The War Against Algae
It seems time was mostly what I needed to get the lead on the hair algae outbreak.
The whole situation came about due to my unintentional neglect of the system. I say unintentional because there were things I ought to have been doing that I just wasn’t aware of. The biggest problem I believe was that the intake tube of my primary filter was somewhat clogged up. I know to keep a better watch on that now. There are also some areas where detritus tends to build up. I’ll be periodically doing a manual water change so that I can siphon the debris, along with occasionally using the vacuum attachment on the diatom filter. That seems to work incredibly well, in fact I believe it was instrumental in helping gain the upper hand. It allows one to do an almost limitless “gravel vacuum” without having to actually change any water. The superior suction over gravity really helps too.
I started dosing Flourish Excel this past Sunday. I’ve been following the directions up until today, where I did a double dose of the standard daily amount. The algae that would have normally been green and sort of slimy on the dwarf sag in the front was brown, I noticed that today. It almost looks like I have a sudden outbreak of diatoms.
The addition of the two additional blue gouramis has also really helped, the driftwood is impeccably clean. They seem to have taught the angelfish how to eat hair algae, in addition to reminding the existing gourami that it’s okay to eat it.
There is still some hair algae around some plants, but it has diminished considerably. I’m hoping with some additional trimming and staying on a good maintenance schedule things should clear up completely.
The three black mollies that remain in quarantine are doing okay. I tossed in a “fungus clear tank buddy” the other day. The two males are fairly well healed, at least visibly, but the female needs a bit more time. I’m not sure that medication really helped, I think the addition of the “herbal” Melafix and Pimafix was actually more useful. The female at least has recovered from the popeye. I swear those fish are about the least healthy things I’ve ever seen. They’ll look okay for a couple days and then suddenly they’ll be on death’s door.
I do have at least five baby mollies now. It seems every day I find another. The remaining female is still visibly pregnant, I’m not quite sure what is happening there. I figure the babies are from the other females that didn’t make it.
