FishProfiles.com Message Forums

cynical,

Thanks for your comments on my log, feel free to post to it any time, even if it is critical (or cynical ).

One Company that makes it here in the US is Mardel, and the product is called Maracyn (but I guess you would have found that if it would have been that easy).

Cheers,

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

aaaaaaahhhhhhhh,

Silly me,

Got it now, just a calibration test

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

when i said .25ml nitrogen i meant flourish nitrogen.
so according to the calculator http://www.fishfriend.com/fertfriend.html adding .25ml of flourish nitrogen to 1ltr of water should give me a reading of 18.9ppm of nitrate?

so using that, i tested to see how accurate my test kit was.

Cynical

Cynical,

That is very interesting, although I don’t understand it completely, maybe you can explain it some more.

I got the tank being zero, which as you probably know is not good. Supposedly BGA can fix it’s own Nitrate and that is maybe why you have it.


I don’t get the tab part: You say “1ltr tap water .25 ml nitrogen” but then you say that is “18.9ppm using calculator”

I am rather certain that parts per million is the equivalent of milliliters and as such your tab would be only 0.25ppm.

Where am I off?

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

ingo
took me 3 months to find that nana petite! every time i found a LFS that had them, it was like 1 stem half a root and 2 leaves, i dont pay $15+ for that.
if there is a lack of water movement in my tank i know exactly where it is, with my filter output going along the rear at the top from right to left, and my algae starting bottom left back corner, it makes sense, add to that i have my 2 largest plants directly in the path of that flow. does make sense.

but for not back to nitrate i got a new test kit, and first thing i did was test my test kit!

1ltr tap water .25 ml nitrogen (18.9ppm using calculator)
and about as close to 20ppm as i could tell on colour chart! tested a couple more times to check repeatability(is that a word? if not it is now) so then to the tank and a reading i could only say was 0 or damn close to.
i was expecting something more then this, considering my lights had been off for 2 days, i thought w/o plants photo.. etc. nitrate would be higher, but still 0!

I'll be on the LFS trail this weekend looking for cheap submersible pumps, but i'll turn my lights on tomorrow unless anybody thinks i should wait until i have the pump?

Cheers

Cynical

cynical,

I think your problem is based on the Anubias Nana Petite.
You should remove them, carefully wash them, place them in a sealed plastic bag with a little tank water, and then send them my way.



For real now: I was suggesting the medication just to list you an alternative to the blackout. When you feed your fish, and some flake food starts sinking to the ground, do you see it go sideways in the problem area or does it go thraight down all the way? Sometimes there is movement in some layer of the water column while lower layers are stale.

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Hi,
In glancing through the replies I did not see anyone
post a site specifically about BGA, its causes, and
cures.

This is but one of many sites (some excellent and others
just junk) that are related to your problem:

[link=http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/algae.html]http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/algae.html" style="COLOR: #FF00FF[/link]

and another:

[link=http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/hydrogen-peroxide.html]http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/hydrogen-peroxide.html" style="COLOR: #FF00FF[/link]

Hope these help...
Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

just received a new nitrate test kit from online order (aquariam Pharmaceuticals) to replace my $5 bargain basement nitrate test kit, that gave the same reading before and after w/c.

i'll do some testing tonight. and post results in the morning.
if my problem is not nitrate then my other option is water movement? any other options?

Cheers
Cynical

Hi cynical,

Looks like you have corkscrew vals, wisteria, amazon sword, and an assortment of crypts and anubias (&amp; possibly java fern on the right driftwood) - none of these are heavy nitrate suckers IME. Plus with your fish load, I don't think low nitrate is a problem in your tank. You can probably even stop dosing Seachem nitrogen and phosphorus. I would recommend getting a nitrate test kit though just to be sure.

Cheers

-P

i have moderate to high fish stock IMO, but i am known to be wrong
6X panda cories 4X otto, 3X apistogramma cactuoides(can never spell that one) 10X Neons 8X Glo-lite tetra
but i'm not a heavy feeder, i feed once a day, twice if they're very lucky. and i only feed small amounts. and on a weekend, they might get a bit extra but nothing huge.

*edit* I'm not real good at knowing what plants i have and what they're like at taking up nutrients, (i know i have an amazon sword, anubias nana petite? corkscrew vals, the other stuff i'm unsure of. maybe water sprite in there? so if anyone was able to ID some of the plants in my pic, and tell me if anymight be contributing to the problem that would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Cynical

Last edited by cynical at 18-Jan-2006 19:36

Cynical,

The only time I had BGA on my plant leaves was when nitrate level in the tank was very low due to the amount of Elodea (a great nitrate sucker) I had in the tank. I ended up removing all the Elodea, removing the BGA manually, and adding more nitrate to the tank. The BGA didn't return. Do you have a lot of fish in the tank, and how often do you feed them? If you have low fish stock, you may need to increase the Seachem Nitrogen dosage to 2mL daily.

Cheers!

Last edited by upikabu at 18-Jan-2006 19:12

-P

i'm not real keen on using maracyn anyway, after reading a few posts by tom barr, i'll try and quote him from memory,
'why use anti-biotics, when turning your lights off is free'

Cheers
Cynical

OK, so heres my problem. i have what i believe to be blue green algae. its dark green, slimey and coats my tank completely within days.

BGA pics.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c178/tsepmet/pic0002.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c178/tsepmet/pic0001.jpg

recent history.
Tank is well planted 20g long. 2x 20 watt 6700k tubes, on for 10.5 hours a day. i dose flourish 2.5ml twice a week.
i dose flourish potas, phos, 1ml twice a week.
and nitrogen and iron 1.5ml twice a week.
followed by weekly 30-40% w/c
at the time of the outbreak i wasn't dosing any excel. but for the last week i've been dosing 2.5ml every day.
for the last week i've also upped my nitrogen dose to 2ml.
i dont have a nitrate test kit.
attached is a pic of my tank, for all of you more knowledgable then i, you can look at how many and what kind of plants and possibly suggest a change in ferts?
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c178/tsepmet/pic0003.jpg
as you can see nothing special in there, swords, vals, java fern. etc.

thanks in advance for the help
Cynical

ingo,

as far as i can tell maracyn is not available here in aus, unless theres a trade name for it over here that i dont know.
only problem with a good world wide forum, people suggest something and you can never find it.
i've been to every hydroponics shop i can find looking for cheap ferts (seachem will cost you an arm and a leg here and TMG i have never seen available).

cheers for all your help.
Cynical

p.s I think i'm addicted to reading your log! great stuff, i might even post every now and then.

Oh,

I almost forgot.

When you were reading up on BGA, did you come across Maracyn as a solution to get rid of any remaining BGA after you removed the visible parts?

I used that in 2 tanks.

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

cynical,

A very small powerfilter / water pump will do the trick

Just set it up at the right front and let it blow water along the front of the tank. The Rio 90 costs $ 10 at Big Al&#8217;s (I know you can&#8217;t get this) so it shouldn&#8217;t be too expensive for you. And it is definately powerful enough.

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

as far as removing goes, i've got that under control, cleaned the tank out the other day, until almost no BGA was there, and started my black out.

before i started this thread, i had searched through all the old threads covering the topic, taking things into account like when i was having good plant growth (before BGA smothered several to death) my nitrates were always on nothing (assuming test kits are remotely accurate)

and my calculations on nitrogen dosing were an example not what i have been dosing. i had been dosing a little over 1ml twice a week. so working that out. its quite low.

I'm just trying to find the problem and to me, that amount of nitrate seems extremely low. even if my tank is not the highest of tech, my vals grow very fast (i thin them constantly) my sword is fairly large and seems to suck nutrients.

i plan on turning my lights back on soon, i believe a need more nitrate. besides buying another pump (can't afford atm) i can't see a way to create more water flow. i do have a very small internal power filter for my 5g that i may put in there. any other suggestions before i turn those lights on and hope i dont see BGA crawling across my subsrate.

Cheers
Cynical

With regards to removing the BGA:

on the gravel, use your gravel vac, python etc. Stick it in the gravel about half way down, then as you bring it up, shake it around. The BGA should come off and get sucked up in the vac.

on leaves, remove the affected leaves. Simple as that.

On rocks, etc, you should be able to take your aquarium toothbrush and scrape it off, then suck it up with the gravel vac.

You can also use a turkey baster to remove spots of it here and there.


After you do all that, do a blackout for 3 days, cover the tank completely with towels, no fish feeding etc. for the full three days. After the 3 days, remove the towels, then do a 50% water change to remove the dead algae. When that's done you'll be able to pick up with ferts and other things LF is describing

Last edited by nowherman6 at 18-Jan-2006 06:51

---

Back in the saddle!

Cynical,

First of all, the math you did is right, but you don&#8217;t have a 160 liter tank . Your tank is, if there would only be only water in it, at best 75 liters. I would assume that there are no more than 15G of water in your 20G, so that would bring that value down to 57 liters. Now, when using the calculator, you get 3.3ppm for 2.5ml of Flourish Nitrogen. That should be enough for a non high tech tank (or even too much).

I am still thinking that it has something to do with your water flow. Once the BGA starts it has to be removed completely as it otherwise will spread all over the place. BTW, you never asked how to remove it, any vision there?

Do your plants show any signs of fertilizer deficiencies, like yellowing leaves, or holes in them, or melting?

Hope this helps,

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

water movement could be an issue, the BGA started in that end of the tank, but is not limited to that end of the tank, as far as overdosing ferts, well its hard to say, flourish does not give different dose amounts for how planted your tank is. so if i assume that the suggested dosing is for fully planted tank then it doesn't seem quite right. for example.
(assuming calculator on fishfriend.com is correct.
http://www.fishfriend.com/fertfriend.html
seachem website
Use 2.5 mL (half a cap) for each 160 L (40 gallons*) twice a week or as needed in response to signs of nitrogen deficiency.

according to fert calculator 2.5ml in 160L is 1.1821ppm not exactly 10-20ppm.

so to get the pm i require should i be dosing 5ml twice a week(5ml is 4.7ppm in my tank)? or more?

or should i forget the seachem suggestions and go by ppm values and the fert calculator?

Cheers
Cynical