One last report on my own GDA odyssey - I hope. After exacly three weeks of neglecting the GDA I was left with a very thin haze of it, splotched by snail tracks. I did a thorough cleaning of the glass, plant pruning, and water change, but left the back glass alone. Now, after 4 more days I have no GDA haze forming on the glass! Usually I can see the haze starting over again after only two days or less. So, I am ready to declare victory over GDA!
For anyone who hasn't been following this, the method is to just ignore the GDA, don't disturb it at all for two to three weeks. That lets it live out its natural life cycle and be eaten by the snails and fish. Then you clean it off thoroughly, keeping as much as possible of the scrapings out of the tank water. The GDA should not return again. I found that if you remove any of the GDA before the life cycle is over, the cleaned area is just re-colonized by GDA spores and you have to start the two to three week wait all over again. |