Hi, Tom--
Thanks for breaking it down.
Sure, one of these days you can take a look at it --when we're both not too busy.
The 3 day brown-out (lights off with glut daily) put a major hurt on it. Prior to the brownout, I cleaned the tank (scraped the glass, wipes down the seams, did several 50% water changes etc.). It took some time for the algae to rear its head again, but sure enough, it did as soon as the photoperiod was increased to beyond 6 hours.
I also noticed the other day that I was lean on my monopotassium phosphate dosing...wonder if this contributed to the algae proliferation. Plants look nice and healthy regardless.
What works so far:
a 3 day brown out works after a cleaning to prevent the GDA from re-attaching to the aquarium walls, but it seems to come back. This GDA doesn't seem to attach plants, just the aquarium walls and rocks. Another thing I notice is that when the substrate becomes clogged with detritus, the GDA doesn't seem that far off. Had this problem in my Mini-M, too, before I tore it down. This time, it's not as bad. The tank looks totally clean now. We'll just have to wait and see if it comes back again.
I have increased the phosphates in my tank.
I have rescaped the right side of my tank and done several large water changes, So far, so good.
Will keep you guys posted.
Tom Barr;84507 said:
Matt,
I can stop by and see your GDA in person sometime and then fix it.
Mike Rubin, one of the local SFBAAPS embers was the 1st documented person in the USA to ever have this alga that I am aware of.
Blackouts do not work.
Glut will not either.
Cannot say regarding OM build up.
Never seen too rich CO2 unless the livestock/fish are affected 1st.
I would say yes to the correlation, I noted this one on 1 tank back in 2001.
I left things alone and the tank fixed itself in about 3 weeks, plants grow back well and filled in.
I'm very reluctant to suggest a BO for anything other than BGA.
You might try running lights and CO2 for 3-5 hours and see if the photoperiod can mess up the cycle.
This should prevent the plants from looking sorry and beat the algae back some.
Most algae germinate from spores and keep growing throughout summer, not much during winter.
After it's gone, then raise the time back to 8-10 hours etc.
I'd attack it without mercy while running the short light time.
Spray the glass when doing the large WC with H2O2.
Scrap under the gravel edge there.
Run a large UV after wiping/micron mech filter etc.
Tweak the CO2 a tad up if possible.
Stop uprooting plants so often/so many at one time.
It's a bit like GW, once the alga commits, it will hang on for dear life, but perhaps the photo period might say forget it and go back to a resting spore stage.
I have to have plenty of GDA spores in all my tanks, but none have ever had a bloom in what I have now.
A 20 gal overloaded with fish and light etc, did for about 12 weeks.
A 55 gallon for 3 weeks.
Not much else.
I inoculated the 20 Gal, that was the only tank it ever took to even though I've inoculated a dozen or more times without success.
