Two options in my book.
1. Get a brigade of young SAEs, Red Cherry Shrimp, and/or Amano Shrimp and reduce your feeding. Allow them to eat the majority of the algae.
2. Dose Excel or Metricide 14 and let the algae become pink and fall off.
After ridding yourself of the symptoms, figure out your problem. Your dosing seems about appropriate for EI methods. I would look into reducing your feeding, determining your bio load in the tank and seeing if your biological filtration is up to par. Any ammonia that lingers around will trigger algae growth. Though your test kits might read zero ammonia, ammonia is still released from decaying plant matter, food, and fish crap etc... With EI you dose to provide an unlimited supply of nutrients. The key is keep things in balance while doing so. You are dosing a good amount of KNO3, and if you also have a high bio load, you could potentially be contributing an unbalanced amount of nitrates, allowing algae to feed.
4 T5HOs is a pretty large amount of light for your setup, you could try running less bulbs, or raise the fixture further. Too much light, more often then not, will contribute to algae, that is if you cannot consistently match the light intensity with appropriate ferts and CO2 levels.
Your CO2 concentration should be pretty equal throughout the tank. Sounds like its not. Try increasing flow from one end of the tank to the other.
And finally, keep up your weekly 50% water changes to bring your ppm levels back into check, an overabundance of nutrients from week to week will also give algae the opportunistic advantage.
Just my .02, perhaps other people will chime in with their theories
-Chris
1. Get a brigade of young SAEs, Red Cherry Shrimp, and/or Amano Shrimp and reduce your feeding. Allow them to eat the majority of the algae.
2. Dose Excel or Metricide 14 and let the algae become pink and fall off.
After ridding yourself of the symptoms, figure out your problem. Your dosing seems about appropriate for EI methods. I would look into reducing your feeding, determining your bio load in the tank and seeing if your biological filtration is up to par. Any ammonia that lingers around will trigger algae growth. Though your test kits might read zero ammonia, ammonia is still released from decaying plant matter, food, and fish crap etc... With EI you dose to provide an unlimited supply of nutrients. The key is keep things in balance while doing so. You are dosing a good amount of KNO3, and if you also have a high bio load, you could potentially be contributing an unbalanced amount of nitrates, allowing algae to feed.
4 T5HOs is a pretty large amount of light for your setup, you could try running less bulbs, or raise the fixture further. Too much light, more often then not, will contribute to algae, that is if you cannot consistently match the light intensity with appropriate ferts and CO2 levels.
Your CO2 concentration should be pretty equal throughout the tank. Sounds like its not. Try increasing flow from one end of the tank to the other.
And finally, keep up your weekly 50% water changes to bring your ppm levels back into check, an overabundance of nutrients from week to week will also give algae the opportunistic advantage.
Just my .02, perhaps other people will chime in with their theories
-Chris
