Bert H

Update: It's been a couple of weeks and it hasn't changed much over the last 4-5 days. It's kind of 'puckered' up, for lack of a better word. I will scrape it all out and do a major water change next weekend, and we'll see what happens afterwards. Mine isn't anywhere near as thick as nasfish's, and it is riddled with paths where the snails and ottos or sae's took a swipe at it. But I am impressed with the fact that it has stopped getting thicker.

hoppycalif

My GDA looks just about like nasfish's photo now, and it has been about two weeks now. The fish are now grazing on the algae! And, as Bert mentioned, I have lots of snail tracks in it. If anything it seems a bit more transparent now, but just barely. Also, I have some darker green veins in it. I don't see what I would call puckering yet, and I have to stretch a point to call it jelly like. But, I am so sick of looking at the mess I plan to remove it in a couple more days, and do a big water change. The tension is from knowing if I do this too soon I am back to waiting another 2+ weeks, watching green gook instead of plants. Some plants I haven't seen for 2 weeks now!

plantbrain

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upikabu

Hi Tom,
I have a question on this approach as I'm battling this algae at present. Should I continue to dose ferts (regular EI amounts) & do the weekly water changes as usual during these 2-3 weeks? So do everything normally except wiping the glass? TIA!

Bert H

Yes, do everything as you normally would, just don't wipe down the glass when you do your water changes, etc.

plantbrain

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hoppycalif

Today was the big day! I scraped off the green mess on my glass. This is about 20 days from when I last scraped it, and 18-19 days since I first saw that my last scraping did no good at all. The GDA had gotten considerably thinner, so much so that I could see the plants through it, so I had to assume that I was in the adult stage of the algae growth cycle.

In addition to scraping the glass on two sides - I left two alone just to see what happens - I also made major changes to my filtration and CO2 injection. I got a Maxijet 600 and a sponge filter for it, installed it upside down with the CO2 tube sticking down into the sponge support grid. Then I removed my Fluval filter entirely, removed the little minijet pump that I had used for CO2 mist, and am now using the powerhead as my only filtration. That removed the inlet and outlet tubes for the Fluval, and leaves me with no place where debris can clog up the suction, a possible factor in other algae attacks. So far the CO2 mist looks great and the water cleaned up very nicely.

Of course, now I will be walking on eggs for a week waiting to see if the GDA returns to the glass. Today was the first I have had a good look at my plants, shrimp and fish in over two weeks!

Bert H

Update: I, also scraped yesterday! It appeared to be becoming visibly thinner, as Hoppy's was. Fingers crossed, by Thursday I'll know whether there's success or not.

Tom, we're having a party at the house next wkd, and the word from the boss was that the tank had to look good. So, I figured, it was time. But if it turns out that it wasn't, you're on.

plantbrain

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banderbe

Why does GDA not come back just because some spores were allowed to go through their entire lifecycle?

That's the part I don't understand.

Also I will be trying this method starting yesterday. Did my water change but didn't wipe down the glass like usual..