Nice algae

Oh my, look at the algae in this tank:

That spells lots of work, poor CO2 recently, general neglect.
akvarieplanter

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

I am being funny.

I've seen many tanks like this, but those where due to neglect and needed the work.

This tank specifically is trying to cultivate this.
I am trying to promote the web site here some as well.

The tank makes a strong point, many folks view algae as "bad".
But in this case and in many others, Cladophora would and does make a nice mat of an easy to grow weed.

Much like a higher plant.
The use of algae is under rated in the FW plant hobby.

Wood specific algae is interesting, and a number of other species I've cultivated are very pretty. I'd say no less than 5-6 species are very nice to keep.

With some trimming, the tank would look very nice and be easy to maintain and provide good conditions for fish and shrimp.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

There's some done on it.
Namely Japanese, I think some of the articles are not in English etc, they are in Japanese.

Here is a partial listing of references:

Blackwell Synergy - J Phycol, Volume 40 Issue 6 Page 1170 - December 2004 (Article Abstract)

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1440-1835.1998.tb00120.x

CSA

Morphology and classification of Cladophora aegagropila (L.) Rabenhorst (Cladophorales, Chlorophyta) in Japanese lakes
Auteur(s) / Author(s)
NIIYAMA Y. (1) ;
Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s)
(1) Hokkaido univ., graduate school environmental sci., lab. systematic botany, Sapporo 060, JAPON
Revue / Journal Title
Phycologia (Phycologia) ISSN 0031-8884 CODEN PYCOAD
Source / Source
1989, vol. 28, no1, pp. 70-76 (25 ref.)

http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/FILES/faculties/science/1995/f.t.bakker/chapter3.pdf

This one is good:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0028-646X(198105)88%3A1%3C1%3ANSOSBP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M

Taylor & Francis Group - Article

That should keep you out of trouble.

Note, it is a cold water species. Lives in dark spots with limited light etc, sometimes very cold water etc

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

Hardwater has more total carbon in it, thus the algae can use the bicarbonate and many have enzymes that are better adapted to harder waters vs soft waters.

I have no issues growing a number of this genus in super soft water though.
I think folks that have issues getting rid of it ( let us look at it from another perspective!) have some commonalities.

CO2 is slightly off, poor etc. This means the alga will go after the bicarbonate, not the CO2 since it is low and rapidly removed by the plants.

When the plants do not have CO2, they generally stop growing unless they have had a week or 2 to adapted to low CO2.
This alga does not likely do the same, it uses HCO3 easily............as long as it's there but like all algae, it prefers CO2.

If you mess with the CO2, say vary things between 5-20ppm every day, this algae will grow the plants will not do well. It still has plenty of CO2.
Plants? They really want stable CO2, algae sense that and they stop growing also.

Now if a non CO2 tank?
If there are neither CO2 and HCO3, then the alga has no carbon souce, this is why we see little algae in non cO2 tanks with high plant densities.

The plants are well adapted to low CO2, and thus are far more efficient at uptake. Adding to that, we have a very6 high biomass of plants relative to algae biomass and a lot of light blockages and relatively low light.

The algae are not nearly as much.

So the reasoning is pretty clear in this model.
I have not proven it, and no one might ever, but showing a lot of correlation that is highly suggestive of the model? That explains things well.

Given what is known, that model makes the most sense to me.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

Definitely harms plants.
I suggest starting the CO2 30-45 min before the lights come on so that the CO2 is high and stays high all day long.

So 20-30ppm all day, starts at maybe 20ppm and ends at slightly more, 30ppm or so.

If the tank does not get good high CO2 right away, then the plants suffer.
A waty around this is use low light for the first 2-4 hours, then blast the light after the CO2 has built up.

Amano does this, I'm not sure if he knows why he does it.
He thinks that plants need to slowly wake up etc.
They do not, they will start growing like mad as soon as the light starts hitting them.

It can make it easier for folks with poor mixing or other issues, but if you have a CO2 method that is responsive to the CO2 demands for the light set up, then it's not an issue.

On the other hand.......
Plants will take up a lot of CO2, hold it there while "waking up"..then blasting light for 3 hours will suck up all the extra CO2 and then allows for CO2 to build back up later before the lights go out.

So that works well also, but many do not have such lighting options.
You can go either way though, each method have it's trade off.

Still, I'd rather have a good CO2 method and not have to rely solely on lighting, rather, using the best of both methods is best solution.

I think ADA dioes this, but has not considered it quite in the detail I have and about why.

He does know that it works...............and gives some furry fuzzy reason why in some poem type wording, but does not really ever answer the question directly.

That avoidance of direct answers bugs me and make me as well as others that have talked and met with him if he knows quite why things are this way or that he's just done trial and error.

Many folks have done very well with trail and error, myself included.
I knew if I learned more, I could be much better able to answer why rather than doing the trail and error method.

So I went that way.
He went his.............

The above statement assumes that plants and this alga are present in the same tank. In absence of plants, then other culture methods such as moderate CO2 work well, or if you raise things commercially, why bother with CO2 at all?

Just use hardwater, shake the trays often to get a nice round ball form.
the algae can grow well using the hardwater and little CO2 present.
Simple and cheap.

Regards,
Tom Barr