Actually, this is an algae I've been trying to get rid of for almost a year. It started right around the meeting at my house in April last year. Its a filamentous algae, bright green, long strands that are relativly soft, easy to break, slimy to touch. I think its a kind of Rhizoclonium. Anyway, I tried EVERYTHING known to man to get rid of it. Double dosing Excel, blackouts, low lights, low nutrients, high nutrients, high CO2, high K, peroxide, Amano shrimp wont touch it, barbs don't eat it. I actually broke this tank down this past November, and started with brand new plants, and it STILL came back - this is the Superman of algae.
Anyway, a couple of weekends ago, I was at NEC and had an opportunity to talk to Dr. Ole Pedersen from the Univ. of Copahagen. He was a guest speaker at the NEC and guess what the topic of his talk was - Algae.
I told him of my plight, and he was actually quite intruiged and asked for a sample of this super algae. I did mail it to him - we'll see what he comes back with on it.
In the meantime, inspired by what I saw in his talk, I setup a little side by side experiement to see which concentrations of Excel work best. The results are interesting. So, instead of just telling you flat out, let's play a little game.
I used 2 sets of 5 jars for the experiment, to ensure that the results were somewhat scientific.
In the pictures below, the jars with the same label have the same concentration of Excel.
Concentration used were (in no particular order):
100% recommended dose
25% recommended dose
0%
200% recommended dose
50% recommended dose
Here are the before and after pictures.
Before:
After:
The jars are not particularly placed by order of concentration. Then again, maybe they are.
Guess the concentration of Excel used in the jars.
Example answer:
A: 0%
B: 25%
C: .. etc you get the idea.
I'll post the right answer in a day or two.
