Hey Tom, I've enjoyed your advice over on AGA and your comments at TPT. I've run into a dosing problem though. After switching to Plantex CMB+B after using Fluorish, I've seem to hit a snag in my dosing and I've been battling staghorn and a fuzz algae of some sort (not big enough to be bba and its not green enough to be the true "fuzz". The staghorn is sporadic, and it seems to only like my slower growing plants (Java Ferns), but the fuzz algae is really annoying since it grows only on the plants near my substrate (tried glosso, dwarf sag, micro chains, etc). This algae seems to "build up" along the leaf edges and then I have to trim and remove.
Here's what I have:
46g bowfront: 192w pc lighting (two 96 watt fixtures).
Pressurized to 30 ppm co2 via controller
External canister filters (2)
Fluorite substrate
The tank is planted rather heavily. I've had to recently butcher my stand of L. aromatica since it got hit with both staghorn and the fuzz. I've got plenty of nitrogen sucking plants (hornwort, anacharis, H. leucocephala, riccia).
My water parameters:
nitrates: 8-10 ppm
phosphate: 0.5-1 (max...never really get to 1 ppm)
I dose plantex 1 ml a day, but I'm not sure that's enough and I hesitate to add more for fear of a bigger algae outbreak. 50% water change every week.
I've tried the estimative method by adding nitrates on Wed and Friday (water changes on Sunday). I used to add phosphate, but I decided to feed frozen foods more regularaly to not worry about that.
Any suggestions on how to combat this annoyance? Thanks.
Here's what I have:
46g bowfront: 192w pc lighting (two 96 watt fixtures).
Pressurized to 30 ppm co2 via controller
External canister filters (2)
Fluorite substrate
The tank is planted rather heavily. I've had to recently butcher my stand of L. aromatica since it got hit with both staghorn and the fuzz. I've got plenty of nitrogen sucking plants (hornwort, anacharis, H. leucocephala, riccia).
My water parameters:
nitrates: 8-10 ppm
phosphate: 0.5-1 (max...never really get to 1 ppm)
I dose plantex 1 ml a day, but I'm not sure that's enough and I hesitate to add more for fear of a bigger algae outbreak. 50% water change every week.
I've tried the estimative method by adding nitrates on Wed and Friday (water changes on Sunday). I used to add phosphate, but I decided to feed frozen foods more regularaly to not worry about that.
Any suggestions on how to combat this annoyance? Thanks.