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It has been a while since I last posted a photo of my tank in these forums. The most recent one was in my diary in the technical tinkering section, where I was still at the losing side in the fight against waterbloom and staghorn algae. Here is what it looked like two weeks ago:


Since then things slowly have been getting better, I've been doing 30% water changes every 3 days and cut down the light period to five hours for the first week. The plants were not really all that happy with the short light period, and started showing the etiolation effect, with long internodes between leaves and looking somewhat yellowish. However, the water cleared up real nice and now I'm slowly increasing the light period back to normal. There is still some staghorn algae, but it does not really grow all that fast anymore, while the plants are growing very fast. Take a look for yourself:



I think that in a week or two it will be ready for the aquascaping contest [/font][/font]

Wow nice tank!

Good to hear that your're combating your algaeing sucessfully. I just came back from vacation and saw algae growth on my glass walls for the first time. I hope it goes away

Actually if the back had more green algae, i think it would actually give it a very natural realistic look..

Actually if the back had more green algae, i think it would actually give it a very natural realistic look..

Yeah I agree, the only problem is that the black mollies see it as their best feeding grounds for algae, in stead of picking the leaves of my plants clean, they are almost always grazing on the back wall.

Darn it Bonke, that tanks looking good. I was kind of hoping it wouldn't be ready for the aquascaping competition, too good ! And I'm determined to win
Seriuosly gald to see your winning the battle, just a shame it's too fast, LOL.

BTW, I stole one of your ideas (I like to call them tips) and got a couple of female bettas to have a go at the snails. Haven't see them pay much attention to them yet, but they are really nice fish (first ever Bettas)A nice red one a stunning white with red fins.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Hey Bensaf,

Thanks, but I'm not completely out of the woods yet. The light period is now up to 11 hours, and although the plants are pearling quite nicely and the sunset hygro has turned a lovely deep shade of pink again, also the hair algae is growing a bit again. I'm starting to think that maybe the shrimp pellets that I'm feeding the fish (which they absolutely love) may be raising the phosphate... otherwise I have no idea what's causing it. I' bought some stuff that goes in your filter and which is supposed to trap phosphate, called Green-X... I'm a bit worried though since it also traps nitrate, which could be bad. I will definately enlist in the competition, but whether I have a real chance of winning is something for the judges to decide I've seen your tank and it looks very nice too

Sorry to hear the algae is still causing problems. I wish I had some constructive advice but luckily I've never had a bad bout of algae. And believe me it is luck rather then planning on my part !

It may be phosphates, if your plants are pearling (assume you got that DIY CO2 working) then they are in overdrive and sucking up nutrients, but as the plants need very little phosphate they there may be an excess.

Hope it works out and keep us posted on the battle.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

That's my feeling as well, I think tomorrow I'm gonna get myself a phosphate test to be sure. I'm also going to get some hornwort, I just read that the plant releases some chemicals that inhibits algae growth, which would make it a good addition to the tank in any case... now I'll just have to find a good spot for it so it doesn't look totally out of place.

Nice tank

Hornwort is also good for sucking nitrAtes dry

Do you have any Ottos in the tank? They're great for cleaning up excess bits of algae from the plants, glass, background, and just about everything else

Allelopaths.Still some debate as to whether it actually works or not.

Whether it does or not, Hornwort is definately a major sucker of nitrate so you may to keep an eye on it so it doesn't starve out the other plants.

With regard to it effecting the aquascape, it is an ugly plant IMO and it may be tricky to find a place for it, but you can always float it and take it out when it's served it's purpose.

Another plant worth considering is duckweed. Strangely I only remember hearing about Hornwort being used as a nitrate reducer, but I've heard duckweed mentioned a lot in regard to algae control (maybe it sucks up a greater range of nutrients then the hornwort). It's a floating plant so easy to control, it can take over the surface if left unchecked but it's easy enough to pull out clumps with a net to keep it in limits and it's a lot prettier then hornwort. Also if you're water is soft the hornwort has a tendency to break apart in soft water and can become quite messy.

Also was just reading about Potassium. Apparently this is the macronutrient likely to be least supply. People have reported that by supplementing Potassium plant growth really improved and that the extra Potassium enabled the plants to make better use of the Phosphate thereby reducing them and locking them away from the algae. Seems to be quite safe as most algae have little use for Potassium. Supposedly easily available in health food stores as a salt alternative (Nu-salt).

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

do you happen to know of a good potassium test? I have potassium supplement (K2SO4, it helps being a plant molecular biologist, I have all that stuff at work, the problem is mostly that I work at DNA and thus hardly know what a plant needs to survive ), but it would be nice to know that I'm not adding too much (if that is possible).

The water here is quite soft, and you're right, hornwort is one heck of an ugly plant, I have yet to decide on whether to take it or not... duckweed is an option I guess, though honestly I kind of hate the stuff, it growst way too fast, and once you have it you never get rid of it...

I guess I'll have to post another photo soon, it is the photo booth after all maybe after I've done the water change.

Sorry don't know any good potassium tests. Any dosage I've seen has been pretty vague, suggesting it's hard to over do. I did read an article where the author said he added a small pinch of the Nu-salt with every bucket of his top up water. Claimed to be very happy with the result.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

That is one if not the most beautiful planted aquariums I have ever seen. Do you inject CO2? Absolutely gorgeous. Peace!

Thank you for the compliment Naturalist, to be honest I'm quite pleased with it, although there is always room for improvement. I do indeed have CO2 injection, athough currently it is just the result of 2 DIY bottles, of which I replace the mixture once every two weeks. At some point I inted to switch to pressurized CO2, but at the moment I can't afford that just yet.

Here is btw an updated photo again of how the tank looked 10 minutes ago. Either that green-X stuff is doing the trick or maybe the plants are finally sifting out the phosphates fast enough, but the algae are on the retreat again it seems


Oh btw Bensaf, the little white dots you can see on the substrate, especially on the right side of the tank, are the empty shells of the snails that my betta girls have been eating

edit: Pancake, I have two Otos in this tank, the only ones I could find at the time, I may get some two or three more once I am at the particular LFS where I got them again, although so far they have yet to impress me with their algae eating capabilities, which are nothing compared to my mollies[/font]

[span class="edited"][Edited by Bonke 2004-09-02 12:33][/span]

Ok Bonke you are starting to depress me, every time you post a pic the tank looks better ]:|But be warned I'm on overtime to tidy up mine for the contest



That Co2 certainly seems to making a difference. It's my birthday next month and I've been dropping ever so un subtle hints to my wife on what I want (never thought I'd see the day where I'd want pressurized gas as a gift !).

That is an impressive amount of snail shells ! I have yet to see mine go near them, but I have noticed a drop off in the amount of baby snails so maybe they're doing something about them behind my back. BTW my wife was a bit annoyed I got the Bettas for the snails, she had turned snail catching into a hobby. We are sad sad people !

Agree about the mollies, they necer stop pecking at the algae. My 3 mollies are the oldest fish in the tank. Unfortunately I came home last night to find a fuse had blown and when I checked the timer on the lights the power had been out for 9 hours. No lights or filtration. I found one of the females dead and floating. I'll get another one at the weekend as my male is like a swimming advert for Viagra and will just wear out the reamaining female.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Sorry to hear about your molly, when I got mine I never thought they would do as well as they have. I used to have aquariums throughout my teens and also had some mollies every now and then, but always very unsuccesful. However, whith hindsight I now realized that it wasn't that strange since during that time I had no idea about nitrates, nitrite, etc, and I only added water to the tank when some had evaporated and after hosing off the fish-poop, which generally meant maybe 25 liters or so out of the 200, once a month. Looking back it's amazing I never really had algae problems. My current mollies are doing very well, the largest female is giving birth about every 4-5 weeks or so, and I plan to save the entire "litter" next time

The CO2 in the tank really is helping out, but I think that the extra lamp has also helped a lot, It has almost turned my tank into a bubble park, especially during the afternoon I see little bubbles of oxygen under all green leaves and rising up to the surface. Unfortunately my birthday is still some time off and I already know what I'll get (the extended version of "The Return of the King", so I'll have to get the pressurized stuff myself... maybe next month or so.