Fish Food = Green Dust

chubasco

Guru Class Expert
Jan 24, 2005
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Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

Tom Wood said:
It's still too early to conclude, but I think the Tetramin may have been at fault all along. I recently switched to Omega One and the problem has all but vanished. Fairly high up on the list of ingredients in Tetramin is 'algae meal'. That's dried algae. Hmmm.....

TW

TW, far be it from me to interfere with your giddiness and euphoria, if this is
indeed what has caused your problem, but.....I have Green Dust and I don't use any Tetra food, whatsoever. Maybe the stuff I have is different: with the lights off, it looks brown-green, but looking at it on edge with the top off it is a deep green and laughs at O-Cello pads in my attempt to remove it from the glass. :mad: Two of my tanks have it so bad that I am going to have to break them down and use bleach to remove this stuff, unless somebody has a magical and easier way to deal with it :confused:

Bill
 

Tom Wood

Guru Class Expert
Jan 24, 2005
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Kerrville/Austin, Texas
Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

bill ruyle said:
TW, far be it from me to interfere with your giddiness and euphoria

Now that would just be too girlie of me...

bill ruyle said:
Maybe the stuff I have is different: with the lights off, it looks brown-green, but looking at it on edge with the top off it is a deep green and laughs at O-Cello pads in my attempt to remove it from the glass.

Sounds like that new terrorist breed of green dust. :D

Dunno, the stuff I had always looked green to me and came off easily.

TW
 

chubasco

Guru Class Expert
Jan 24, 2005
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Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

Tom Wood said:
Sounds like that new terrorist breed of green dust. :D

Dunno, the stuff I had always looked green to me and came off easily.

TW

Good God, I guess there's no safe haven from terrorists. :p Well, my algae is
different then. Yours is like getting a common cold, mine is like pneumonia :(
I wonder if mine is diatoms with an outer coating of algae, really tough and
crusted onto the glass. :mad:

Bill
 

ervis

Junior Poster
Jan 24, 2005
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Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

That sounds to me like green spot algae. Green dust algae is a very consistant coat on the glass. It wipes or scrapes of easily. When using an algae scraper, the green dust collects on the leading edge of the scraper and can then be wiped off with a finger if it does'nt drift away as a green slime booger first. Green spot algae only comes of with a chisel.

steve
 

Cornhusker

Guru Class Expert
Jan 23, 2005
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Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

:) i too have been having an issue with green dust algae. been doing 65% water changes and using the paper towel trick. i increased co2 but cut light. lights,(220 watts ah supply) run lights 9am - 9pm. now 110 watts,9am-9pm,and front lights,110 watts,11am-4pm. its working. had nice new driftwood in tank that was soon covered with green dust algae. this is disappering . it may have helped that i just introduced three new bn pleco's from another tank. i mix tetra and omega dry flake food,but have never seen any corilation to algae. i have found that when algae becomes a real problem, we plant enthusiates are doing something wrong. :) regards,cornhusker
 

Tom Wood

Guru Class Expert
Jan 24, 2005
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Kerrville/Austin, Texas
Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

Cornhusker said:
i mix tetra and omega dry flake food,but have never seen any corilation to algae.

Hey Cornhusker,

Would you do an experiment and cut out the TetraMin for a week or so and see if it makes a difference? I'd like to see if the correlation I'm seeing can be replicated.

I'm using the TetraMin Tropical Granules and usually feed about three pinches into a 90 gallon each day. I feed enough so that some hits the bottom for the bottom feeders. Dunno if flake versus granule makes any difference, but it may be that the granules innoculate the tank better.

Thanks,

TW

Edit: I'm not slamming TetraMin here in any way. It's a great product. There just might be a confluence of events that lead to green dust algae in a planted tank environment. Didn't want to get TBarr in trouble here.
 

aquabillpers

Lifetime Charter Member
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Jan 24, 2005
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Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

For what it's worth, I've been feeding Tetramin staple food for at least 10 years, and I've never had a significant green dust algae problem.

I do have several other kinds of algae, although none are at the "problem" level. I have a fairly high tolerence for it.

That was a beautiful tank, Tom!

Bill
 
F

fishface

Guest
Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

for whatever it's worth, i've been using the tetramnin pro flakes and have always had unnaturally high no3 and po4 (feeding once/day very sparingly) . i just switched to OSI granules and have noticed a marked reduction in both those nutrients. have always had a bit of dust algae but we'll see if it goes away now.
 

Gomer

Junior Poster
Jan 24, 2005
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Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

I'd just like to add that I have a tank with just otos and shrimp and have a butt load of GD. I do not add a single spec of fish food to that tank.


I'm doing the whole paper towel thing and it is good for a day or two, but GD comes back fast and fierce. I'm going to hook up the UV as my next angle of attack.
 

Tom Barr

Founder
Staff member
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Jan 23, 2005
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Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

A good thing about GD is that it rarely ever bothers plants.

Have any of you tried not doing water changes for a week or two, let the alga grow in well, then wipe it off?

The times I've managed to get it, I've been unable to keep it for more than a 3 to 4 weeks or so.

Sometimes if we let the alghae complete it's life cycle, it'll go away, if we keep attacking it, it will keep fighting back.

This may be the case to some degree here.
You can also go the other way and agressively attack it before it has a chance to rebound.

UV should help after a wiping but they can swim fast in the tank and land and attach. Only if they end up going through the UV will it help, GW does not attach so that's not an issue.

The other option, peroxide the glass with a wetted H2O2 towel etc.
Then do a water change and wipe. Then blackout of the tank for 3 days.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

DavidR

Prolific Poster
Apr 1, 2005
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Re: Fish Food = Green Dust

I'd just like to post my recent experiences with it. I had some collecting on the left side of my tank, where there is no shading of the glass from the light. It would collect on the glass like clockwork after day 4-5 and get really heavy after that. I was doing 70% water changes every 7 days. About 2 weeks into adhering strictly to the EI method, I was getting annoyed. I decided to beat the aglae to the glass.

I modified my water change routine to every 4-5 days (when time permitted, but no later than day 5). I figured the spores were in the tank and waiting for the right time to jump on some nutrient issue, which I believe to be a lack of traces that was inhibiting uptake of macros. While I'm still experimenting with this modification, I just checked, and there's not a speck of green dust (I'm on day 4 today). Usually I begin to see it on day 4, and on day 5 it's readily present. So, either I'm compensating the plants with something they are usually missing by this time, or my water changes are getting rid of it. Whatever the reason, in my tanks water changes at this interval is working very well, not only to rid my tanks of algae, but providing better plant growth (maybe one in the same?)

Water changes are relatively convinient for me, but pruning large tanks after lots of plant growth takes time and can be inconvinient. This interval allows me easy wc/pruning days. Heck, by the time the water is drained, I'm done pruning. The pruning from this frequency is less demanding, particularly if I divide it up from one wc to the next. It's working out quite well in my view.