Oedogonium (?) and something else...

[EssexPete]

Green dust is only 1 mm at best. Oedogonium is about 5-8 mm long.
GDa will reattached rapidly, within a few min to 1 hour or so.
Generally on the glass.

10 bubbles per second CO2?

Something is wrong here.
3 per second is all I need for a 150 gal tank using a AM 1000.

Focus on the CO2.
The rest should follow.

Regards,
Tom Barr

The dark green algae doesn't really smell of much - a bit grassy maybe..
I think Tom's suggestion of Oedogonium is right for the algae that appears so quickly on new leaves - I done an image search on Google and it looks a close match - any specific suggestions to help here would be appreciated.

I've attached a pic of both the 'hairy' algae (Oedogonium?) that forms swiftly on new plant leaves. Also in the pic is some driftwood that is covered in the dark green furry stuff that grows slowly but surely.


Just a thought re. my apparent excessive use of CO2.
I use an Eheim 2329 bio (wet/dry) filter - as this is continually 'breathing' I guess I'm losing some CO2 during this process - is it likely to be significant?

Thanks all for your continued help,
Pete

 

[VaughnH]

Re: Oedogonium (?) and something else...

The wet-dry filter could be depleting CO2, but it also isn't necessary with a well planted tank, so why not just get rid of it? I got rid of all filtration except a sponge on my powerhead, and the tank doesn't look any different from when I had a cannister filter going. (Other than the much better plant growth now, due to my slowly learning how to grow plants.)

 

[EssexPete]

Re: Oedogonium (?) and something else...

Thanks Vaughn
I only bought the wet/dry filter a couple of months ago... and it cost over £200...

Some while ago my tank was suffering from Old Tank Syndrome and some kindly folks on another board suggested the wet/dry filter reasoning that (afaik) it turns nitrite and ammonia into nitrate thus making it more readily available to plants - which seems reasonable to me, or am I missing something?

There must be some loss of CO2 due to the breathing action, I just wondered how much CO2 I could be loosing this way..

Best wishes
Pete

 

[Tom Barr]

Re: Oedogonium (?) and something else...

I use wet drys on all my tanks over 75 gal.

You need to seal up the dry part and reduce the amount of splash in the over flow, check out the APD archives for more.

I use duct tape to plug any holes, air vents etc.

The O2 in the water saturates the bacteria in the sealed dry part, they obviously respire?

What do the respire for each O2?
CO2.........

So that is added back into the system.

Correctly done, a wet dry will have the same CO2 as a normal filter maybe a tad less, not much though.

George Booth, Steve Dixon and myself all confirm this years ago independently and with good precision.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[EssexPete]

Re: Oedogonium (?) and something else...

Thanks Tom

I'll tawl the APD archives later this eve..

I'm very relieved that the £200+ I spent is not wasted.

Now if you have any thoughts on my algae infestation (above) I think I'll be well on the way to a successful tank..

NB I think I've got GDA as well, but I've read your articles about the life-cycle so will leave the tank till it starts dying off - it's only day 2 and already I can't see the fish through the glass!! - hope they're still there

All the best
Pete