jinmon
Aquarium Advice Regular
Hi guys! Okay, so I've been surfing the web about algae, reading stickies, everyone else's posts, etc... and I'm still not sure what to do about the hair algae in my tank.
It's a 40 gallon with 78W of T5 HO lighting above it (one 6700K bulb, one 10,000K). I'm running an AquaClear 70 and a VisiTherm Stealth Heater (200W?) at about 78 degrees, raised from 77 a couple days ago. It's been set up for a little over a month (fishless cycled) and has small gravel as the substrate. It's stocked with 1 very cute baby bristlenose pleco, 6 peppered cories, two golden wonder killifish, four platies, and 7 gold barbs. Actually, right now I have 5 platy fry (1-3 weeks old) in a net breeder hanging on the side.
For plants, I have a little java fern, lots of java moss that I've just reduced to a little java moss, a little dwarf lobelia cardinalis (with a bit of BBA on it, I think), some anacharis, a good bit of well-growing corkscrew val (lots of baby plants, growth almost the length of my tank on top...), one tiny banana plant, one anubias nana still in its pot, and 4 new bunches, 2 each of rotala indica and mayaca. Oh, and some duckweed that I've decided can't possibly be as harmful as everyone says... right? I do have one chunk of malaysian driftwood in the tank, as well as a coconut shell cave.
My water params (by the AP FW Master Kit) are:
ph of 7.4-7.6 (depending on whether the low range or high range test is used)
Ammonia: 0 (possibly a trace, I've NEVER seen it look perfectly yellow but it's not nearly .25 either?)
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 10ish
Tap water's pretty hard, but I don't have a kit to test it exactly.
My last PWC was about 40-50% on Saturday, I've been doing those every week since the tank was set up.
My tank is swimming in hair algae. We've had lots of diatoms too (pulled out the java moss almost a week ago, placed it in a bowl with some tap water, poof, more diatoms today) but they seem to have settled for now. I am amazed at how fast the hair algae grows. It's sticking to the glass, the driftwood, the java fern, the val, the filter outflow... and it was SCARY in the java moss before I thinned that out.
I guess I'm not convinced I need to be dosing any fertilizers at this point because my plants are growing really well, my nitrates aren't terribly low, etc - but I do have some Excel I could add (and am tempted to try, it seemed to clear out some of the hair algae on the java moss I removed from the tank) but I'm concerned about the fry....
HELP!!! 8O And THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!
It's a 40 gallon with 78W of T5 HO lighting above it (one 6700K bulb, one 10,000K). I'm running an AquaClear 70 and a VisiTherm Stealth Heater (200W?) at about 78 degrees, raised from 77 a couple days ago. It's been set up for a little over a month (fishless cycled) and has small gravel as the substrate. It's stocked with 1 very cute baby bristlenose pleco, 6 peppered cories, two golden wonder killifish, four platies, and 7 gold barbs. Actually, right now I have 5 platy fry (1-3 weeks old) in a net breeder hanging on the side.
For plants, I have a little java fern, lots of java moss that I've just reduced to a little java moss, a little dwarf lobelia cardinalis (with a bit of BBA on it, I think), some anacharis, a good bit of well-growing corkscrew val (lots of baby plants, growth almost the length of my tank on top...), one tiny banana plant, one anubias nana still in its pot, and 4 new bunches, 2 each of rotala indica and mayaca. Oh, and some duckweed that I've decided can't possibly be as harmful as everyone says... right? I do have one chunk of malaysian driftwood in the tank, as well as a coconut shell cave.
My water params (by the AP FW Master Kit) are:
ph of 7.4-7.6 (depending on whether the low range or high range test is used)
Ammonia: 0 (possibly a trace, I've NEVER seen it look perfectly yellow but it's not nearly .25 either?)
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 10ish
Tap water's pretty hard, but I don't have a kit to test it exactly.
My last PWC was about 40-50% on Saturday, I've been doing those every week since the tank was set up.
My tank is swimming in hair algae. We've had lots of diatoms too (pulled out the java moss almost a week ago, placed it in a bowl with some tap water, poof, more diatoms today) but they seem to have settled for now. I am amazed at how fast the hair algae grows. It's sticking to the glass, the driftwood, the java fern, the val, the filter outflow... and it was SCARY in the java moss before I thinned that out.
I guess I'm not convinced I need to be dosing any fertilizers at this point because my plants are growing really well, my nitrates aren't terribly low, etc - but I do have some Excel I could add (and am tempted to try, it seemed to clear out some of the hair algae on the java moss I removed from the tank) but I'm concerned about the fry....
HELP!!! 8O And THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!