I used a full bottle of Seachem PhosGuard in my 90-gallon freshwater aquarium. I put granules in two filters and the nylon mesh sack a month ago, but the brown algae is still alive and growing. All these recommendations from different "specialists" sounds to me like a pure lie. P.S. Yes it is easy to brush brown algae with the toothbrush, but it comes back.
I wouldn’t recommend using this for anyone that has a planted aquarium. Your plants require phosphate to grow. So, you’ll have to find an alternate way. Maybe, a dozen ottos lol
I've been keeping African Cichlids for over 30 years in tanks up to 135 gallons all on well water. Recently moved and am now stuck with city water. My substrate has always been crushed coral and the rock structures I make out of styrofoam and mortar mix. Previously my lighting was flourescent but now have led's. 3 months after setting up both tanks, I now have what looks to be diatom growth that brushes off easily but only on the mid to upper water column rock structures in the AC tank.....nothing on the glass. So, the only 2 variables in my case are tap water and lighting. However, on the community tank that uses tap water and led's with pea pebbles as a substrate, there is no diatom growth, only on the 75 gallon AC tank with mortar mix rocks, tap water and led's. The 75 gallon was cycled for 4 weeks with two HOB's and an undergravel running continuously. I'm thinking that in my case I did not cycle the AC tank long enough with enough water changes to stabilise the leaching of the dissolved silcates from the mortar mix into the water. Is that a fair assumption? I hate putting chemicals into a tank (except chlorine remover) would rather let a more natural process solve the problem. I'm going to do a couple of 80 percent water changes 3 weeks apart without any other changes and report back.
I bought the product and it isn't stopping the diatoms yet. I have a tiny 9g Fluval tank with plants and driftwood and the diatoms have destroyed about half my plants due to lack of light I guess when they get covered. I'm changing out water weekly and hoping eventually the few handfuls of ornamental sand I put in there run out of silica. The balls are turning brown, so I'm still hoping. If anyone has any other idea let me know please, I guess I might have to get new substrate and remove all the sand.
Nerite snails do fine in freshwater. I have used them for decades. You probably used way too many chemicals to kill all the algae and your nerite snails were starving and looking for food outside the tank.
I get that type of fee is frustrating, but coming from a sales and operations background, imagine 100 customers a day and 65 of them change their order. It creates havoc.
Sir, I have a single Kamfa(Flowerhorn species) fish in my 350 liters tank. It is a cycled tank and I have an external UV light too. The UV light took care of all other algae but these brown algae would return in 5-6 days after every water change. I did not want to crash my cycle so avoided any chemicals. I use borewell water and it has a high PH value and must be having these salts. I am going to do as you explained. Should I change the canister filter sponges too or should clean the aquarium of diatoms only. Anything else I can put along for better results?
I paid around $85 for this fish, and then $30 for shipping. I just sold him (and three OB females from SRC which cost me $35 each) locally for a grand total of $20. There was very little interest for the fish here in Minnesota, which surprised me.
Just saying diatoms use silacates to build their outer shell, like a snail uses calcium to build their shell. You don't get a diatom bloom from silicates, just like you don't get overrun with snails from exta calcium alone. It's the nutrients, phosphates and nitrates that cause the bloom. You can kill off diatoms, or shorten their lifespans without silicates, just like snails won't thrive without calcium, but the root cause is excess waste and excess nutrients and an imbalance that the diatoms are trying to correct for.
Thank you for putting this video out and man I wish that I would have seen it a long time ago. I am having diatom outbreak every time I turn around. I know it's poor water quality from the tap. I use sponge filters in all of my aquariums so how can I use the phosguard granules in my 75 gallon and my 150 gallon? Are there any products that you would recommend that might be a liquid? I used blasting sand for the first time and I will not ever do it again 🤣. Yeah it's 50 lb for $10 but then you have more trouble than what that little bit of savings is worth. Thanks again for your video from one fish keeper to another ❤️
@@englelisa45 I bought this stuff and it does work but if your aquarium is over 40 gallons and you have a serious issue, I do not suggest this. It will be way too costly!!!. Not gonna like it but do it anyway.. Drain, SCRUB everything. Use sand only as substrate. Fill with gallons of spring/bottled... Your choice. Use stability as directed especially if you have fish. Good luck
You said the phosgaurd "leaches" phosphates and silica. But that would be bad because it would mean it adds these and feeds the diatoms. Did you mean it ABSORBS phosphates and silica? Or am I just confused about what "leach" means?? 🧐🤔😅
@@micheldarosa6660 he’s colored up very well. All my fish from snake rivers are stunning, not a boring one in the tank. I also got a sunshine ob recently and he’s just as awesome.
@@addison_hickman I must’ve been intoxicated when I typed that lol I got 4 sunshine’s 3 of them are fine one died in the mail before it got here, I got 2 1.75 inches one of those were the one that died, and 2 1 inch - 1.5 inch, they’ve all seem to be showing a small hint of yellow, they were unsexed I’ve gotten 6 on another order of blueberry’s and 3 raspberry which 4 were males and 2 were females I have lost 3 total obs since 1 in the mail and 2 to what I would assume bullying the one I have no idea what happened to him I just assume it was bullying
I have two 55 gallon aquariums. After a hospitalization I decided that a good therapy would be to set up the aquariums. I live in S Florida so I just went to a local canal at night and netted 30 cichlids. So it's been a year and several generations of what are very colorless (silver and black bands) fish. So if the posters of this video (Colorful Cichlids) is still reading comments from 2020, I'd like to put all my cichlids back in the canal and buy another variety of mouth brooding cichlid in my aquarium. So this is the question. With your experience, what would be the most exotic, expensive, colorful, mouth brooding cichlid that I could buy on line to restart my aquarium with, and where to buy them. I think a dozen should be sufficient. I don't know if this is true, but when I removed large abusive male cichlids from the tank, it seemed like the females would change into a dominant male. (This is true in the ocean fish called "groupers") Any advice would be very welcomed. And take my mind off of Putin and Ukraine.
Hey guys- I got a 29 gallon super basic livebearer tank. It’s my most basic set up ever- no live plants, no snails, no real rocks. It’s my “working 50 hours a week” tank- fake plants and fake rock structures and happy fat livebearers. Ran much more intricate tanks in the past but not for me right now. I have the beginning of diatoms coming in and this time will not be adding any more fish like ottos or live plants. I have some leftover “algone” pads- would algone work for diatoms if I popped some packets in my canister? Any feedback much appreciated. Thanks!
