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remember me if you want to "toss" the fluorite away!
anyone using pure ADA soil in a 4ft or larger tank.
please show me your pix.
I'm pondering tossing my fluorite away because BBA likes to grow on it.
does ADA have the same proclivity in offering a very good attachment area for BBA?
remember me if you want to "toss" the fluorite away!
Me too
Don't be afraid of my duck!
*ahem*
Chris is asking for help. If you don't have anything to offer him, please transact your query to him via email or PM. He must feel like a dying beast circled by vultures....
Chris, my 3 ft tank (somewhere in the gallery) in its 2003 version was all ADA Soil with PowerSand beneath. I think BBA attaches to any substrate, ADA included, though.
Chris, using ADA aquasoil is going to make your BBA situation even worst imo. The peat effect is going to toss the pH/KH/CO2 chart off unless you like measuring peat water pH drop vs tap water with no CO2 injection and then assume a linear drop in error for the pH.
First and foremost, you really need to go after the root cause of BBA which is mostly CO2 issue or too many critters (NH4) coupled with poor plant health/low plant mass/slow growing plants. Check and recheck the pH probe of your CO2 controller. Does it hold the pH 7 and 4 solutions well or does it drift slowly? Then recheck the KH whenever you do a test for the CO2 level along with the pH. Add more plant mass..(fast growers preferred). Go in and remove the remaining parts of BBA...It may take sometime to get rid of it but if you really go after things and dose nutrients frequently for the plants, it should go away.
Regards
Peter Gwee
I think I;ve posted that my mutant strain of bba can survive copper treatment..
in anycase, the problem now is that its growing on the gravel and not the plants. *plants healthy, gravel not healthy*
anyway, due to a tank mishap, I'm going to tear down my tank one more time and get the tank resiliconed.. thus I'm taking the opportunity to reconsider the substrate.
however, since you've mentioned bba grows on everything and its by far easier to peroxide fluorite than ada, I'll stick to what I have then..
Chris, I believe your tank is a 5 footer. Could it be that the dissolved CO2 is not distributed evenly in the tank? Perhaps there are some "dead spots" which didnt get the CO2 enriched water for the plants to photosynthesize ?
Just thinking out loud ..
ckchua
Chris, I use flourite too (with peat at the base). I once faced the same problem as you; BBA on gravel but my BBA also grow on my C. parva. I have slow growing plants; ferns and anubius and my plant-mass is low. I manually remove lots of BBA and I increase my KH to about 4 and raised the CO2 injection and now I can count the BBA bush with 1 hand. I also reduce my lights by half to less than 1W per Gallon.
Chris,
To combat this problem:
You can uproot and replant a 1/4 section of your tank at a time ansd roate the gravel on the top down a few cms. This will bury the BBA covered gravel. The other method is picking which is a royal PITA. I much prefer rotating the gravel under neath. Faster, less work and keeps the gravel cleaner.
CO2 and CO2 and CO2 will solve the BBA issue. It might not kill everything that is there, but it will stop it from growing.
A single rotation under will take care of the rest.
Onyx sand is nice and have smaller grains which make it more difficult for small promgules to attach to the grain without getting knock off by disturbances.
Nice larger flat pieces of flourite are great for attachment of BBA, Green hair algae(2 species). But rotation will help reduce any build up.
But algae on gravel, wood, glass, equipment etc can be dealt with by making sure i9t does not grow to begin with, that is the real issue here.
You can clean off things and then have thwe stuff come back over and over again but unless you like cleaning a whole lot, dealing with good plant health/enough biomass/etc is the only method that will solve the longer term issue.
Regards,
Tom Barr
yeah, I do something like rotation, since fluorite doesnt' disintergrate, I scoop the top layer using a net and peroxide it in a bucket until the bba dies . but this means I don't get to grow any foreground plants.
*although e.quad appears to grows fast enough not to be affected by bba, which I tried just before I tore down the tank*.
-----------
anyway budak, any reason why you aren't using ADA soil anymore?
ckll, I get excellent circulation.
probably bba reason is that redfield ratio thing or something equally esoteric..
[quote:380057934c="loupgarou"]
ckll, I get excellent circulation.
probably bba reason is that redfield ratio thing or something equally esoteric..[/quote:380057934c]
Tried the redfield ratio thingie. Didnt work for me too. Ended up with lots of green algae (green spots to be precise). Threw that idea out of the window, and pruned away affected leaves and added more PO4.
So far so good. Has been a week after wc and things are looking good. Keeping my fingers crossed
ckchua
[quote:a2bd7ce411="loupgarou"]anyone using pure ADA soil in a 4ft or larger tank.
please show me your pix.
I'm pondering tossing my fluorite away because BBA likes to grow on it.
does ADA have the same proclivity in offering a very good attachment area for BBA?[/quote:a2bd7ce411]
Hi christ,
rem me, I am the one who visit u to view yr tank with yr tankmakers. I am currently toying w my new setup as I am using the MH the first time. Used ADA in my 2 footer, encounter minimum algae as compared with others setup....may be u like to view my tank at my gallery:
http://www.arofanatics.com/members/l...erplantedtank/
Never use flourite b4. Mine guess will be yr lightings is too strong for yr tank, u need to put more fast growing plants for yr strong light. The last visit , I saw u got most slow growing plants and a lot of bare ground. Put more stem plants or use Lower power MH or change to other lighting instead. I know u got a very expensive lighting, lifting the lamp higher may not be sufficient. Yr lamp too power liao. Mayb can difuse the light by blocking?
Btw, wats is yr brand of MH bulb? Wats the Kelvin temp?
its probably arcadia 6500K
incidentally, your ada setup shows hottonia with bba at the lower leaves. this is one of the MOST annoying things..
[quote:30b0274deb="loupgarou"]its probably arcadia 6500K
incidentally, your ada setup shows hottonia with bba at the lower leaves. this is one of the MOST annoying things..[/quote:30b0274deb]
Haha bro, most tank will have a bit of BBA or algae now and then. It is a matter of how u control the nutrients. Further more more my tank is indirectly expose to sunlight. Most algae will go off as the tank mature......Sometime I do add a bit too much fert in. If I got algae poping out, I will reduce the dosage. FYI, I dont do measurement of water parameters to feed my plants. Juz aga aga only. I dont have so much time fiddling my tank siaz.....
The algae u see is most likely cause by my wrong dosage of fert and plus poor maintainance of my tank. Anyway it is my first try out on ADA soil.
If you folks have BBA, you really need to work at CO2, more light= more CO2 demand by the plants.
Check then CO2 am and pm times. Try to double check to make sure your pH ranges are in the 25-30ppm range. If not, you are going to have trouble.
Anytime you have algae, check the CO2, then the NO3 and so on.
Substrate has never really ever caused me any grief unless someone added jobes plant spikes, soil or house plant fertilizers down there.
In general more light = more nutrients and harder to get a handle on the tank. 0.5 w/liter is a good amount of light and will grow most anything. Eustralis, Gloss, chain swords, R macradra etc
But BBA = poor CO2 in virtually every case.
Once the CO2 issue taken care of, you can remove what is there.
But it's not the gravel's fault.
Regards,
Tom Barr
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