Other plants and aquarium

[TamiP]

I know, that's just mean..........where are the pics?

[Optimist]

Originally Posted by estación seca

I cannot believe all of you are tantalizing us so, and not posting ANY PHOTOS.

My AV's are in a kind of rest period right now. I have a few developing, but not many. My fish tank (The amazon swords) were all pruned back because I have been fighting an issue with diatoms (aka "brown" algae). I also have no sourdough bread starter so I can't show you that. I would like to see a picture of the killifish.

I used to have a killifish. It was a hungry SOB and ate a lot of my endlers guppies (small wild guppies). I re-homed it. I have not trusted killifish since.

[WaterWitchin]

Originally Posted by estación seca

I cannot believe all of you are tantalizing us so, and not posting ANY PHOTOS.

We'll try to do better in the future!

You have algae? Here's a couple of pics of the worst tank black algae I ever had in my life. Came outta nowhere. And yes, I still used this tank for a long time.

[estación seca]

Was that a CO2 tank? If you covered the tank completely to exclude light, and turned off the lights, how long would it take to kill the algae?

[WaterWitchin]

Nope. A plain ol' freshwater 75 with cichlids in it. Bought a piece of java fern that had black algae on it. Voila!

[Optimist]

Yipes! That is a ton of algae. If I had it that bad, I would be taking out each stick and stone and scrubbing it. How did it eventually clear up?

My brown algae problems started when I put a (supposed) diatom reducer in the filter. Since the filter had just been washed, I did not take it out. I think this weekend. I really would like to save my sword plants.

I also got a new light that was a higher light output. I think the higher light really started the problem.

I am not sure what I have really. It is a rusty brown color. Then there are wispy white algae like patches. I vacuum the bottom of the tank occasionally. My fish hate me so I try to reduce scaring them as much as I can.

[WaterWitchin]

Rusty brown = diatoms
Whispy white algae-like patches. Likely a fungus. Overfeeding perhaps? If it were staghorn algae it would be harder to remove.

I put my fish into a different tank, blasted the tank with algaecide, then waited. Then washed off rocks, etc. Didn't even attempt to save the plants. The base was Tahitian moon sand (black). So no intensive gravel filtering there.

[Optimist]

Originally Posted by WaterWitchin

Rusty brown = diatoms
Whispy white algae-like patches. Likely a fungus. Overfeeding perhaps? If it were staghorn algae it would be harder to remove.

I put my fish into a different tank, blasted the tank with algaecide, then waited. Then washed off rocks, etc. Didn't even attempt to save the plants. The base was Tahitian moon sand (black). So no intensive gravel filtering there.

I'm still fighting it, but cleaning more often. The filter gets dirty faster. Since last writing, I've put in a circulation pump to keep the water circulating better and keep the algae from falling on things, so it gets into the filter, I also started to scrub the plants with a "fine" scratchy pad hoping that if i get the stuff off them the plants will grow faster. I also put another of my "homemade" fertilizer tablets under the plants. I still will have to vacuum every day. Before, I had a different set of plants and parameters. I had low light (anubias etc) on wood with a bare bottom tank, then I added sand, and then I added a substrate and took out the plants and went over to amazon swords. They have melted a bit, but are now getting new roots. Sadly they were big and beautiful when I bought them, but they also came from overseas and were originally immersed instead of submerged. I am guessing they will take a whole year more to grow to the big size they were before. In the meantime, when it is safe to send plants through the mail, I will get some fast growing plants, cabomba, ludwigia or something like that to out-compete the algae.

Tell me what you think would make a good companion plant for swords that will get very tall. (in a 75 gallon).

There are a few things I can't afford to do like go RO water. Any other ideas?

[Optimist]

Sadly OB will not allow me to post photos unless they are in the cloud (some server) and have a URL. Nothing works like it used to work, so I can't post anything. You used to ever upload a thumbnail from your computer, and now I can't do that either. So my not posting photos is the fault of OB, not mine.

[WaterWitchin]

Okay, plants, aquariums, and finally some sourdough pics by hungry requests. This is what occurs with the wild yeast and some good bacteria floating around.

First we have an unfed starter...kinda gross looking, right? Lost the picture of the starter ready to use, so here it is just after kneading. Third is the bread five hours later after its final proof. Plopped onto a pan, boule slashed, and ready for the oven. And then, the best part... ready to eat.