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i know most people want to get rid of the stuff however im looking to grow some for my ottos.. whether its inside the tank or not.

i tried to make a pet rock as cali calls it however it didnt work and im not sure what i did wrong!
i put some rocks in a glass jar in water and closed the lid i left it in sunlight for a week and nothing.

how do ppl grow algae???

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

Lol i have alot of algea in my tank. Just overstock ur tank and see how much algea u will get. If u want just let me send u some lol

Use tank water in the jar. This helps because the water is declorinated, aged, has nutrients, and already has some trace amounts of algae floating around. Perfect recipe for algae as long as the light source is good.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Thanks. Ill try using tank water from the next water change which will be this weekend.

Overstocking tanks is never a good idea Paul but thanks!

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

You can also use liquid plant fertilizers like you would use for your planted tank, a bit of fish food, or most anything that will break down and release nutrients into the water column. Just make sure to dechlorinate if you use tapwater.

Oh if you have a heavily stocked aquarium, the water from that will make fine algae fertiliser. Another prime algal fertiliser is snail droppings.

Bare tap water on its own sometimes works, depending upon whether or not the water in question contains a reasonable dissolved solids level. However, if itap water is purified properly by the water company for drinking purposes, then it won't work as an algal fertiliser.

If your tap water is eutrophied, however, because of agricultural runoff, then it'll be algal fertiliser with a vengeance. If you can grow algae in bare tap water seemingly without effort, then it might be a good idea to check the level of nitrates in the tap water - you might receive a bit of a shock. Even a value of around 10 ppm will fuel algal growth, especially if some phosphates are present as well. If your tap water is delivering 40ppm of nitrates to your aquarium before the fish have had chance to pollute it, then it might be time to invest in some means of dealing with it - either an RO unit (expensive but good for your fishes) or coupling a big vegetable filter to the aquarium and growing large amounts of Hornwort and Phyllanthus fluitans to mop up the excess.

Key ingredients for lush algal growth underwater are:

Nitrates
Phosphates
Iron
Magnesium

Supply those four in reasonable quantities and algal growth will be prodigious. Fish wastes usually supply these in quantity.

If you decide to mix a fertiliser mixture to do the trick instead, then try the following:

Potassium Nitrate
Ammonium Phosphate
Magnesium Sulphate
Iron (III) Nitrate

Just a small quantity of each of these added to the water, along with a source of organic carbon, will result in lush algal growth too. Peat will do nicely as your organic carbon source.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thanks Sham and Cali!

I may try using water from my 55g tank as this tank is stocked heavier than my 20g tank and i may try adding some excel to it and see what happens. I dont think anything was happening as i was using tap water!

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

Excel will kill the algae. I tried it and got no algae growth. Then I setup an exact same container with no excel and got tons of growth. It's been mentioned many times that excel not only helps plants grow but stops certain types of algae from growing. Noone seems to know in complete detail why.

ok thanks sham.

should i get a different fertiliser.. or just go with plain tank water ?

trust the sun to disappear this weekend!

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

According to seachem excel has around a 24hour lifespan when added to tank water. I'm not certain but I would think so long as you didn't continue to add excel to the algae growing container it shouldn't matter after a day or 2.

Hi there,
to grow algae rocks, I put a jar on the
windowsill with dechlorinated tap water,
and added a full capful of Flourish fertilizer.
It still took nearly a month to get nice algae
covered rocks.
Give it time, it can take a lot of time.


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