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ok, my 20g planted tank is doing great, except now i'm getting alot more green spot algae on glass and rocks, I'm assuming this is because the flourish excel i started using has upped the growth of my plants and my phosphate could be getting too low, but I'm currently dosing phosphate among other things.

ferts
excel every day 2ml (reccomended dose by seachem)
seachem phosphorus, iron, nitrogen, and flourish.
reccomended dose 2X weekly (most doses around 1.5-2.5ml)

according to this website http://www.fishfriend.com/fertfriend.html i'm adding 1.47ppm of phosphate twice a week. what should my target be? do i really need a phosphate test kit?
I'll put in some pics just for the hell of it (new camera)
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c178/tsepmet/2005_1107tank0002.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c178/tsepmet/2005_1107tank0004.jpg
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c178/tsepmet/c230d84d.jpg

Cheers
Cynical

My experience with looking into phosphate test kits was that they're quite expensive as test kits go, mostly for saltwater and that some LFS's (real ones vs chain stores) will do the test for you.

I purchased Seachems phosguard to handle my phosphate problem without bothering to test (follow at your own risk of course ). There are some problems with some fish (clown loaches mainly if I remember correctly) not being able to handle phosphate removers.

^_^[hr width='40%']"Our fragile souls are falling
It's heartache every moment
baby with you
my darling with you."~[/font]

thanks forthe input babel, but i dont wish to remove it, i am adding it.
Cheers
Cynical

Cynical your phosphate (po4) to nitrate (no3) ratio should be about 1 to 10. You might want to get a po4 and no3 test kit and see where you are and how things go than after a while you probably won't need to test anymore. How much light do you have. Also some tap water contains po4 as well, so if you get the test kit you could see how much phosphate is in your water to begin with. How much light do you have? Are you using co2? And how often and how much water do you change?

Don't use any kind of phosphate remover, you adding po4 why would you want to remove it. It's just going to screw up your plants and through the test kits off. You can always lower phosphate by a water change, feeding less and dosing less.

Last edited by tetratech at 07-Nov-2005 19:11

My Scapes

Congratulation Cynical,

Your tank seems to be doing great

To my knowledge, green spot algae is considered a sign for a healthy tank.

But it cannot harm to answer all of tetratech's questions, the least it will do for us is to give you some additional (unwanted ) advice.

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

ok, more details.

2x20W flouro tubes, 20G tank remove a bit of water for rocks gravel DW etc. i assume i have a little over 2WPG
no CO2 but as stated i am using flourish excel for my carbon.plant stocking you can see in one of the pics posted above. (you can see the algae in one too)
i change my water every week, usually about 30% change.
ummm.. i think thats all.. except my tank has less fish stock now.

Cheers
Cynical

Nice tank, Cynical!

Regarding the Seachem Phosphorus dosing, if you are indeed following the recommended dosage (2.5mL per 20g) it only adds 0.1477ppm of Phosphate, not 1.47ppm. Assuming your nitrate level is 5-10ppm, that means you need 0.5-1ppm of phosphate. Of course you should already have some phosphate present in the tank from feeding, tap, etc. so you wouldn't want to necessarily add 5x the recommended amount of Seachem Phosphorus. In the absence of a phosphate test kit, I would probably increase the dosage slightly (maybe 4-5mL) next time and see if it helps reduce your green spot algae.

I don't have a phosphate test kit either and I actually use the green spot algae on the glass as a handy indicator that it's time to dose Seachem Phosphorus. I dose once or twice a week (recommended amount) depending on this and it's been working quite well for me.

Good luck!

-P

Cynical

I think your in pretty good shape. As Little_Fish pointed out green spot algae is a normal thing and isn't really a hugh problem. If you don't have any, get a small crew of otos and they will go to work right away. Hom many hours a day are your lights on. If there on 11 or more you might want to reduce that to 9 or 10. Remember whatever changes you make make them slowly and definitely keep up with the water changes (at least 30%).


My Scapes

upikabu: sorry that was a typo, i meant 0.147

tetratech: no ottos atm, i do have a small BN, my lights are on 10 hours a day.

i'd like to ad that algae is the only issue, plants and fish are doing better then they ever have before. i recently made an addition of some cuckatoo dwarf cichlids (apistograma cockatoiuds) never mind spelling, my point is, in the LFS they had barely no colour at all, within hours of acclimation they had a nice orange to them, this to me is a sign of good water!

Cheers
Cynical

How do you like the cuckatoos? Did you get a pair and are they aggresive to the other fish.

My Scapes

i find the cuckatoo's quite shy and peaceful, i bought 2, i'm unsure of whether or not i have a male and female(if anyone can tell i believe one of the pics in my original post has both of them in it) but they tend to keep to themselves. definately dont bother my neons, or my BN (although he's small he has some attitude) and my little panda cories and them seem to get along quite well, i've acutally seem them swimming together.
so i've extremely happy with them. i'm considering getting one or two more, but want to learn how to judge their sex alot better first, so if anybody could tell from that pic what i have it would be great.

Cheers
Cynical

i say change 20% of

aged

water to remove algae

aged

water is when water has been leftout for 24 hours and all the bad stuff that kill fish is removed if it works