Originally Posted by
Mac
Thanks everybody for all the advice.
Since starting this thread, I've also gone back over some of the sticky posts that I had not read in a while.
In the interests of academic discussion, my conclusions and questions for further study follow:
1. "Everybody knows" that discus need soft acid water. Except that they don't. My fish have done well for years in DC tap water, which is hard and high pH. However, Filip said that you "only need" soft acid water for spawning and hatching, AND that discus do better in hard water. That agrees with my own experience, in that the only times I've had successful spawning and hatching was with RO water. So what I want to know is: Why should any species thrive best in conditions that are inimical to its procreation?
2. This thread confirms my previously-stated view that CO2 is just too damn complicated. I want to be a hobby aquarist, not a gardener.
3. As I said above, I also had the algae when I had low light. One of the sticky threads (started by ChloroPhyll) includes a checklist of desired parameters, including lighting at 2 to 3 wpg. It was after reading that (or something like it) a few years back that I upped my light into that range. But the consensus here now is that I am running twice as much light as I need, for much longer than I need, and that must be why I have the algae. My conclusion: You can't win!
4. Nobody really knows how to "get rid of" algae. Some think you can get plants that "out-compete" it, depending on about half a dozen other variables, like CO2 levels (which are a function of KH and pH), ferts, lights and clean-up crews. My unscientific suspicion is that you can only control it, at best, once it's introduced; even if I moved my fish to a new BB tank, they would carry algae spores with their slime.
5. Finally, something I've learned all by myself: Siamese algae eaters (SAE) don't eat much algae -- if any. Whoever named them must have been trying to sell off a whole bunch of them.
Thanks again,
Mac