Help on epic GSA

[monstar]

Hi guys! I need some input and advise on getting rid of these pesky spots ,
They appear only to about 5cm above the soil all over my tank wall, rocks and diffuser, only to about 5cm above the soil, my best guess is that my PL light is old and the spectrum is in favor of the GSA , I tried water change 50% on alternate days and that was my standard routine even before the GSA bloomed, any idea how to rid these pesky spots?

They're starting to infect my glosso , just 2 - 3 leafs for now , my glossos are pearling thou .
Should I replace the aged PL bulb?
Add nerites? I actually have assassins already
Addition of po4?
More WC?

Thanks for viewing!

[wongce]

Wc alone wont help as i find the culprite to be lack of po4 and water circulation within the tank,therefore...Add Po4, increase water circulation,manual scrub for GSA on glass and equipment.

I don't use nerite snails as I have assassin snails to control the pest ramhorn snail, i Cut off affected leaves as most of gsa can't be remove from leaves...

Are you keeping shrimps?? I hope you are by keeping any expensive shrimp since you are dosing fert which may cause increase of GH

For me,I dose seachem po4 on weekly basis or when I see small GSA dots are growing,make sure circulation is good in tank or the fert's you dose might not be able to reach those dead spots.

Note that GSA will not dissapear overnight,po4 dosing have to continue for at least 3-4 weeks...you can see their numbers grow less gradually.

A simple photo of your tank will help.

[monstar]

I'm having trouble up loading the pictures, anyway just a little update, just got my hands on seachem po4 today and dosed 2.5ml for my 2ft , just keeping my fingers crossed that other algae won't starting appearing , I'm guessing my light tubes contributed to the algae as well, currently using 10000k t8 as my tube is 580mm alittle difficult to hunt for these tubes, not planning to hold any shrimps just yet but I'm 2 yamatos thou, I did alittle research and GSA would disappear on its own after 3 weeks of you don't scrub them , leave them and allow them to complete their cycle? How much po4 do you dose on a weekly basis?

[wongce]

For my case,I dose EI amount (1ppm) of po4 for 2 weeks, Wc 50% on weekends... Third week I change back to normal dosage following seachem's instruction.

Note , you will be amazed on the amount of po4 to dose when you use seachem...you can use online calculator like fert friend to calculate ppm..

Have you tried improving the water circulation?? Water circulation is required to circulate the nutrients around the tank..ways of improving water corculation are:
1)get a better filter
2)use of air pump with air stone
3)wave maker(extreme)
4)additional power head

The process of eradicating GSA is slow as mentioned earlier,those on leaves are hard to recover, last option is to trim them. Those on glass can be scrap away using magnetic glass scrubbers or even some manual scrubbing with filter mesh or unused credit cards.

IMHO,it's better for you to change to t8Ho or t5ho.2 feet lights are readily available in Lfs or you can hunt in AQ for second hand lights for a bargain.

[Navanod]

Note that dosing PO4 does reduce GSA but unless the root cause of the algae growth is only a PO4 deficiency, other algae will take over from the GSA once PO4 is available. Ensure there are sufficient healthy and fast growing plants in the tank to combat this.

[wongce]

There is a lot of discussion and debate on po4 causing algae... there might other complications as what Navanod pointed out.having some fast growing plants like hornwarts and frogbits will definitely help to absorb all the extra nutrients .For my case, I only have very minimal GSA and string algae after trying out EI to clear out GSA ... I just share my experience in clearing GSA

Since Monstar's tank has an epic outbreak of GSA,there is no harm to try out po4 dosing. For my case, it works out great... There are a lot of successful examples in other forums .The main concern weekly is 50% Wc which can be a chore and stress out shrimps or sensitive fish as mentioned earlier.

EI method is definitely not for shrimp keepers due to massive Fertilizer overdose... For aquascapers, should be no problem As it will help/boost plants growth.

[felix_fx2]

PL tube more then 1 year? please consider changing. it might have long out lived it's usefulness.
Introduce oto might help abit with recovery...

[monstar]

PL tube more then 1 year? please consider changing. it might have long out lived it's usefulness.
Introduce oto might help abit with recovery...

Hi Felix ! Yup I heeded your advise from my previous thread and changed the pl tubes just yesterday, my new pl tube is cooler than my previous tube, k is not stated in the packaging , my glossos were pearling when I was still utilizing the old tube now they are just bubbling, otos wise I have 3 young otos and 2 sae to combat the algae, but they can't seem to rasp the GSA off!

[monstar]

I looked it up in bar report and it states that it might be due to po4 shortage, ideal po4 should be 3 - 5ppm, using ferfriend as recommended by wongce I came to a conclusion that for my 72L tank i'll be needing to dose 50ml to achieve 3ppm, 50ml! Sounds like a suicide mission but I just dosed 20ml

[monstar]

And just to add alittle update on my 20ml po4 dose, my 2 headstanders are not longer "headstanding" , they're "planking" on the surface

[jaymes]

Otto and shrimp do not consume GSA. Only snail can scrap away GSA, but it works very slowly..
Besides, 1-year-old tube doesn't cause GSA. I think of light aroud the aquarium that cause GSA. Probably sun light
In my experience, i just dose more macro, increase co2 .....Slowly the GSA will be gone
For your information, i am using the following fertilizer

[felix_fx2]

Otto and shrimp do not consume GSA. Only snail can scrap away GSA, but it works very slowly..
Besides, 1-year-old tube doesn't cause GSA. I think of light aroud the aquarium that cause GSA. Probably sun light
In my experience, i just dose more macro, increase co2 .....Slowly the GSA will be gone
For your information, i am using the following fertilizer

You mean 1 year old tube still can grow healthy plants? Sunlight depends on the hobbyist.
It seems that we are going to chemical war with GSA over here dose this and that haha

Dosing Marco may help, I had some GSA few months back and I upped my trace dosage. Scraped the existing ones off. Oh btw I have Oto, nerite snails and recently 2 SAE. only Oto and the snails go on tank walls.

[felix_fx2]

Hi Felix ! Yup I heeded your advise from my previous thread and changed the pl tubes just yesterday, my new pl tube is cooler than my previous tube, k is not stated in the packaging , my glossos were pearling when I was still utilizing the old tube now they are just bubbling, otos wise I have 3 young otos and 2 sae to combat the algae, but they can't seem to rasp the GSA off!

My SAE never go tank walls. My tank mostly are populated by algae team lol.

[monstar]

My ferts are BW Growth & essence k and occasional Ada step one , actually I'm not very sure about Ada step 1 being a macro fert

[monstar]

My SAE never go tank walls. My tank mostly are populated by algae team lol.

Agreed! The SAE are never on the wall! Mostly lying around on the soil or hiding inbetween plants, and they don't really work that hard always chasing my otos around.

[felix_fx2]

Monstar, this is for you
Click on name for reference, credits are of respective website and ADA.

ADA - Green Brighty STEP 1 : STEP 1 has trace elements in good balance, and promotes plant spread new leaves.

ADA - Green Brighty STEP 2 : Among other trace elements, Green Brighty STEP 2 is rich in Iron.

ADA - Green Brighty STEP 3 :Green Brighty STEP 3, formulated with Iron and Potassium

[monstar]

Monstar, this is for you
Click on name for reference, credits are of respective website and ADA.

ADA - Green Brighty STEP 1 : STEP 1 has trace elements in good balance, and promotes plant spread new leaves.

ADA - Green Brighty STEP 2 : Among other trace elements, Green Brighty STEP 2 is rich in Iron.

ADA - Green Brighty STEP 3 :Green Brighty STEP 3, formulated with Iron and Potassium

Thanks Felix for the really quick reply! I do know that the step one does contain trace elements but I'm really doubting that it lives up to its name, would seachem trace serve a better purpose in your experience?

[felix_fx2]

i am using seachem trace. thinking of switching and try others myself.. product is ok.
Have no experience with ADA step series, we will need to seek advice from people who used them both. i don't want to be bias :X

[jaymes]

It's good to have a good water in singapore. Very much different from my side here....... .....besides, i cannot afford ADA's Product...it's too expensive.... ADA's Product only applied to RO

[monstar]