Dosing Easy Green with Easy Carbon & Easy Iron

[zpayne10]

As the title states, can I dose all of the Easy-line additives? I'm battling some hair algae at the moment, so thinking about dosing Easy Carbon in addition to my weekly Easy Green dose. Since I also have a few red plants, I'm inclined to also dose iron to give them some extra pop.

I want to preface that I know these aren't "one stop solutions" nor do I want to just throw them all in because it'll "be the best". I do think each have their merit, however.  Easy Green has been great, but I've also reduced my lighting schedule and am actually waiting for my Fluval Plant 3.0, so it's just a regular LED light strip for now, to try and combat the hair algae. I also plan to increase my water changes to keep nutrients more in check. But I'm hoping Easy Carbon can give me a boost. I am using the API freshwater kit to test for nitrates to make sure I'm in the 20-50ppm that is often recommended.

Clearly I'm a noob 🙂 

[zpayne10]

On 2/18/2023 at 8:18 PM, Pepere said:

I have found hair algae loves it when you dose EasyIron a lot…

I never really found much benefit from dosing easy carbon…. Well maybe that is being too charitable…. I cant say that I saw any benefit from dosing Easy Carbon…

The most effective thingI did that affected Algae growth was adding pressurized carbon…

 

I have tremendous respect for people who can keep algae to a minimum with only controlling the nutrient and lighting levers along with some algae eaters… I was never able to pull it off.  I would be in  the tank several times a week, manually cleaning, trimming leaves and vegetation choked with algae, pulling plants to treat the algae with reverse respiration, microdosing spot treating algae with easy carbon and or hydrogen peroxide…  it sucked the joy out of fish keeping for me…

 

and after putting pressure co2 in a few weeks later, I noticed things significantly better.  And then I noticed my Scarlet temple starting to show signs of life…

I have loads of respect to anyone who can balance a tank without co2….

I definitely think there is something to be said about running injected CO2. I've never done it before, and honestly I'm a little intimidated by it which it why I haven't gone down the route. But maybe it's something to consider?

[FLFishChik]

So, as it was explained to me in another thread - Easy Carbon works as an algae inhibitor because it absorbs the nutrients out of the water column. Therefore, you’ll want to wait several days after dosing Easy Green and Easy Iron together. 

[zpayne10]

On 2/19/2023 at 6:23 AM, FLFishChik said:

So, as it was explained to me in another thread - Easy Carbon works as an algae inhibitor because it absorbs the nutrients out of the water column. Therefore, you’ll want to wait several days after dosing Easy Green and Easy Iron together. 

That's very helpful, thank you! I think I'll take the "tried-and-true" method of reducing the light a few hours a day, reducing my feeding (not that I overfed, but to be safe), and increasing my water changes from weekly to 2-3x a week. Appreciate the feedback!

[Furbs]

Something to eat the algae maybe a better long term solution than balancing another additive.  Some hungry amano shrimp will munch on it