3 Day Blackout ???

[Dr. Scroggins..]

I've posted pictures in my last thread "Algae ID" and I’m still waiting on a few tests kits, but in the mean time I thought I might try a 3 day blackout to try and rid my tank of this brown thread or hair algae. I’m out of town this weekend so I thought it might be a good time to try it out. My question is, how bad will my plants suffer?? I was running 10 hours of 2x54watt T5 HO, with another 2x54 watt T5 HO for 5 hours. But since this algae outbreak I’ve only been running 2x54 watts for 10 hours. I’ve been dosing via PPS Pro since the cycle ended, and started cutting that back just a little about a week ago. I’ve also been injecting CO2 since set up. If I wrap the tank, shut off the lights, stop the fertilizers, and stop the CO2 for three days, will the plants be okay when I get back?? Can I start right back up with lights, CO2, and ferts again after the three days??

Thanks everyone!

 

[Dr. Scroggins..]

found this..

 

[Big Dog]

They should be just fine. Are you doing 50%water changes every week on your aquarium? If not. You should be.

 

[Smitty]

+1 Your plants should be fine. I've done up to a 5 day blackout before. The plants were a little whiter when done but they bounced back after a day or so. 3 days shouldn't hurt.

 

[Petty Officer Salamander]

How often are you dosing ferts? None of my tanks get dosed any more than weekly, other than perhaps a trace element here or there depending on my personal preferences. EDIT: I did some looking up and saw that PPS Pro dosing is daily, so that explains that. As for the blackout, completely cover the tank. this means no lights, no co2, no ferts, no fish food, NOTHING, not even a peek on day 2. Also, before doing the blackout, manually remove as much of the algae as you can. The less algae there is to kill with a blackout, the better chance you have of it being effective.

They should be just fine. Are you doing 50%water changes every week on your aquarium? If not. You should be.

I'm curious at why 50% weekly water changes are so important in this situation though...

 

[Smitty]

I use the estimated index form of dosing ferts also every day and the purpose of the weekly 50% change is because you are putting in more ferts than the plants use and you are cleaning out the water of the excess nutrients.

You may ask now about why not just put in the amount needed and my answer is... I don't know. I just know that after doing a good bit of research most people will do an estimated index or PPS Pro and both need the water change. Perhaps it has to do with different plants using at a different rate or something?

 

[Petty Officer Salamander]

PPS pro is intended to dose the water with only an amount the plants will use daily, not more. Yes, with Estimated Index dosing, you need water changes, but the intent of PPS pro is to not need any more water changes than normal to maintain water quality for fish.

Also... Proper Estimative Index dosing is not every day, it's 3x a week.

 

[timwag2001]

hey doc, if you are starting with an algae break out, cutting back isnt gonna help you. you need to figure out which one of your ferts you arent dosing ENOUGH of.

and petty officer salamander. lol, your name makes me laugh. where did you come up the that?
also, why are you saying that ei is just 3 times a week? its 3 dys a week for macro and the alternate 3 days a week is micro. so you dose 6 days a week in total

 

[Petty Officer Salamander]

I never alternated like that.. I just dosed everything every other day, skipping sunday and starting over on monday.

you can read the thread in the lounge about my username.

 

[timwag2001]

isnt it generally recommended that Fe not be dosed at the same time as P?

 

[Petty Officer Salamander]

per Tom Barr's many writeups on his EI dosing, Fe is not a required component of EI dosing, and one that I never needed to use. However, I've not heard of that particular conflict.. It could be that way.

 

[timwag2001]

it's not required but i think that the good majority of people dosing ei use csm+b for their micros which contains fe.

 

[Dr. Scroggins..]

thanks for all the reply's everyone. just got back from vacation, and didn't get a chance to do my black out before i left... i did however order a few water test kits, so i plan on really testing my parameters and focusing on getting them dialed..

i have been doing water changes, but has it been every week exactly? no.. i'll start doing a weekly change.

 

[krap101]

I'm not sure specifically about what you guys are talking about, but I know if I dose my micros and my kpo4 at the same time, they create a precipitate

 

[Dr. Scroggins..]

finally got my tests kits in. i had another thread going on this algae http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f24/algae-id-please-131467.html
hoping maybe some of you guys could take a look and see if you have any ideas...

here is what my parameters are reading:

Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 20 to 30 ppm
Phosphate - .25 to .5 ppm
PH - 6.4 to 6.6
KH - 35.8 ppm
GH - 196 ppm...

thanks.

 

[krap101]

I'm not sure how much phosphate you should have, but I think phosphate is one of the major causes of algae. Everything else looks good, although acidic ph's are normally rarer, but still fine.

Also, instead of doing a blackout, have you considered increasing co2?

 

[Dr. Scroggins..]

yeah, i've been turning my CO2 up bit by bit.. i now have nearly a steady line of bubbles in my bubble counter, i'm gonna keep going up and testing my KH..

I do have some Phospure (Dr.s Foster & Smith) that i'm thinking of adding to my canister filter...

if these steps don't work, i just may have to go to something like API's Algaefix...

I think the Aquasoil i use for substrate contributes to the low Ph..

 

[krap101]

Okay, looks like all the bases are covered

Good luck