Journal Frank's Dutch Attempt

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Your slime looks kinda like the stuff I had the past months 🤔 If its almost but not quite like a fine green thread algae? Wispy and extremely fine, cant be pulled out very well because it just comes apart to nothing in your hands almost?

It took over after I had used API Algaefix (Busan77) on the tank. The Algaefix had killed the previous thread algae i had struggled with (and almost all of the plants along with it), and this wispy stuff rose out of the substrate like a cursed zombie. Cant say ive had algae like it before.
Its been ruling supreme together with increasing amounts of cyanobacteria, but the tank got neglected, the entire surface got covered in plants, and somehow the entire population of this algae spontaneously disintegrated in the span of about a day. I dont know if it ran out of light, ferts, or a combination of factors but its currently not visible in my tank any more 🤔
Make of that what you will.
Time will tell if it returns for me, but maybe letting your plants cover the entire surface is something to consider?
A wise friend of mine once suggested just such a method for defeating various green thread algaes, perhaps he had the best option all along 😳
 
Hufsa said:
Your slime looks kinda like the stuff I had the past months 🤔 If its almost but not quite like a fine green thread algae? Wispy and extremely fine, cant be pulled out very well because it just comes apart to nothing in your hands almost?
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Hufsa said:
Its been ruling supreme together with increasing amounts of cyanobacteria, but the tank got neglected
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Both of these are 100% accurate descriptions for my situation. Well except for positive ID of Cyanobacteria.

This started to show a few months after I had surgery and was unable to clean my filter. I think it was 2 maybe 3 months late for cleaning based on my schedule.

I did try AlgaeFix early on since it does look like hair algae but it nothing. Extreme doses of glute knocks it back hard but that’s not a sustainable practice.

Before I blow up the tank, I’m going to focus on increasing plant mass with fast growers. Anything that won’t grow or throws a fit (looking at you, helferii) is getting replaced until things settle down.
 
FrankZ said:
Before I blow up the tank, I’m going to focus on increasing plant mass with fast growers. Anything that won’t grow or throws a fit (looking at you, helferii) is getting replaced until things settle down.
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I think this is a good strategy @FrankZ. Please keep us posted as many people have or will be in the same boat at some point.

#savethetank
 
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Look ma!!! No slime! Or haze! I pulled out the helferi and put some small variety of crypt, can’t remember the name, it’s kind of narrow leaved and dark green, grows like a weed in my low tech setups. I have had this crypt for years, it was one of the first plants I bought when I started trying plants in aquariums.

I really started larding on the ferts since @Burr740 suggested it. Always making sure I added the full week of macros between water changes. So if I did an early one Wednesday and knew I was doing another Friday I made sure to add the full week of dosing before Wednesday and the again before Friday. So I have been larding in the macros. Micros I kept at every other day. I think too many water changes and subsequent macro limitations made for unhappy plants and just fueled the slime. The helferii seemed too far gone and needed it out of there because it was clearly fueling the slime.

Sunday night when i was replacing the helferii I noticed aerial roots on the pogo stelata for the first time in a good while. Then I saw most of the other plants are putting them out again. I don’t know when that stopped (probably when the slime started) but when everything was growing the best I had aerial roots all over. Forest for the trees kind of thing here, I missed what was clearly unhappy plants because I was starting at the slime for so long and made things worse by getting water change happy.

Things are looking up I think.
 
This is really great to read @FrankZ! Speaks to focusing on plant health as the primary thing. We all lose our focus sometimes but focus on the plants as the key. I’ll give Tom Barr credit as I heard that from him many years ago.

I think you should also preserve some of the alien slime you have. Maybe give it to NASA or we can look at it under the microscope and try to identify.
 
Art said:
This is really great to read @FrankZ! Speaks to focusing on plant health as the primary thing. We all lose our focus sometimes but focus on the plants as the key. I’ll give Tom Barr credit as I heard that from him many years ago.

I think you should also preserve some of the alien slime you have. Maybe give it to NASA or we can look at it under the microscope and try to identify.
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I got my scope rig back so if I can find some slime I’ll get some photos to post. I’m sure there is still some hanging around somewhere. It didn’t hang on this long to just disappear in a few days.
 
FrankZ said:
View attachment 5953

Look ma!!! No slime! Or haze! I pulled out the helferi and put some small variety of crypt, can’t remember the name, it’s kind of narrow leaved and dark green, grows like a weed in my low tech setups. I have had this crypt for years, it was one of the first plants I bought when I started trying plants in aquariums.

I really started larding on the ferts since @Burr740 suggested it. Always making sure I added the full week of macros between water changes. So if I did an early one Wednesday and knew I was doing another Friday I made sure to add the full week of dosing before Wednesday and the again before Friday. So I have been larding in the macros. Micros I kept at every other day. I think too many water changes and subsequent macro limitations made for unhappy plants and just fueled the slime. The helferii seemed too far gone and needed it out of there because it was clearly fueling the slime.

Sunday night when i was replacing the helferii I noticed aerial roots on the pogo stelata for the first time in a good while. Then I saw most of the other plants are putting them out again. I don’t know when that stopped (probably when the slime started) but when everything was growing the best I had aerial roots all over. Forest for the trees kind of thing here, I missed what was clearly unhappy plants because I was starting at the slime for so long and made things worse by getting water change happy.

Things are looking up I think.
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I've found your post quite helpful, I've been in a similar position as you, sort of.
Your post, and @Burr740's input has helped tremendously, hopefully I'll come out in a better position soon too.
 
Joel Armstrong said:
I've found your post quite helpful, I've been in a similar position as you, sort of.
Your post, and @Burr740's input has helped tremendously, hopefully I'll come out in a better position soon too.
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Thank you buddy! I’m glad sharing my experience with this slime is helping someone.
 
Glad to see the tank turning the corner Frank! We've all been through stretches where we scratch out heads trying to figure out what is going on.

I am not surprised adding more nutrients and also keeping them stable has helped. I have seen more issues in tanks from underdosing not overdosing.

Tank is looking much better. I hope things continue to go well and keep the updates coming.
 
FrankZ said:
Thank you buddy! I’m glad sharing my experience with this slime is helping someone.
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We learn most from our mistakes, so even though you suffered it has had some value as well. As the root cause seems to have been nutrients, in combination with lots of water changes that diluted them, could you help with a 'post mortem' and describe the conditions that likely cause all the trouble?
 
Yugang said:
As the root cause seems to have been nutrients, in combination with lots of water changes that diluted them,
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This is true but if I may nitpick the semantics just a little bit. The root cause was unhappy plants. Nutrients just happened to be what caused them to be unhappy in this case

Now I know you know this. Its just one of my peeves and I think itd help every hobbyist to grasp it better. Rather than saying poor co2 caused algae, too much/too little nutrients caused algae, etc. The root cause is always unhappy plants. The why can be a mystery but it always starts from that
 
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