanted less restrictions on flow and of course that means fewer inline items. Didn't suffer from not having it.

No difference from before I had it, when I had it or after I got rid off it. lol

If you need a UV then there is a problem that needs sorting. Its another 'cure the symptom rather than the cause' scenario.

I don't know if I need one or not really. I know that if I don't have one there will be more bacteria/parasites/viruses/spores and that isn't a good thing. I may be making a wrong correlation in saying 'when my UV is on and running my fish do not flick/rub as much' but based on observation alone thats the correlation that most made sense because we and other people established that nitrate and PH doesn't cause rubbing/flicking but that changes in ammonia/KH etc may do so. I know that my KH was stable and I know my ammonia was in check the whole time. So I came to the conclusion that as the ram stopped rubbing/flicking when I installed a UV (without making any other alterations), it must have been the UV that helped the situation.

 

[SuperColey1]

Well he was right because the instruction manual is consistent with what he was saying. I don't know much about auto-feeders so I also wouldn't know where they are best situated.

Strange design but there ya go. lol. I actually took a saw to my original hood to put the tubes in from the side It did have 2 openings at the back but I wanted it from the side so.....lol

Could I possibly switch to lower lighting using the ballast supplied with my Cayman? After thinking over the last few hours I really think I'd benefit from less powerful fluorescent tubes. I just don't know what constitutes less powerful.

If you are using the same ballast then you are stuck with the same tubes. 18W or 20W. If you want them to be less 'powerful' (meaning less light output) then just get some porer quality tubes. standard cheapo GE ones from B&Q should be fine. They will still use the same amount of power however 'should' be not as good r.e. PAR and therefore les efficient (less light per W used)

He said they'd eat the staghorn but didn't comment on BGA. I found it to be a little interesting how he was giving me advice on a high-light plant when he was responsible for maintaining a low-light 7-10 litre tank containing shrimp. The plants in that didn't look too good and one shrimp was dead.

He didn't seem to understand that high light equals more circulation, which should be transporting more macro-nutrients and more c02. I wouldn't mind a smaller external because my 'fish room' is very small. I never intended to have a c02 cylinder on the floor, let alone a filter bigger than my pond filter in there lol.

I think there is a bit of a problem in that the majority of old school 'planted' tanks were just that. They were just plants in tanks, there was algae, they lived with it. These days we are trying to grow plants in a more lush, healthy way. Like it or not the lights of old were way less than even those supplied as standard with modern tanks so even a 10 year old setup with a couple of 18W is going to be a lot lot more light than a tank from the 70s. No way around this really. Do we want to go back to the days of having minimal light and struggling to grow plants? Or todays minimal lighting of circa 1WPG where we can grow loads of plants.

I've never seen shrimp eat staghorn unless it is dying!!! Definately not BGA. I meant BBA. The black fluffy stuff. Staghorn and BBA go grey/pink when they are dying at which point the snails, shrimp and some fish eat them.

High light doesn't necessarily mean more circulation. It is possible to have good circulation with low turnover. Its just much much harder to achieve. There are a few people in the worls with very high light and minimal turnover who seem to get away with it. They have obviously managed to get the best out of it and it works for them.

If the external is bigger than your pond filter then you either have a very small pond or too small a pond filter. lol

The Eheim 2224 I have is approx 35cm in height and 18cm square. The Tetratec 70 (same lph as the 2224) was bigger but not a huge amount.

Well he pointed out the Ecco range because he said the "professionel 3 electronic" range (only other range they had to offer) "contained too many electrical components that are produced cheaply and they are therefore liable to breaking". Also adding this: "we have received more faulty professional 3's back than we have sold". Hopefully that statement wasn't mean't to be taken literally as it wouldn't make much sense.

He seems to have vastly different experiences than the moajority of the hobby. lol

I do know people that are quite happy with their Ecco filters however there are huge amounts of unhappy people all over the internet. The opposite is said r.e. the Professional2 and Classic users.

It's the Ecco that is made cheaply. However I can see from looking Pro3s are getting a few bad comments. lol Mine's a Pro2. Maybe the newer design etc.

I think the arguably bad advice I received was down to lack of knowledge with high-light planted tanks.

OR lack of experience with any algae 'free' tank

Thanks for kindly offering to help, however I made some more smaller changes to the tank yesterday based on other info you and Ianho gave me earlier in this thread.

Well I am going to make a 3 minute youtube video and wire a heater, filter and lights up into the box, the turn it all on. Quite literally 3 minutes You can then choose not to do what you see anyway but it'll be something for me to do.

On advice of my LFS I've lowered my tank temperature from 28 degrees C to 26 degrees C. This may slow down tank metabolism, but they actually adviced I made this change because it may have been causing my Ram "to rub/itch". Quality advice? I'm a bit sceptical.

Seems strange the LFS that advised you to raise the temp now advises you to lower the temp!!! However I remember questioning the 28C a long time ago. Rams are fine in 26C. Hope you did water change(s) after the substrate disturbance.

Right ok. Is the 2224 a model of Eheim?

Yes it is what I use (on its own) at the moment in a non CO2, low tech lowish light, ALGAE FREE, setup. I will supplement in soon though as I am going hi tec again for my rescape.

I don't know if I need one or not really. I know that if I don't have one there will be more bacteria/parasites/viruses/spores and that isn't a good thing. I may be making a wrong correlation in saying 'when my UV is on and running my fish do not flick/rub as much' but based on observation alone thats the correlation that most made sense because we and other people established that nitrate and PH doesn't cause rubbing/flicking but that changes in ammonia/KH etc may do so. I know that my KH was stable and I know my ammonia was in check the whole time. So I came to the conclusion that as the ram stopped rubbing/flicking when I installed a UV (without making any other alterations), it must have been the UV that helped the situation.

No-one 'needs' a UVhowever they can be useful. They wil get rid of free floating parasites and algae. Indeed they will get rid of anything 'alive' that passes through it however there are parasites in everybodys tanks. Healthy fish are not affected by them. It is only if the fish are not healthy that the parasites get in there. Just like algae spores. In a tank running well the algae spores don't flourish.

I would suspect if you have fish flicking then it is down to a problem that the UV may well have sorted out. By all means use the UV but try to get the parameters sorted. Then you can turn the UV off a day at a time and see what is happening, turn it back on if its a problem etc.

AC

 

[mark4785]

Yes it is what I use (on its own) at the moment in a non CO2, low tech lowish light, ALGAE FREE, setup. I will supplement in soon though as I am going hi tec again for my rescape.

So if you needed a 22" fluorescent light for purpose of creating a low-light (by low I mean, something more reasonable than my lighting scheme; 2 x T5 28W bulbs) planted aquarium, what make would you go for? By downgrading my lighting i'm not wanting more algae problems or plant growth problems, I just want my plants to uptake nutrients a bit slower. Light controls the uptake right? So, surely algae wouldn't take hold and/or plants die off if circulation wasn't at it's optimum level in these sort of lighting conditions because they won't be as hungry for nutrients and therefore won't 'starve' if there is a bit of a flow problem that isn't delivering all possible nutrients, or at least they wouldn't starve as much.

Well I am going to make a 3 minute youtube video and wire a heater, filter and lights up into the box, the turn it all on. Quite literally 3 minutes You can then choose not to do what you see anyway but it'll be something for me to do.

Thanks, that'll be great. I have a lot of ideas to act on, the one's i've acted on are listed in one of my replies above. If the action I take doesn't remove the staghorn and green-hair algae I'm going to look into possibly changing the lights or testing my water for lack of magnesium and other plant nutrients. If I still have issues growing the plants I'll tackle the circulation issue by swapping the internal with an external.

Also, I'd like to add that because I often like to do gravel cleans with this very effective gravel-vac, I think the ammonia it churns up out of the substrate may well be the main cause of the staghorn rather than a c02 issue (I haven't relocated my DC yet to see what c02 levels are like elsewhere. It's very hard to get the suction cup that it's stuck to to stick to the glass). As for the green-hair algae, well thats down to 'excess nutrients'; my IE macro dosage may be 'excessively excessive' so as mentioned in one of my previous posts, I've lowered the dose slightly.

I have a bit of BGA on my substrate starting to form now also. I think i'd be best putting my DC down there near it to see whats happening.

Mark.

 

[SuperColey1]

So if you needed a 22" fluorescent light for purpose of creating a low-light (by low I mean, something more reasonable than my lighting scheme; 2 x T5 28W bulbs) planted aquarium, what make would you go for? By downgrading my lighting i'm not wanting more algae problems or plant growth problems, I just want my plants to uptake nutrients a bit slower. Light controls the uptake right? So, surely algae wouldn't take hold and/or plants die off if circulation wasn't at it's optimum level in these sort of lighting conditions because they won't be as hungry for nutrients and therefore won't 'starve' if there is a bit of a flow problem that isn't delivering all possible nutrients, or at least they wouldn't starve as much.

The simplest way would be to reverse the upgrades for planted. Remove the reflectors and you'll halve the light going downward. Maybe a little more than halve as I tend to say without them you get 30% directed into the tank and with you get 70% with the remaining 30% lost due to restrike and other vcariables.

Thanks, that'll be great. I have a lot of ideas to act on, the one's i've acted on are listed in one of my replies above. If the action I take doesn't remove the staghorn and green-hair algae I'm going to look into possibly changing the lights or testing my water for lack of magnesium and other plant nutrients. If I still have issues growing the plants I'll tackle the circulation issue by swapping the internal with an external.

Just add some magnesium into your macro mix. Use the quantity on JamesC's PMDD+PO4 recipe look at his dosing/ Then look at what you dose and work out how much to add to the bottle from that. It won't hurt anything. (Look for Epsom Salts in the supermarket - MgSO4)

Well we still don't do gravel vacs in planted whether low tec or hi tec. The lower the tec normally the less cleaning is done. The higher tec because of the speed things move at then more cleaning is done. I use a syphon sometimes before photos but only to suck detritus off the top of the substrate. The plastic tube thingy that was on the end got binned shortly after I got it. lol

Not overly sure BGA is to do with CO2 but then I've never had to deal with it. All I can do is regurgitate info from sourcs I trust


AC

 

[mark4785]

Thanks for the input again.

I lowered my potassium nitrate and monopotassium phosphate dosage levels in response to the lack of plant mass and within 3 days it caused BGA to form and spread over the substrate so I've reverted back to normal dosing and everything is fine again.

The staghorn has gone, probably due to lack of substrate disturbance.

The green hair/thread algae is still growing on a piece of bog wood but I keep taking it out before it can spread on to plant leaves.

There is a lack of growth of green spot and green dust algae in response to changing the photo period to 6 hours.

Also, it would appear the c02 is being more evenly dispersed now that I've replaced my mini-flipper with an AE branded c02 diffuser.

So in summary things are getting better and when I feel I know how to fully control the algae (mainly the staghorn) I'll start to incorporate lot's more plantmass.

 

[PDSimon]

Good to hear Mark! Will be interesting to see what you add

 

[SuperColey1]

It is probs a combination of things but mainly the lower photoperiod is putting less strain on the CO2 demand. Thus the CO2 problems (BBA/Stagorn) are abating. The better diffuser will help too.

AC

 

[mark4785]

Just add some magnesium into your macro mix. Use the quantity on JamesC's PMDD+PO4 recipe look at his dosing/ Then look at what you dose and work out how much to add to the bottle from that. It won't hurt anything. (Look for Epsom Salts in the supermarket - MgSO4)

Would I benefit from adding potassium sulphate into my macro-mix too? I guess I'm looking for an all rounded macro-nutrient solution. The more range of nutrients the better?

 

[SuperColey1]

Should never be any need even in very heavily planted hi tec setups. There is enough K in the Potassium Nitrate and Potasium Phosphate already. Some people do but I doubt they need to either.

AC

 

[mark4785]

Another question unfortunately...

With tall growing plants like Limnophilla sessiliflora and Bacopa Australis, if you let them grow too tall (as in 25cm and over) does the plant start to put too much energy into the top-half of it's foliage and the bottom-half start to rot away? I know this way of growth applies to the venus fly trap but thats a completely different non-aquatic plant.

This is what is happening in the aquarium and it concerns me a lot because 1. they are both fast growing plants and I can't keep snipping them every 4-5 days that they reach 25cm tall and 2. I don't know why they start to degrade if it's not a natural in-built process.

Any help appreciated,

Mark.

 

[SuperColey1]

This is what is happening in the aquarium and it concerns me a lot because 1. they are both fast growing plants and I can't keep snipping them every 4-5 days that they reach 25cm tall and 2. I don't know why they start to degrade if it's not a natural in-built process.

Its most probably a natural inborn process of survival. We tend to want everything in the substrate. Most of these plants will root somewhere on rare occasions the rest floats around. Then the ones that root break off their tops and grow from the stem that is left etc

every 4-5 days is about right for pruning with high light and CO2

AC

 

[mark4785]

This is what is happening in the aquarium and it concerns me a lot because 1. they are both fast growing plants and I can't keep snipping them every 4-5 days that they reach 25cm tall and 2. I don't know why they start to degrade if it's not a natural in-built process.

Its most probably a natural inborn process of survival. We tend to want everything in the substrate. Most of these plants will root somewhere on rare occasions the rest floats around. Then the ones that root break off their tops and grow from the stem that is left etc

every 4-5 days is about right for pruning with high light and CO2

AC

So no matter what environment you have these two plants in, the lower parts will start to degrade as it gets longer, right? I was a bit skeptical that; I thought they was something missing in terms of nutrients or not enough nutrients etc that was causing the lower half of those 2 plants to die away.


Unfortunately, the algae problems have suddenly got worse. I'm totally to blame as I lowered my macro dose in response to some advice from James Planted Tank. The advice was to lower the nitrate/phosphate if you have quite a bare planted tank. The effect of lowering the dose as resulted in 3 different kinds of algae, one being cyanobacteria. So sadly I'll need to do a 4-5 day blackout to get rid of it.

It's frustrating that I need to do a blackout because some new plants have just turned up today after being in complete darkness for 3-4 days during transit. So I can't exactly do the blackout just yet as they need to utilise some of the tank nutrients/light otherwise they'll probably just die.

I have provided some pictures of the latest algae below. If someone could ID the stringy stuff on the plant leaves I'd appreciate that. I'm hoping the blackout will kill it:

Stringy Algae:

1.)

2.)

3.) Staghorn??

4.) Green-dust algae??

 

[SuperColey1]

No I didn't mean that. It's not an inevitable thing that they will degrade, just that they aren't like trees where the stem gets thicker as it grows. I'll come back later and read the rest. gotta go and do things

AC

 

[mark4785]

No I didn't mean that. It's not an inevitable thing that they will degrade, just that they aren't like trees where the stem gets thicker as it grows. I'll come back later and read the rest. gotta go and do things

AC

Ok, I look forward to your response.

By the way, I think I'm going to switch back to using TPN+. What sort of EI dose should I employ if I am to switch to using TPN products?