Just my Luck

Well, the Flourish is kicking the algae's ass all over the place. I'm not sure if I should be happy it's working, or pissed that I wasted all that time. The brown brush stuff is turning red and falling off, there is no green hair algae showing up on the new plant growth.

Of course, now that I've found the solution, I will be leaving for 2 weeks to go celebrate Christmas with my family. I hope the 30-gal can cope. Part of prepping them to get ready was to replenish the CO2, give them both a pretty good water change, drop some sizeable food blocks in, and pray.

I also got a timer for the light over the bucket that's holding all the cuttings I can't throw away. I topped off its water; presumably it will be able to take care of itself.

But Of Course!

On the one hand, I'm not being very patient with my treatments, but on the other hand, I'm seeing new hair algae bits where there were none before. Anyway, because their planted 20-gal always looks so good, I decided to drive by Alamo Aquatics on my way home from a Saturday at the office, just to see if there was something they were doing that I should consider. I really wanted to see how many watts/gallon they had going.

Sure enough, they had about 3 watts/gal, just like me, so I was complaining to them that it was amazing that their tank never had algae with basically the same setup as myself. I started questioning them about their fertilizing habits, and they said they used liquid fertilizers, so I immediately started regretting my decision of a few days ago. However, upon further questioning, I discovered that they used a nitrate-free solution I had heard glowing reviews of before: Flourish Excel organic carbon. It is nitrate free, but provides a form of carbon to supplement CO2 and participate in photosynthesis. It also helps convert iron ions into a form more useful for plants.

I explained to them that I had used liquid ferts (Kent's two supplements) to no avail, and the guy explained that they probably made a bad recommendation in suggesting that. Apparently, while they've never had much of a problem with algae at the store, but he had noticed problems at his home using those fertilizers. Since switching to Excel, he's had no problems anywhere. But did they offer me a bottle for free to make up for hosing me in the past...? Of course not. I bought the Flourish anyway. I'm supposed to dose every day, and it still falls in line with my new plan of keeping nitrates out of the water column. I'm hoping this is the last bit I need to get the tank over the algae hump. I'm almost scared this will work... then what will transpire when I'm gone for X-mas?

Nein to Nitrates

I've decided to go another direction with this algae control. While the plan was to supply everything plants (and algae) need in abundance with the exception of phosphates, I was discouraged by the lack of progress. Certainly, the algae's progress had been slowed since Thanksgiving, but I still observed it spreading (and not stopping or receding). I know I haven't given that tack much of a chance, but what's the point of a hobby if you can't mess around and have some fun with it, right? So I will continue to tinker. The direction I want to go is to eliminate the nutrients in the water column to the furthest extent possible and let the plants get their nutrients from the substrate.

To this end, I bough some Excel Flourish tabs. They are little black pellets that are supposed to be inserted into the substrate and they slowly release all the nutrients a plant needs (iron, nitrate, etc.) into the surrounding substrate over the course of a few months. I put three in the substrate (they are supposed to each cover a one foot diameter area): by the swords, by the drawf hair grass, and by the foxtail. Now that the plants would get food from the substrate, I could take the food out of the water column (and away from the algae).

There were a few steps taken to accomplish this. Obviously, the addition of liquid fertilizers was ceased. I left the Phos-X packet in the filter for its nitrate removing abilities in addition to having it remove phophates. I also committed to replacing the nitrate-laden water, so I did as big a water change as I dare, and I'll be doing water changes each of the next few days.

One last thing, I'm going back to my "rest period" of a couple of hours in the middle of the day, but still have the lights on for at least 10 hours total per day.