Plant Advice/Kill Algae

[Sauroposeidon]

Well-established 20 long
Satellite+ LED (dimmed to dark)
CaribSea Tahitian moon sand
Flourish dosed 2x week
API root tabs
African butterfly fish
Pygmy corydoras x10
RCS x3

1. I'm ready to make a last plant run. I would like to add some more banana plants now that I've found the secret to keeping them alive. I would also like to get ahold of some anubias petite to balance the tank a little better and an additional compacta sword depending on if they are indeed compact. What else may go well in my low- tech, low-light tank?

2. I'm having algae issues. Hair algae on plants disappears after a day with no light, but the driftwood remains covered. I dose Flourish twice a week (micro-nutrients, I believe) and am still having problems. Why am I having this imbalance? I am worried about using Excel because of RCS, and my pygmy cories may be sensitive as well. CRS can be moved, but I would need to recycle another tank.

I am not a precise person . . . So I have this 5 gal bucket I do water changes with and estimate a few good drops of Prime each bucket and call it done. Better to be safe than sorry. If I recall correctly, an abundance of Prime affects phosphate? What am I dealing with here? I am a simple person. I watch fish to relax.

 

[Fresh2o]

1. Dwarf sag, crypt wendtii
2. You could try spot treating the DW with hydrogen peroxide. I think the dose is no more than 3mL per gallon but with the shrimp I would scale back a bit. Shut off the filters, spot treat with H2O2, wait 15-20 minutes, then restart filter. I think you can repeat this daily for a few days.

 

[Mr. Nowhere]

Well-established 20 long
Satellite+ LED (dimmed to dark)
CaribSea Tahitian moon sand
Flourish dosed 2x week
API root tabs
African butterfly fish
Pygmy corydoras x10
RCS x3

1. I'm ready to make a last plant run. I would like to add some more banana plants now that I've found the secret to keeping them alive. I would also like to get ahold of some anubias petite to balance the tank a little better and an additional compacta sword depending on if they are indeed compact. What else may go well in my low- tech, low-light tank?

2. I'm having algae issues. Hair algae on plants disappears after a day with no light, but the driftwood remains covered. I dose Flourish twice a week (micro-nutrients, I believe) and am still having problems. Why am I having this imbalance? I am worried about using Excel because of RCS, and my pygmy cories may be sensitive as well. CRS can be moved, but I would need to recycle another tank.

I am not a precise person . . . So I have this 5 gal bucket I do water changes with and estimate a few good drops of Prime each bucket and call it done. Better to be safe than sorry. If I recall correctly, an abundance of Prime affects phosphate? What am I dealing with here? I am a simple person. I watch fish to relax.

May want to only dose flourish once a week if the plants aren't taking enough in it's helping the algea. I've also read that excel helps with algea problems

 

[vexxiang]

What's the secret to keeping banana plants alive?

 

[Fresh2o]

What's the secret to keeping banana plants alive?

It's a secret

 

[Fresh2o]

What's the secret to keeping banana plants alive?

Jk. I have had my ups and downs with banana plants. Pruning any arial leaves often results in fuller submerged growth.
At one point I was able to propagate numerous plantlets from the main plant. Allowing an arial leaf to mature and then cutting it off from the main stock will often result in a new plant or plantlets growing off of the main leaf.

 

[Sauroposeidon]

I think I will only dose Flourish once a week. I began to panic when my banana plants started doing badly and upped the dosage to twice a week.

These banana plants irritate me, but they're my favorite. Only put the bananas 1/4 inch in the substrate they said, but every time, once they really started going, they rotted! They need (in my tank at least) root tabs, and all the bananas need to be on the surface of the substrate. This may have been more of a problem in my tank because of such fine sand compacting.

They also do not live forever. They must be propagated like stated above. Trim bad leaves, float good leaves to get a new plant.

Anybody have experience with dwarf sag? I like it, but it melted on me after a peroxide dip, and I got bummed about it and started buying hardier plants again.