What Happens When You

[simonbrown403]

Wow good news I'm going to give this a go tomorrow as I'm due to dose my macros,

Anyway it does work if anybody else wants to try it, if you have a lot of bba though, its not going to be much use to you, as you can only dose so much nitrate each week, so you will really need to OD with the excel to get rid of it, but as a spot treatment for small amounts it works really well and could be useful.

Zig....Excel is liquid carbon insnt it? just to clarify, would turning the co2 up do the same job??

Simon

 

[AndyTaylor]

That's pretty impressive, mate...tank looks great. Have you changed your mind about re-doing it?

 

[zig]

@simonbrown403..........Simon, flourish excel is liquid carbon thats correct, turning up the CO2 is meant stop the growth of bba according to Tom Barr, i have tried this and found it didnt work for me anyway, the bba still grew, i had the CO2 turned up as high as i could without stressing the fish, maybe it needed to go higher but that defeats the purpose if the fish are going to suffer.

If you only have some bba on one or two plants then maybe try the KNO3, but if you have a good bit more i would OD the algae with excel, i have found 3x to be the most effective, i have done experiments with this as well if you do a search, i had a thread running about different dosages, it may work at 2x but it will probably take quite a while and you will use more excel, just watch your fish for signs of stress if you try it, you keep the CO2 running also.

@AndyTaylor.........Hey Andy long time no see in the planted section, mind you i have been busy myself, i have a thread running somewhere on the tank which i dont update ofton enough, i basically removed the stellata and cardamine and replaced them with Rotala rotundifolia and Didiplis diandra, both plants which (in theory) should provide some colour for me, but so far they are as green as a cabbage, i will give them a bit longer, they are only in the tank a couple of weeks so haven't reached there max potiential yet, i will probably still strip the tank down in a month or so, although its very easy on the upkeep side, just water changes and the odd trim. Thanks for the reply.

 

[pseud]

Cool i would be interested to know how it works.

Just knock off the filter when you try it (and remember to turn it back on again, like i didnt on the second experiment until the next day i was wondering why all the fish were at the surface next morning) i had the syringe right above the bba and dosed it out slowly over a few minutes, easy as that, report back if you try it or even better a pic

cheers mate

I'm on it tomorrow. Pics will be included

 

[Themuleous]

Nice one Zig another weapon in the fight against algae!

 

[iggy01]

Wow I'm impressed Zig!

Haven't got a clue as to why it would work, but it obviously did.

I'd like to echo George's comments..........you should share your findings on other forums too.

Well done!

 

[jimbooo]

you learn something every day.... great find zig. i mentioned this to jeremy gay yesterday. he looked a little puzzled and intrigued but this just confirms the whole thing i was saying about the impact forums can have on the hobby.

if it wasn't for this place how on earth would i now know that squirting KNO3 on BBA will have that effect... brilliant. good find mate.

 

[pseud]

Zig, experimentation is gonna have to wait a week. After my weekly water change my nitrates were at 5ppm, which is where I wanna keep them for a while. So next weekend I'll do my 50% water change, and add the KNO3 to the anubias.

 

[zig]

Zig, experimentation is gonna have to wait a week. After my weekly water change my nitrates were at 5ppm, which is where I wanna keep them for a while. So next weekend I'll do my 50% water change, and add the KNO3 to the anubias.

No problem pseud i just found a little tuft of bba earlier on a leaf of my Java fern, so i will give it a go myself, maybe tomorrow when i do a water change, it would still be interesting if someone else tried it though, so whenever you get a chance i would appreciate it. On a side note i dont know how you can keep the nitrates so low, spots of bga start appearing in my tank nearly straight away when i drop my nitrates that low.

@iggy, jimbooo and themuleous..........thanks for taking an interest guys, i will post the results of my find on other forums as soon as i have done a couple more tests, especially on plants, yes it will be interesting to throw it open to a wider audience and see what they say, and maybe somebody can tell us why its working............speaking of which.........i wonder if it works with PO4 B) yep i will try that one tomorrow as well.

 

[Themuleous]

working............speaking of which.........i wonder if it works with PO4 B) yep i will try that one tomorrow as well.

Go Zig! you just like messing about with you tanks dont you

 

[pseud]

Well, I started this experiment with NO3. Took some before pics, it turned a little reddish, will take some after pics tomorrow.

 

[Dubby]

Zig:

Thats a great discovery. I had heard of Pottasium permanganate being used to kill algae. You would have expected the reddish KMnO4 to dye the algae red before it bleached it.

So question is why does KNO3 turn it reddish? Where are the chemistry experts?

 

[ChrisP]

Just thought I would post in here as I have just noticed the same thing happen on with BGA!

My substate has a BGA problem at the moment which is startign to clear up nicely now. Anywa I was just dosing some KNO3 straight into the tank, I always dose it right next to the spray bar so it gets a good push round the tank and mixes nicely.

I started feeding the fish then looked at the substrate and there is lots of patches in the BGA that have turned bright red where the KNO3 has landed!

 

[kjb66]

I just gently squirted flourish excel on the effected algae area when overdosing with exel and it turns it red almost instantly and then turns white and is gone within a couple of days

 

[Themuleous]

Cool another interesting find