Which bulbs

[Terje]

I have a 160l (about 42G) with 2 30W bulbs (LifeGlo2 and Sylvania Aquastar). The plan is to expand with another 2 bulbs.
Which should I choose?
Should I consider changing the Aquastar as well, cause I've got some thread algeas (not much though) and it is at 10 000K?
Hoping for some good advice

 

[aspen]

i use phillips 850's and 865's. they are available everywhere in electrical supply shops and are nice white light, cheap on power and long lasting.

as for the thread algae, i'm afraid that ether you remove it manually or you get an american flag fish or a couple of mollies. mollies are easier on your plants, AFF will eat through all of your fine leafed plants. i buy female AFF's, male and female are too nasty for some dwarfs when they get to breeding.

rick

 

[mike klinger]

if you have an abundance of thread algae, you should check your parameters especially your nitrates which should be at a level of between 10 and 12 ppm. if you have pressurized co2 system, turn it up until you hit a level of about 30 ppm. once you do this the algae will stop growing and can be removed.

your lights probably have nothing to do with the algae unless you are keeping them on for 18 hrs a day.


mollies will not eat this algae, and i dont know if FFF will even eat thread algae as i have no experience with this fish, the best way to get rid of it is to take a stick and twirl the algae around it.

 

[farm41]

SAE's will eat thread algea, and yes, turn up the co2, always was the case in my tanks when I had it.

 

[Terje]

Already got 3 SAE but I'm going to throw them out. Yes, they do eat some algeas but they're also eating my javamoss (that's were the algea is) and my cabomba.
Anyway the algea is no problem at all. There is hardly enough to notice it, and as I've written, only in the moss.
I test nitrite with tetra test and have no messurable nitrite.
I've got at DIY (yeast) CO2 which actually has not been functioning lately due to a leak, but has now been fixed. That might be the reason why I got these small amounts of treadalgeas. I'll just see what happens...

Thanks for the help!

 

[cootwarm]

Hi Terje,

I've had excellent results using mollies to clean the algae from Java Moss. I had a few tanks that had perfect Java Moss (clean & green!), but a couple looked terrible. They had the thread algae all over it and collected any debris floating around the tank someone on this forum suggested I use mollies. It worked great!

The problem I had with mollies is they don't do well in apistogramma type water conditions (soft & acidy). I assume this because none of my soft water fish would get the ick, only the mollies, so I just treat the mollies in another tank. I've had to remove them often to treat them for ick. I'm thinking of devoting a 10 gallon tank to mollies and moving any algae infested Java Moss to them. It'll make things a tiny bit hard for me, but it'll be much easier on the mollies.

Here is a shortcut to a thread where this was discussed:
http://forum.apistogramma.com/viewtopic.php?t=1718

Michael

 

[Terje]

Well, I've heard that mollies and other some poecillia can eat a lot of algeas so I don't doubt your victory on the algeas, its just that I really don't like mollies (nore guppy or platy). As simple as that :wink:
I'll see if the algeas disappear as the CO2 is up running. Wont find out before saturday or sunday since I'm on holiday now.