Dosing Fe

[kotlec]

After dosing iron for 3 weeks roughly, I can share my experiences.
Reason for dosing was inability getting green. Manufacturers recommendation was 10ml per week. Being on safe side I was doing 1ml per day.
All i get is few patches of little greener algae mostly on the top of screen and some on the bottom. This tendency was noticeable prior dosing as well. All middle portion is still same unchanged yellow. But now I got green algae starting to pop in my display mostly shaded areas like under rocks. Strange. huh ?

Any ideas ?

[kerry]

That would lead me to believe the light in the display is stronger then the scrubber light. If you have enough Fe to grow in display then you have enough to grow it on the screen. I would re-evaluate the scrubber lighting, screen vs feeding, and flow. I know in most of my scrubbers I need to run a little more light then recommended.

[Rumpy Pumpy]

I dosed Iron for a bit due to yellow on the screen near the lights.

It might have helped get my screen up and running properly (or it might not) but I stopped ages ago and it's made no difference whatsoever.

[kotlec]

kerry,


I always thought I have yellow growth because of too many light and not of opposite. Also display algae is in shade - not where most of light is coming. And all this makes confuse for me.

[kerry]

I agree it can be confusing. I got to the point where I did three week tests and didn't waver at all. I tried light, then flow, then feeding, and then photo periods. It seemed that not all the tanks needed exactly the same treatment. I did find that all my tanks needed more light, I guess because the way I was doing it was not as efficient. Now that two of them are on LED its much better and my last CFL is a horizontal (named the BLob by Floyd) and its really starting to get some awesome 3D growth with an increase of feeding and growth time increase and its severely under lit so I under stand you confusion.

[SantaMonica]

Bright yellow stiff algae = lack of flow/iron.

Dull yellow/browish soft algae = lack of light.

[kotlec]

stiff

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1594&d=1328382874

Last 2 month my experiments include :
1. Doubling flow - no effect at all ( for 2months already)
2. Dosing iron - effect on display algae only. ( for 3 weeks)
3. Inserting light reduction screen among light and algae no effect at all. (1 week)

For now I stopped Fe. Hope display algae will disappear.

[kerry]

I was not able to grow successful algae on a Plexiglas sheet either. Yours looks better then any growth I ever had on my scratched up Plexiglas. My vote is to go to a screen.

[kotlec]

Can it even change yellow to green ?
I made it plexi ,because my screen is not ideally vertical. It is more like 75 degree. Using screen some flow would go to the other side and would be lost.
But I was thinking to give go for proper screen too. Still hesitating.

[SantaMonica]

Plexi? No wonder. Throw it away and get plastic canvas. Or put canvas on top of it.

Also, you are seeing the limitation of 1-sided screens. Any green that tries to grow long and out into the flow gets washed away because of the already-dead roots, and in your case, the lack of places to attach.

1-sided screens kill the roots in just a few days after cleaning.

[kerry]

Put the screen over the plexi. Thats is how my horizontal is.

[kotlec]

OK - canvas let it be.

My understanding was that if roots would be dead - cleaning would be easy job. Algae should come of easily. But as in my case I had to use knife to cut algae away. So I decided that roots are strong and sound. Oh man ...

Unfortunately I have no space for 2 sided. :(