Ridding Algae from tank ala Tom Barr

[Robert H]

After 2 weeks, my algae grew back and in vengence. Now I have the green slimey stuff and the thread kind to go with the greyish hair algae.

Well that answers the question I was going to ask...after all the trouble of a black out, how much grew back a week later? I never found blackouts to make a huge difference, and with BGA in particular. Now I realize we are not talking about BGA here, but that is one thing I will never do blackouts with again. In the past I fought with BGA doing blackouts, massive water changes one after the other, constantly cleaning the plants, but some BGA always hung on and always grew back. After two months of this I used an anti biotic and it was gone in one week. It took three years for it to come back again and this time I got rid of it in three days. Sometimes doing the the "natural way" and trying to "fix the source" is simply spinning your wheels.

[plantbrain]

You made not one mention or reference to the root cause, lack of NO3 dosing.........:-)

Low NO3 can induce BGA time and time again.
Adding 1/4 teaspoon of KNO3 1-3x a week will prevent the BGA from coming back. It's been about a 12 years since I've had BGA and I can bet it'll never come back because I focused on the cause.

I can add a mat of it and it will not grow in my tanks.

Also, my plants look better because I'm providing them with good NO3 levels by adding KNO3, antibiotics don't grow plants. So adding KNO3 will make the tank look better and improve plant growth more. Growing plants is the goal and when there are poor(or slowed) conditions for the plants, algae will move in.

This approach is free but you can use antibiotics and then dose KNO3 also.
But flipping a switch off is not exactly tough, and it is free so I'm not sure why a pill is needed(unless you get them free or sell them), although it can be used.

Regards,
Tom Barr