Bimmer

I have this problem with several different types of algae in my 72-gallon bowfront. I bought some nice Amazons as you can see in one of the pics from a LFS only to find out they were infested with snails. Since I have Discus I didn't want to use chemicals so I slowly over a period of time sucked nearly all of them out using a Diatom filter. By that time the Java moss got hair algae. So I took that out and put it in another tank with clown loaches and regular lighting and it seemed to to work pretty well. I've since reintroduced the java moss. But this white stuff is weird. It's almost a pale blule color. VERY hard! Don't know if I should take all the rocks out and soak them in a solution or what. And finally the amazons. I took them all out about 2 weeks ago. pruned em down pretty far and got all the hairy growth on them and now it's back. I've stopped using ferts of which I was only using Flourish Potassium anyways. I was using a homemade CO2 method but I've since shut that down about three months ago. My water temp is a consistent 84 degrees and the lights consists of (2) bulbs that are 65W/10,000K that are on about an average of 10 hours a day.

I am fairly new to plants but not a total newbie. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm about ready to pull all the rock and natural wood out and start over leaving the substrate and gravel alone.

This is just to give you an idea of what the natural color of the rocks used to be to compare it with what it looks like today.
[IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG]




Now, 6 months later this is what I have and it's driving me nuts trying to figure out what to do first especially since I have discus in the tank and knowing how sensitive they are to drastic changes.

wi_blue

What is your water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate)? How long is your photo-cycle? Manual removal would be a great start and addition to stopping ferts.

Philosophos

Adequate fertilization is not going to hurt your discus. Plenty of people (including some very reputable ones) keep highly fertilized tanks with healthy, spawning discus in them. Warm water species really don't have the same NO3 sensitivity as trout and such; the lowest LC50's for hobby fish start in around 100ppm. It's things like NH4 and other complex organics correlating to nitrate release from fish that you'll find to be the problem.

Meanwhile skipping out on fertilization and CO2 while using 1.8wpg of CF is going to land you with nutrient deficiencies showing in your plants, as well as algae taking advantage of the situation.

Give then you're running discus tank, you're probably doing frequent water changes as well. This makes your tank a pretty good candidate for EI dosing. I would opt for compressed CO2 or light reduction my self, given that you'd probably need to run a double or triple batch of DIY CO2 along side excel dosing, which is going to cost you more in the long run.

Reducing your light seems sensible in this situation; you don't have any plant species right now that need high CO2 levels or great distribution. You could grow those plants with minimal effort using 3x 48'' T8 for a total of 96 watts. This low level of lighting would allow you to do 50% EI dosing given the slowed growth.

-Philosophos