I've stopped dosing Phosphates

[Fishyfanatic]

Wow, your setup looks awesome! That's how I want mine to look eventually. Just have to get rid of the pesky algae.

Even my snails have algae.

Setup pics (Don't mind the water spots. I haven't had time to clean the tank really well in a few weeks. This weekend if I have free time, which I doubt, I'm going to clean it up)

 

[An t-iasg]

How do you have no alge?

I just give it the evil eye

Seriously...thanks corster and fishyfanatic. It's a combination of reading and studying about plants, algae, ferts, and CO2, sharing info here, and hard work! You should have seen that tank a month after start-up...cyano heaven! Now I'm proud of it.

Anyway, fishyfanatic...your diffuser is similar to mine. It's just CO2 forced through a ceramic stone. The bubbles are very fine that come out. My diffuser is glass, yours is plastic, but the diffusion area is the same type of ceramic disk. I used to have that diffuser, the Red Sea one. It was just too hard for me to open up and clean (yes, I'm a weakling!) You could position the diffuser so that your powerhead grabs the bubbles and shoots them all over the tank.

That's a cute pic of your snails!

 

[Fishyfanatic]

This past weekend was the first time I cleaned it. Wow, it wasn't pretty inside. Easy to open for me but I had a lot of algae to clean out of it. I totally forgot that the top had a dial on it.

I have two powerheads that I bought a few months ago as a "just in case". I'm not exactly sure where to place it to distribute the CO2. On the back side of the tank next to it? I can't really see from the pic.

 

[corster]

How do you have no alge?

I just give it the evil eye

Seriously...thanks corster and fishyfanatic. It's a combination of reading and studying about plants, algae, ferts, and CO2, sharing info here, and hard work! You should have seen that tank a month after start-up...cyano heaven! Now I'm proud of it.

Anyway, fishyfanatic...your diffuser is similar to mine. It's just CO2 forced through a ceramic stone. The bubbles are very fine that come out. My diffuser is glass, yours is plastic, but the diffusion area is the same type of ceramic disk. I used to have that diffuser, the Red Sea one. It was just too hard for me to open up and clean (yes, I'm a weakling!) You could position the diffuser so that your powerhead grabs the bubbles and shoots them all over the tank.

That's a cute pic of your snails!

Ok... So how do you have no algae? Tell us the secret.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

It's finding the balance. I have diatoms, green spot, beard, and blue/green. I'm hoping that once this system equals itself out I won't have these issues. Even An t-iasg had issues to begin with, you just have to work them out. I'm giving the tank a big scrub down this weekend (sans soap and bleach of course). Hopefully I'll have some free time on Sunday to work on the tank during daylight hours.

 

[Plantbrain]

Simple: focus on growing the plants and you no longer focus on growing/killing the algae.

That's far from any secret, but folks do not follow directions on that issue or are not able for a number of reasons to do that.


Regards,
Tom Barr