What's the most frustrating is I know my tap water doesn't have anything in it as far as magnesium, calcium etc etc my tap tds is 30 kh 6 gh 6 so I added the equilibrium to add those to the tanj, but it's ultra weird as high nutrients do not nessessarily catse algae where as too little will because you're not feeding the plants and algae needs way less nutrients than plants, and unhealthy plants cause algae, I'm trying tonight to go fully dark but my boesesman is a jerk and likes to torment the others if I go full dark, reason I'm doing this is because people say lunars cause algae.
What I dont get is I have green spot that's caused by low phosphates.... My phosphate is 3.5 [emoji848] it's just Hella frustrating
Potluck. You don’t get it because you’re not supposed to get it. I used to believe all those myths. The only plausible reason adding more phosphate takes care of GSA is that it directly kills it. I personally just don’t see that as a desirable thing. Just like I don’t see adding chemiclean, algaefix, glutaradehyde or hydrogen peroxide as a desirable thing. Hell I don’t even see adding nitrates as a desirable thing. I’ve done it all though mate. Remember me telling you nitrates were harmless to fish? That MAY be true in some context but the reality is they don’t belong in water bodies that our fish and plants originate.
The hobby has gone backwards. We’ve gone from air driven sponge and and under gravel filters, heavy fish loads, minimal water changes, gravel only substrates, stock T8 lighting fixtures to light loads, large frequent water changes, big electrical motor filters with massive turnover rates, powerful lighting and expensive plant substrates all in the space of about 80 years. It’s honestly changed for the worse in my opinion. Its all marketing. People had perfectly healthy systems back then and most I’ve spoke to would argue they had never even seen BGA or GSA or even knew what it was.
How can low phosphates possibly cause GSA when I do absolutely nothing to my tank, have 0ppm phosphates and have none? It’s falsified. BBA? I just don’t have to worry about it anymore. Hated the stuff more than anything.
I used to worry about calcium and magnesium. Potassium too. Adding them did nothing. Time after time. In fact, adding nutrients just made The plants go white. I don’t necessarily believe it was toxicity. I got way caught up in the hype surrounding that. Its more about nutrient availability. You can add all the nutrients you want but you have no idea what is happening to them in solution. No idea. They oxidise or precipitate, form other bonds and the more you add the worse it gets. TDS goes through the roof and we lose track of whats in our water, then we do huge water changes adding chemicals to stop the tap water killing our fish. There’s another thing that has probably changed in the last 80 years, tap water and what its made up of. I’ll never add it to my aquariums ever again the problems adding it has caused over the years, even with dechlorinator. Ill never forget the water engineers words when he came out to test my tap water for Zinc because I was obsessed my plants weren’t getting enough or getting too much. ‘We don’t make water for fish mate’. That should have told me everything right there and then.
The only way you can manage to effectively control or even get rid of algae is by starving it. And by that I don’t mean depriving organisms of light for 3 days because thats another myth. I mean stop doing water changes. Export your nutrients back to tap water levels. Then stop. Feed the fish twice daily and just let the tank stabilise. Give the plants and organisms a completely stable routine they can adapt to. 80 years ago or even longer that’s all they did. Some of them didn’t even use lights. Those that had fluorescents used to SUBMERGE them. Imagine the health and safety implications surrounding that now? **Im not suggesting anyone does that by the way**
There was never a problem with the functionality of the under gravel filter but they had two drawbacks 1) for the hobbyist, you couldn’t use sand 2) For the aquarium trade, they never needed to be replaced. They kept new oxygenated water going through the substrate and the bubbler oxygenated the water column, they pulled nutrients to the plant roots and kept the water clear. Then everyone starts slating the under gravel filter, word gets round and its finished, people just stop using them. That’s how the aquarium businesses get a foothold on the public.
Honestly, I’m so glad I went off in the direction I did when I did otherwise I would have probably quit just like you. It’s opened up my eyes a hell of a lot. And I’ve learned so much more. I wanted to spread the word and get the hobbyists looking and going back to the basics but I fear common practices are just too far from how the hobby originated and you end up getting publicly attacked for suggesting people try no water changes for a while. Like ‘oh my god would you sit in your own waste for weeks in end’?
‘What about hormones building up and stunting fish?’
‘What about the organic wastes?’
‘ThE SoLuTiOn To PoLlUtIoN Is DiLuTiOn’
And all the while these people are talking about the ‘one two punch’ and triple dosing glutaradehyde to deal with algae. Hypocrisy at it’s finest.
People only care about what the aquarium looks like, how good it makes them feel when others are struggling and they feel like they have all the knowledge, they obsess over algae and long for what someone else has so much so that they go to the lengths of adding products that the material safety data sheets explicitly state are deemed harmful or toxic to aquatic life. Madness.
Sorry to put a downer on things at the end but here bud this hobby is a far cry from what it used to be and I can see why so many people give up.
Wish you luck mate whatever you decide to do...
