# My algae is pearling!



## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

Will using glutaraldehyde kill it off?


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## DutchMuch (Apr 12, 2017)

Nice farm!

eh.... I would do a hydrogen peroxide treatment... just MO. 

I just did one recently for the first time and it worked nicely.


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

The glut is starting to work..


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## Epitaph (Nov 27, 2007)

Wow! That's an impressive sight. I would do a double or triple recommended dosage of H2O2, excel, or metricide and make sure flow is high. Dump in a few algae eaters to clean up the dying mess.


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## DutchMuch (Apr 12, 2017)

Epitaph said:


> Wow! That's an impressive sight. I would do a double or triple recommended dosage of H2O2, excel, or metricide and make sure flow is high. Dump in a few algae eaters to clean up the dying mess.


or you can find the problem...
Kind of like an ant pile or a wasp nest. you don't kill individual ants, you kill the actual ant pile.


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## Epitaph (Nov 27, 2007)

DutchMuch said:


> Nice farm!
> 
> eh.... I would do a hydrogen peroxide treatment... just MO.
> 
> I just did one recently for the first time and it worked nicely.


"or you can find the problem...
Kind of like an ant pile or a wasp nest. you don't kill individual ants, you kill the actual ant pile."

Everyone wants balance in their aquarium, as if it's the holy grail in planted tanks, but I don't think anyone can achieve 100% precision on balance, especially when plant mass grows, the demand on nutrients also grows. Most people don't adjust their nutrients in respect to the amount of plant mass every changing day. They usually add in excess nutrients to ensure all plants can reach optimal growth rate dictated by the amount of light the plants receive. Hobbyists counteract the eventual imbalance by resetting the parameters through water changes.

If hobbyists change the amount of light, CO2, nutrients, and perform WCs in attempt to reach an equilibrium point, then I think the usage of algae eaters are also fair game.

You can keep destroying ant piles and wasp nests, or you can also introduce some natural predators to wane off new queen ants and wasps looking to build a nest. Or even both.


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## DutchMuch (Apr 12, 2017)

Epitaph said:


> "or you can find the problem...
> Kind of like an ant pile or a wasp nest. you don't kill individual ants, you kill the actual ant pile."
> 
> Everyone wants balance in their aquarium, as if it's the holy grail in planted tanks, but I don't think anyone can achieve 100% precision on balance, especially when plant mass grows, the demand on nutrients also grows. Most people don't adjust their nutrients in respect to the amount of plant mass every changing day. They usually add in excess nutrients to ensure all plants can reach optimal growth rate dictated by the amount of light the plants receive. Hobbyists counteract the eventual imbalance by resetting the parameters through water changes.
> ...


I doubt many people purchase dragonflies or praying mantis's on the internet. But who am I to judge. you kind of contradicted yourself there.

Your going way to far in depth, to what I said, 
what I said was find the route problem. Which is something that Should indeed be looked into, weather its lighting is to much, etc. You can achieve 100% equilibrium but its obviously extremely hard to make it last and many people don't even know when they hit it. Its a precise measure that digs deep down into every part of your aquarium. And every factor of it must be taken into consideration to purposely reach that said pure equal balance.
But I'm not talking about balance necessarily. If you have to much light (ex) then that's just it, you have to much light lower it. No need to attempt to achieve a huge balance. But there is no reason to necessarily run straight to a chemical. Yes I said hydro treatment would be good, and it would be, to spot treat and do it as recommended. No need to triple a dosage for it and do it continually, do it sparingly if ever. In this case do a spot treatment, lower your lighting or what seems to be the route problem/cause, then see if it grows back as fast or at all.

No need to go in depth with the whole balance deal, that's not the goal in this case, its just an excuse to do it the costly and easy way. if you do it the chemical way as you recommend permanently, then you will encounter more and more problems down the line. If you fix the issue or the route cause, your problems will be lowered to a very small amount if anything. This takes more effort which many people despise.

Introducing a bunch of fish to take care of your issue is beyond an awful idea in this case, because then you have excess bioload, algae eater is a plain word to use and is very unspecific. I can buy a 5ft long "Algae eater" which is a fish that blandly eats any type of algae (not specifying his algae) or I can buy an oto which is 1 1/2" long usually and eats some types of algae, but adds a lot to the biolaod, just further making algae and creating food for itself basically. The fish idea is a "wing it" idea the way you said it, and will make more problems. I'm just going by what your saying here. I also don't know his tank size, parameters, all that stuff. So why would you put an "algae eating fish" into a tank that You don't know the parameters of only to harm and stress that fish?


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## Epitaph (Nov 27, 2007)

I don't recall when or where I said to dose the chemicals routinely. "I would do *a* double or triple recommended dosage of H2O2, excel, or metricide".

I also don't know when I went in-depth with balance. I made a very short paragraph generalizing balance in probably 3-4 sentences because the root cause is a balance issue which you suggested to "find the problem".

This is why I generally dislike using analogies; when you use someone's analogies, they sometimes bring it out of context to make things moot.

I'm going to abstain from this conversation before it gets heated up. I'm sorry I'm unable to help, Hillbilly Homer. Best of luck to you in getting rid of all the algae. And I apologize to DutchMuch if I offended you in any way, my statements bear no ill-intents.


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## DutchMuch (Apr 12, 2017)

Epitaph said:


> I don't recall when or where I said to dose the chemicals routinely. "I would do *a* double or triple recommended dosage of H2O2, excel, or metricide".
> 
> I also don't know when I went in-depth with balance. I made a very short paragraph generalizing balance in probably 3-4 sentences because the root cause is a balance issue which you suggested to "find the problem".
> 
> ...


No reason to get heated. This is a debate. Its what forums are for, well that and many other things.

I didn't mean in depth in your paragraph's size. I meant in depth as in with the type of information you used. 
On the first line, I addressed the amount you gave and figuring as an example if you went with that permanently. This has been said.

btw I wasn't getting heated up if that's what you meant at the end there, that's just how I talk/type. Looks like ill have to change back my signature... :/p


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

Well i think ill need to cut back on my lighting.
in three days time i got this.


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## DutchMuch (Apr 12, 2017)

I'm just saying that's not that bad LOL ive seen way worse. You have time to fix. When you do your next WC suck that gsa up.


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## Skizhx (Oct 12, 2010)

Hard to tell from the picture, but it looks like you might have some cyanobacteria in there...


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