# Old School and no algae, How'd they do it?



## Aaron (Feb 12, 2004)

Art's thread is very interesting and quite over my head, but it did get me thinking about the history of the hobby prior to EI and PPS. How did these systems work without dosing macros, etc? When did CO2 come into play?


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## MiamiAG (Jan 13, 2004)

Aaron,

I'm working on an article that goes into a little bit of recent history. Please be on the look out for it.

The addition of CO2 was popularized by Hagen, if I recall correctly, where Kaspar Horst, of Dupla fame, worked. This must have been the 70s or very early 80s.

The focus "in the old days" was on ways to minimize algae. There weren't many people in the hobby and our fertilizer choices were Tropica MasterGrow, Dupla, Dennerle and Tetra. Everyone had a clear understanding of what plants needed to grow, but the thought was to provide just enough so that the plants would outcompete algae for needed nutrients.

A revolution of sorts (IMO, a focus on nutrient control) came into effect when PMDD came onto the scene. Initially, PMDD stood for Poor Man's Dupla Drops but was quickly changed to avoid potential legal issues with Dupla. The thought was to control algae by limiting the amount of P in the aquarium to the bare minimum that plants needed to grow. This would starve algae.

What has been learned, again IMHO, is that it is very hard to walk this fine line. You typically ended up with plants not growing at their best because they became P deficient that led to algae.

Along comes EI and says to make sure that plants have all nutrients they need at all times and not to worry too much about control of nutrients. This is taken care of by water changes. Plants start to grow very well, especially with the advances in lighting technologies. Miraculously, algae is kept at bay when, intuitively, more available nutrients should provide for the nutritional needs of algae as well! After all, single cell things should be better able to utilize nutrients than multi-cell things.

We arrive at the present that I refer to as the Black Box phase. We know that EI and PPS work well but we're just not quite sure why.


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## jimjim (Jan 25, 2004)

*old school no alge*

Art; I've been keeping planted tanks since about 1965 and while they've not been up to Amanos designs a lot of us didnt get that much alge. I used Miricle plant grow and potting soil mixes up until last year after learning most of the tricks from other older aquarists. The trick was not to stop alge but to control it with 2x water changes every week (about 25%) and fertilizing once a week with One drop of Miricle grow(mixed one teaspoon to one gal of water) to each gal. Potting soil was mixed by using a 1/2" layer topped by colored aquarium gravel or playground sand. There was always alge present but not seen unless the tank was looked at close. I won the Atlanta best of show in "67 with a tank that had lots of alge, just covered up by plants. BTW Most of the really good plant gurus back then were basicly housewives...Jimjim


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## MiamiAG (Jan 13, 2004)

Jimjim,

Thanks for posting. I can't speak of the 60s . I got into plants in the early 80s. For many years, I and others recommended plain old gravel with a 1 inch laterite mixture on the bottom. 

Many of us used peat extensively and some used soil(s). Steve Pushak pushed the use of soil substantially. Some even started using Kitty Liter as a result of an late fellow hobbyists article.


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## TWood (Dec 9, 2004)

I guess I'll ask the question again. Is it possible to perform an autopsy on algae? If you take care of a tank using modern methods and the algae dies back, can the cause of death be diagnosed with a careful look at the dead algae? There's a basic life process that is being interrupted and it seems like that could be determined.

TW


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## MiamiAG (Jan 13, 2004)

TW,

I don't think it's possible to do a post-mortem on the algae. However, there have been studies done that determine that certain allelochemical inhibit the photosynthesis of certain algaes/bacteria.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Somewhere I have an article written in 1967, I think, about the wonderous growth rates attained by using yeast generated CO2. I can't lay my hands on it right now, but I recall that the author refers to somebody named 'the colonel" who was popularizing yeast generated CO2 in the late '50's and early 60's. I'l keep an eye out for the aticle, Art.


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

HeyPK said:


> Somewhere I have an article written in 1967, I think, about the wonderous growth rates attained by using yeast generated CO2. I can't lay my hands on it right now, but I recall that the author refers to somebody named 'the colonel" who was popularizing yeast generated CO2 in the late '50's and early 60's. I'l keep an eye out for the aticle, Art.


That would be wonderful. I had no idea it was so early.

Thank you
Edward


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## Sir_BlackhOle (Jan 25, 2004)

Ever run across that article?


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## plantbrain (Jan 23, 2004)

TW,

Few folks are willing to test for algae on purpose. Most wait till *after* the algae has appeared to test. Experimenting purposely for confirmation, doing the observation while it is occuring and trashing your tank to induce algae to see if your conclusion is correct is virtually never done by hobbyist. You need to have the control to induce and grow the nioxious weed/algae to do any critical growthcontrol studies on it.

This allows rapid, consistent results and confirmation. There is a huge difference between correlation and causation as well as non controlled factors that do not isolate the nutrient/paratmeters of interest.

Numerous folks said excess NO3, Fe, PO4 *caused* algae.
Okay, if so, adding it should induce algae.
Algae does not scare me because I know I can whip a tank back into shape easy enough.

I've repeatedly induce numerous species of algae, now I can tell without using a test kit what is wrong with a tank without knowing anything other than the species of algae. Bioindicators for ecological studies are quite common in my field.

In learning how to culture the noxoius algae, you learn what causes their appearance.

Then you can get on with a focus on plants without fear.

Folks in the past had *much lower light* and thus nutrient uptake rates/needs for their tanks, non CO2 tanks work quite well. Many folks seem to overlook this part.

It follows, as more light is added, uptake will increase, there are hundreds of studies showing this and it makes sense to most folks. I use that to work on uptake rates and dsoing routine by assuming at max light, there will be also max uptake.

Some had good tap water with nutrients already present(Dutch/German). Wim's presentation of the history of Dutch planted tanks extended way back at the AGA meeting several years ago when Amano first came to the USA.
That was still one of the best presentations I've seen to date on planted tanks.

PMDD addressed the macro nutrient as a main player and dosing things like KNO3. They focused on the plant's needs but did not know the CO2 was a bit too low, worried about algae too much, did not know the NH4 relationship, slowed plant growth by limiting PO4.

The suggestions I made back then were simple, add PO4 to PMDD and add more CO2 and Trace elements.

All things folks seem reluctant to add.
At the time, many folks started using far more light and many had trouble making the jump.

More light= more uptake demand.

Folks tested just like they do with PPS back then, myself and many other's included.

I knew I could help folks with algal issues, but had trouble with test kit measurement errors and simply getting folks to actually use the test and buy them.

I can tell what is wrong even if the test kit is wrong by telling what algae they have and other conditions. Test kits can lie, algae and plants do not.

EI is simply a way around the test kit issue that simplied things so more folks could grow plants without learning a great deal.

This ultimately leads to many more successful planted tanks without algae issues. Then folks can focus on aquascaping rather than algae nutrient mangement, testing etc.

Few folks I have ever met got into this hobby to test algae, enjoy the thrill of using a NO3 test kit, making standard solutions or learning a great deal about chemsitry.

Most want to have a nice looking healthy planted tank.

As far as to why EI/PPS/Non CO2 methods all work, I've addressed that clearly on a number of salient points.

NH4
Stable CO2
S/A ratios
Uptake kinetics
Different niches

I'm not sure what is so mysterious about those, you can test and find research for each of these and if folks looked at subtropical lake studies, there is no correlation between high nutrients levels in the presence of aquatic plants and algae increases.

How you apply studies/research and go about testing is quite another matter.
Poorly designed test have caused plenty of problems. But folks are curious and have fun playing and experimenting

Even if you don't have problems, then you wonder how far you can push things before you hit a breaking point.

What is excess NO3 or PO4 or TE or Ca/Mg or K+?
I honestly do not know but they are quite high and out of reasonable dosing target ranges provided other nutrients are non limiting and certainly far removed from being non limiting for plants over a wide range.

That is the biggest issue for most folks, providing non limiting conditions besides the parameter of interest. Otherwise you muddle your test with confounding factors.

The bad old days........

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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