Tommy Vercetti

Can anyone share a link to this podcast? Thank you.

80 pounds of needy Siberian Husky! I named him "Shadow", because irony.

I have the same thing in my mixed-from-powder Macros fertilizer but it never grows in my micros. I am going to try to mix it so that the dosing is a larger amount. This will cause the mixed 500ml to be used faster. I don't know if that will help but I just wanted to let you know I have the same exact thing growing in every batch of macros. Also I did initially try to remove this with a pipette and it just comes right back in a few days. This is with only distilled water, 5ml seachem excel, NPK salts. I am interested to see what others do to combat this mold. However I have not noticed any negative affects to the plant or live stock of my aquarium including: Ottocincles, panda Cory's, pygmy habrosus Cory's, cherry barbs, rili shrimp, cardinal tetras, amano shrimp and snails.

I think that your tank will not cycle with a ph that low (6.0). I am pretty sure the nitrogen cycle would require ph 6.3 and up. I would add crushed coral to the substrate, to buffer the ph closer to 7 to 8, and then try to cycle the tank like it was day 1. Also I have read in a few places the ammonia is less toxic when the ph is under 6.2

How many hours a day is the light on? Is it on a timer? I run my lights for 8 hrs a day on a timer. That looks like green dust algae to me. I think that if you reduce the light brightness and/or duration, then manually clean the algae that would solve your problem.

I just collect the eggs and hatch them in a fluval specimen container hanging on the side of the same tank the eggs came from.

I also live in Las Vegas. My tank is GH 21 and KH 9. I use tap water. Ph is at 7.2 before the co2 turns on.

Daily, in my 14 gallon tank using 7.5ml applied directly to the algea (I use a pipette) with the filter turned off for 10 minutes.

Your KH is higher than your GH. Are you by chance using a water softener system? I thought that GH should be higher than KH. I could be wrong. I had the same type of algea and after months of tweaking fertilizers, adjusting light parameters, cleaning filters I gave up and beat it with seachem excel in about 3 weeks.

0.4 sorry about that.

Dosing a total 4ppm Fe, as a proxy, per week. but I have no way to test it as Fe test here in Las Vegas are not available at the moment.

Fluval Statum

9ppm PO4 total dose per week. Measured 1ppm after 4 weeks of dosing.

@Mmiller2001 do you think that I might want to try to increase the Po4 in my recipe?

That is Alternanthera Reineckii

I just wanted to give an update this thread. The algae is slowly losing this fight. I have been trimming affected plants. I have bumped the co2 higher and the plants have responded well. I have also purchased and installed a dosing pump to make things easier for me. I did end up modifying my EI recipe (I hope that is okay, @Mmiller2001) The new formula and Sunday test results are as follows; 3x week: 2ppm NO3, 3ppm PO4, 5ppm K2SO4 and 0.133 Fe (as a proxy for micros). Sunday after 3 weeks: Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 30ppm PH 7.2 (before Co2) PO4 1.0ppm So far this has been a frustrating roller coaster that had me contemplating giving up on this tank. But I have been reading and learning so much. As a result I have, as of now, arrived at the following hypothesis, when fighting algae in a high tech tank: I feel that the nutrients (fertilizers) should be supplied in a more-than-needed fashion and that excess nutrients are not contributing to algae growth but are helping plants grow significantly faster. I feel that Co2 introduction is limited by the fish's health. That only leaves the light intensity and duration as my last knobs to spin for adjustment. This does simplify things for me and so far I feel like I am getting much closer to the target of balance. Using this as my guiding principle has resulted in an explosion of plant growth and diminished algae. Thank you @Mmiller2001 for your help! I will post some pictures when the lights come on later.

Water change today. I tested water, cleaned filter, trimmed plants. The results of the tests were unexpected. Ammonia 0 ppm (maybe not quit yellow on API test but not enough to call more than 0). Nitrite 0 ppm Nitrates 40 ppm Ph 7.2 Phosphates 0.25 ppm I have started to double dose Seachem Excel, to see if I can kill the lingering staghorn algae.

Yes you can. The macros are: Nitrate, Phosphates and Potassium (NPK). Therefore Potassium is a macro. It is the "K" in NPK. Nitrogen is also a macro and is Nitrate, which is the "N" in NPK.

tap water should be about 325 ppm GH My tank Measured: dKH 7 / kh 125ppm Calcium 80 ppm GH unknown >180 ppm TDS 564 Can anyone recommend a GH test that can read up to the 300 to 400 ppm range? The best that i can measure at this time is to make a 1:1 ratio of tank water and distilled water, then double the GH reading on the API test strip. Tested: 2.5 ml of tank water diluted with 2.5 ml of distilled water, yields a reading of 150. (150 x 2= 300 ppm) (300 - (2.5 x 80)) / 4.1 = Mg ppm (300 - 200) / 4.1 = Mg ppm 100 / 4.1 = 24 ppm Magnesium 80/24=3.33 Ca : Mg = 3.33 : 1

Well API test strips won't work to test gh for my hard water. I maxed them at 180 ppm

Confirmed By API via email: Thank you for contacting API Technical Services. You can absolutely use the API Calcium kit for freshwater. You would follow the instructions just the same as for saltwater.

I have emailed API to ask them if I can use it for freshwater (still waiting on their reply) but I suspect that it can be used on freshwater as well as saltwater. I am having a bit of trouble getting a gh test kit locally. So I may need to order one online.

Update: The Cabomba have responded to GLA fertilizers already. I am starting to see some green growth where as before the new growth was reddish brown. It makes me happy to see that!