Truth About GDA?

[manofmanyfish]

Truth About Green Dust Algae?

My recent experience with GDA leads me to believe that no one knows definitely how to put an end to GDA. That’s ok, it’s a living thing and that makes it complex enough that I can appreciate that it doesn’t fall into the Easy category. Shame on me for thinking, it's a problem (like a flat tire) and I just want instructions on how to fix it.

So, shouldn't we just admit that we don’t know how to get rid of it.

What is the most accurate statement that we can make about GDA?

a. We (the aquarium hobbyist) fully understand the factors that cause GDA and know how to get rid of it. A specific set of directions, if followed will be successful in defeating GDA, 100% guaranteed.

b. We fully understand the factors that cause GDA and know how to get rid of it, but only under certain specific situations and conditions.

c. We do not fully understand the factors that cause GDA, but can offer some suggestions that may or may not work. Successful solutions vary. What works for one individual will not work for everyone.

d. We do not understand the factors that cause GDA and accept that you may not be able to defeat GDA. The best you can hope for is to control GDA by vigilant cleaning and good housekeeping. It is not known why GDA eventually goes away. It appears that it either dies or goes into long dormant states. Neither of which happens as a result of anything that you do.

[plantbrain]

"e" try to figure out things and some resolution to questions and test it yourself

See if you can induce it.
I've been able to induce it maybe 30% of the time at best with inoculations.
I have no issue getting rid of it however nor keeping it gone.
Some have.

Same with any algae.
Your own frustration leads you to think and believe differently than you might otherwise.

I've gone after it pretty aggressively by wiping it off, but that never really helped that much. A blackout + Excel + good growth of the plants, good CO2, UV+ mechanical filtration, reduction in light, adding rubber nose plecos etc, good pruning and general care seem to prevent all types of algae.

You can do quite a few things to beat on algae.
Harass it, and maintain good plant health.

Why is grows sometimes and then goes away from then on, or some have it come back every so often, I'm not certain. No one is, it's now your question so you figure it out and test it to answer it.

But as far as how to get rid of it, I've suggested several methods I know have worked well many times. I nor the folks I helped had reinfestations.
A few likely had many other issues so they had other problems that contributed to general algae issues. Hard to say, that is true for any algae issues however, in person is easier to catch issues, on the webm who knows, these folks have many issues and problems growing plants, somne hardly ever do and have green thumbs.

Many ways to screw things up, but do not base the conclusions on that alone. You need a success to show why something works, or to induce GDA etc. I have not had good success with this alga there.

But that is the criteria for finding out why an alga appears.
So now you have a method and some things to consider and look at...........and test.




regards,
Tom Barr

[Wö£fëñxXx]

Have you ever seen GDA in a low light tank? neither have I.
Green Spot, yes, GDA, no.
I can induce it with a lot of light, every time.

It's not that puzzling or mysterious,.

What works for one individual will not work for everyone.

I don't agree with that at all, a box of water is just that, what matters
is who is overseer.
I think it really depends on who is maintaining the tank and what
you know or the experience one may or may not have.

If I have 15 or 100 tanks that do not have it, and someone has one tank
and can't get rid of it what does that mean?

It really isn't that complicated by far.

[jaidexl]

I've had a long lived GDA issue in one tank, I can control it with light. It's surprisingly resilient, in this case, to lower levels of light in terms of wpg, but fixture efficiency could be more than adequate. There is a point I can drop wattage to that halts the reappearance of GDA, but also slows plant growth to near el-natural speeds and causes leggy growth in some ground cover species.

[manofmanyfish]

Well, sure we do know a lot of factors that are involved. I guess the answer is "a" if we turn the lights off.

[manofmanyfish]

"e"...not really answering the question.

Originally Posted by plantbrain

I have no issue getting rid of it however nor keeping it gone. Some have.

"Some have", I think that's understating the numbers of people in this hobby who have had great difficulty in erraticating this algae.

Originally Posted by plantbrain

But as far as how to get rid of it, I've suggested several methods I know have worked well many times. I nor the folks I helped had reinfestations.

Some people are cured of cancer with some treatments, but it doesn't work all the time, for every individual, even if the cancer is the same. Do we truely understand it, if we can't reproduce our results....every time.

[sewingalot]

I don't think algae is ever going to be truly understood. I think it is a luck of the draw. I recently set up 2 different 10 gallons. One was low light (28 watts) and one is high light (65 watts). I set them both up at the same time (about three weeks ago). The 28 watts have been relatively free of algae and good growth. The 65 watts started showing GDA within 3 days. Never have gotten rid of the GDA. But, this is only my experience.

[KDahlin]

Originally Posted by Wö£fëñxXx

Have you ever seen GDA in a low light tank? neither have I.
Green Spot, yes, GDA, no.
I can induce it with a lot of light, every time.

I have GDA in all of my tanks, one is a non-CO2 1.5 wpg tank.

[Homer_Simpson]

The only time that I ended up with GDA in my tanks was when I couldn't leave well enough alone and decided to monkey around with light and increasing light intensity. In one tank, that led to a real dog's breakfast and I have since lowered light intensity to pre-GDA levels to see what happens. In my other tanks when I lowered light intensity to pre-GDA levels, I noticed that within about a month the GDA receded. Whether it has only gone dormant, signifcantly slowed down in growth so as not to be visible is another issue.

What I can say with 100% certainty is that I have yet to see it rematerialize in my 40 gallon, almost 2 years after it made its appearance. I am not sure what specifically caused it to recede and disappear. I was engaging in agressive algae treatment measures when GDA, black beard algae and thread algae all appeared at the same time. I did 2x weekly water changes. double dosed Excel daily, reduced light intensity, manually removed as much algae as possible and trimmed off badly infested leaves/removed plants too far gone, threw in a Albino Bristlenose Pleco and Siamese Algae Eater. It took a good 3 months to notice a difference. The tank is now 100% algae free and plants are growing faster than I can trim them, sell them, or otherwise give them away. If I had to speculate as to the one thing that turned the tables on Algae including GDA, I would have to say "balance"(likely a combo of light, c02, and nutrients/ferts) and subsequent healthy plant growth.

Sorry folks, I don't share your pessimism. I believe GDA can be defeated, but you have to have a lot of patience and be willing to fight the good fight to defeat it.

[o snap its eric]

algae is one of the simplest organisms. It survived past the dinos so for us to complete killing it is virtually impossible. All we can do is keep it at bay and not allow it to over run out tanks. We as hobbyist have found a nice formula to suppress algae but just as algae was able to survive past the dinos they are surely going to find a way to get around out method of suppressing algae due to their adaptive nature.

Why not invest some ottos or algae eating fish to compliment your algae battle?

[plantbrain]

Originally Posted by manofmanyfish

"e"...not really answering the question.

It is your question, I just suggested you go about testing it to find this "truth" that you seek. I found out what species it was. I told folks. You learn a little bit and go from there.

[quote]
"Some have", I think that's understating the numbers of people in this hobby who have had great difficulty in erraticating this algae.
[/qute]

Those with issues will post a lot more than those without, so no, I think far more folks do not have issues with GDA that do have issues with it.
Many folks w/o, obviously have less concern, since........it's not an issue for them.

The squeaky wheel makes a lot more noise than the well oiled one, I do not pretend to use stat's with that bias in there.

Some people are cured of cancer with some treatments, but it doesn't work all the time, for every individual, even if the cancer is the same. Do we truely understand it, if we can't reproduce our results....every time.

This logic does not follow.
The human immune system and cancer, and how the many different folks react, respond, the various multivariables they add have a lot to dowith the results.

With aquariums and only one specific species of algae, the system is much much simpler.

As far as results every time,you do not have a control tank, you have a tank that is infestede with algae. This tank is not suitable to make any conclusion test about.

You need to have an otherwise stable tank, then induce GDA. Then you use the findings there, to go back and make a prediction.

See if it holds most of the time.

If you make the hypothesis that excess light will induce GSA you lower the light down over the tank, fire up the HQI's etc. If the GDA is not induced, then you scratch that off the list. If it does induce GDA, then you go back and try it a few times and see, then ask other folks what their results where/are.

If most everyone has those results, then you might be able to say.

But if you have a messed up tank to start with, you cannot make too many hypothesis, you lack the ability to set up an independent test.

So whatever treatment you do, is likely confounded and has other dependent variables involved. Plenty of folks get algae, but it's not due to EI or light, but we can narrow lot of issues down to CO2.

But there are many other factors that they be overlooking, 1001 ways to mess a tank up. You cannot base your results/conclusions of those tanks..................

You have to use the tanks that are well run, that have good plant growth, no issues to start with, then see if you can induce it.

And because folks have many other variables included, it's rare to find anything that works "every time" equally for everyone.

So you go down, one by one, checking things, being careful, not assuming that the light, CO2 etc are okay/good etc, "I know the CO2 is good!".
Be less assuming. Check and recheck and keep after it. Make sure. Think of ways to add more/less without having to "test".

This testing method does not help those suffering from the issue already, so they run from one claim to the next looking for an answer, rather than a band aid, look at what the folks without GDA are doing.

I have 5 tanks, 2 got GDA and the other 3 have never had it even with inoculation and transfer of plants. So even with the same dosing, same light/intensity/duration etc, biomass, water changes, fish, etc, I had different results.

The one factor I could not be conclusive about was CO2 and bacteria cycling.
GDA did not seem to reappear after it left when I went back and changed the CO2 either. This was true back 4 years ago as well. Perhaps it just took awhile for the plants to get going and build up good growth with good CO2 first.......still, there are quite a few species of algae that appear when CO2 drops.

I'm not sure why each species dominates at any one time either.
BBA and Cladophora are the only ones I can induce well there.
GDA is the one species I've had a lot of trouble inducing, so I cannot say what "causes it". I have had a rather easy time getting rid of it.

Leave it be for a few weeks, then clean, UV, water change, good nutrients/care/CO2 thereafter, more filtration for a bit etc. That's works for a large number of folks who have had it in the past and most have not had issues since.


Regards,
Tom Barr

[Homer_Simpson]

Originally Posted by plantbrain

..The one factor I could not be conclusive about wasCO2 and bacteria cycling.
GDA did not seem to reappear after it left when I went back and changed the CO2 either...

I would be curious to learn more about what you mean by this. Could you elaborate. Also, what is your experience with Green Dust Algae and emersed dry startup method and subsequent flooding? In other words, did any tanks that were started emeresed than flooded develop green dust algae? Thanks.

[jmhart]

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there about every kind of algae. Phosphate this, potassium that.......I feel comfortable saying that for 90% of all alage problems, if you just cut down your light you'll be fine...that's a sure fire solution nearly all the time(I understand you are looking for something definitive, but for all algae I can't say it's always the same thing).

As far as GDA, I can say this. I have a 46g tank with 2x96w of PC lighting, maxed out co2(as in maxed out I mean I pumped it up until my fish gasped, and then backed it down until things returned to normal). In this room, there was directly sunlight. My wife made new curtains effectively blacking out the room. Boom, within a few weeks, no more GDA. So, backing down the light fixed my problem.

However, the argument can also be made(as it often is) that the GSA simply finished it's life cycle. It's hard to tell. This was nearly a year ago...not nearly, it was a year ago....and I haven't seen GSA in that tank since.

If you want high light, you've got to figure out a way to go higher with your co2. However, instead of doing that, I recommend going lower with light. People are impatient. They want their tank full within a month, so they go 6 wpg over a 55g and then go crazy complaining about algae problems. Just back down the light. No need to have that much light.

[sewingalot]

Originally Posted by plantbrain

The one factor I could not be conclusive about was CO2 and bacteria cycling.
GDA did not seem to reappear after it left when I went back and changed the CO2 either. This was true back 4 years ago as well. Perhaps it just took awhile for the plants to get going and build up good growth with good CO2 first.......still, there are quite a few species of algae that appear when CO2 drops.

I am inclined to agree with this statement after my "mini" experiment on GDA. Co2 is definitely a factor. But to what extent, I am uncertain at this point. I am interested to see what happens in the end.

[jaidexl]

My 1yr long battle is finally over, I think I mentioned before that I lowered my light to make it happen. This is after a long stand off of staying the course with dosing and pumping CO2 until the DC was useless and I had to use the fish for measurement. I watched it go through more life cycles than a rabbit and keep coming back until I started lowering my light.

Just recently I decided to cut the CO2 on the same tank, within a few weeks of the GDA subsiding, also stopped dosing completely except for resetting some levels after a water change. The GDA still vanished. Luckily all my species can handle the light level, I'm only running 78w T5HO now over 65gl, whereas it used to be 192w for a year of success before the GDA started.