Bert H

Hey Hoppy, I just replied in your thread which I just found. LOL Anyways, what appears to be the situation is that the gda appears to be showing itself at the same level as it does in my other two tanks. Originally in this particular tank, it would start showing up 2-3 days after my water change, by day 6-7, it would be pretty thick. Now it starts to show up around day 4-5 and by day 7, it's not too bad.

So overall, I guess it knocked it down to a more acceptable level for me. Whether in time it will revert back to the higher levels, time will tell. I have also now moved one of the lights (this tank is lit by 2 separate ahs 55W lights) more towards the back to see if that helps out as well (and I think it is). I keep meaning to do some water testing on this tank to look at NO3 and PO4 levels to see if there's any correlation with any of it, but never seem to get around to it. My gut feeling is that lighting plays a huge role in the appearance of this, in my tanks at least. Of course, that shouldn't come as any surprise.

It may well be that low therapeutic levels of Maracyn might keep it down further, but I'm not really willing to go that route. It's a little too pricey, and I don't believe in using antibiotics in a continuous basis.

 

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ranchwest

I'm definitely not much of a scientist, but I certainly know that aquariums have a lot of interactivities. So, I don't think we can ever conclude that Maracyn is an algaecide based on putting Maracyn into a closed system aquarium with plants, fish, fish food, fish waste, all sorts of organisms introduced, etc. Of course, if it works many will not care about the science behind it.

hoppycalif

Green dust algae is unique among the various algae we fight. Its spores are free swimming zoospores. That makes it at least slightly like some of the organisms that Maracyn might be effective against. It seems highly unlikely that Maracyn would kill the zoospores, but if it helps to shut down a GDA invasion I'm all for it - assuming it doesn't require continual dosing to work. I'm not sure it is understood why Excel is effective against algae either, but it is and we exploit that effectivity where we can.

scolley

Bert - I'm sorry to hear that you did not have unqualified success with the Maracyn. As you may have noted in the two times I tried it previously, my success was now complete either. What I found was that when applied as directed, it caused the GDA to significantly reduce in the short term. Long term it was just like all other algae problems - if you don't fix the root cause, it always comes back.

I did not start out fighting GDA with Maracyn. I thought I had BGA (incorrectly, was a different algae) and I dosed Maracyn, only to find that id darn near eliminated the GDA. But only in the short term. I tried it a 2nd time with the same results. But in both occasions I had other factors going on, like fert reductions or more frequent water changes. So I never had a pure test where I only changed one things, i.e. - no change but the addition of the Maracyn.

Well I just finished a test of just that. And it was a disaster.

I began adding Maracyn daily, and made certain that there were no other changes of my routine. But I was not using the directed dose. I was using 50%. I did that because I've been wondering if a periodic prophylactic dose might keep it at bay. And hopefully a smaller dose, as that stuff is expensive. Too expensive for my 180.

I only kept it up for 5 days. On day 4 some new algaes started to appear. Some sort of green thread algae. By day 5 it was clearly spreading rapidly. So I shut down the test.

Even with the short duration and lower dose, it definitely reduced the rate at which the GDA populated my acrylic tank walls. But the conditions it created in the tank somehow made it favorable to some other algae. So I've had it with this line of algae fighting.

My personal conclusion - Taken as directed, Maracyn will (in my tank anyway) significantly reduce GDA. But the effect is temporary, Maracyn is expensive, and it appears (in some conditions) that it might actually encourage other algaes (maybe hurting the biofilter... I dunno).

Bummer. This would have been a nice fix to a bad problem.

hoppycalif

My GDA has not returned after my Maracyn dosing (2X dose). But, I had a mild case of GDA to start with, and it ran through its life cycle before I cleaned it off the glass. So, I can't really say that the Maracyn did anything to help. Sometimes just letting the stuff finish its life cycle, wipe it off and do a water change will stop GDA. I have never before been that fortunate though.

Bert H

Steve - sorry to hear that. Sounds like you've got the proverbial can of worms showing itself there. I hope you can lick it, and if you do, please let us know how you did it.

Hoppy - I'm glad for your results.

This is a perfect example of how there is no one way to do things in this hobby. 3 folks have tried this approach and all of us seem to have obtained different results.

Oh, well, live and learn.

hoppycalif

I think if we could understand how Maracyn could affect GDA we could reason out the best way to use it. My thought was that zoospores are possibly similar enough to bacteria for Maracyn to affect them, but the more mature GDA on the glass would not be affected. One of our resident biologists should do a consult here

 

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