Fishless Green Water Cultivation Options

[HappyBuddha]

Using Mozoo 55W PL tube ( from C328 ), on for more than 12 Hrs daily but not fix ( as in sometimes I on 24 Hrs, sometimes, I on for 13 Hrs but definitely more than 12 Hrs )

You didn't show your lamp in the pic....

Since it's fishless, don't put your lamp on top of the tub but let it sit by the side so that light penetration into the tank is direct and intense.

[desireless]

Oh.. so it is FISHLESS nor....

Have you been re-dosing enough pellets to make sure there is enough nutrients for the green to kick start?

[jowy_ham]

FL and PL is referring to the light TUBE shape. FL means filament tube. The ones that you see in coffee shop and everywhere else. You will see that your Mozoo light tube is DUAL tube... that's PL already.

You have to get the Mozoo light set with WHITE/WHITE PL tube. It should cost $35 at C328. Don't get the cheap one at $28. That's only PINK/WHITE light which is not bright enough. Another I think at $32 house the BLUE/WHITE tube, which is also not bright enough.

Also note that for Mozoo/Enqing brand light set, ONLY the 2-ft light set comes with 55 watts ebalast. 3 ft and 4 ft are 18Watts and 36Wx2 resp.

If you have the correct light set, then you have to run the light for 24-7 to see the green kick in by 7-9 days.

Ok, confirm I have PL light liao, but whether BLUE/WHITE, PINK/WHITE or WHITE/WHITE -> dunno

Any way to check ?

As for my green water, will start again later.

[HappyBuddha]

Oh.. so it is FISHLESS nor....

Have you been re-dosing enough pellets to make sure there is enough ammonia for the green to kick start?

Did you see any fish in those photos? Told you not to PCC too much or you'll go blind...

Yeah, top-up fresh pellets is very important. Heck, since there's no fish inside, find ways to rocket up the ammonia level such as seriously overdosing pellets.

[HappyBuddha]

Ok, confirm I have PL light liao, but whether BLUE/WHITE, PINK/WHITE or WHITE/WHITE -> dunno 

Any way to check ?

As for my green water, will start again later.

Slide a piece of white photocopy paper under the lamp. If one of the tube is coloured, you'll see the obvious difference between the tubes.

[desireless]

Very obvious one. PL has got dual tube. You turn the light on and see that both tubes are white.

[desireless]

does the water clear up partly if u turn off the aeration for an hour?

I think what ET is trying to find out is whether your alage were dead. 

There's one difference in fishless green water cultivation that we must not overlook.  In tradtional cultivation, fresh supplies of ammonia is provided by the fishes on a daily basis.  When there's no fish involved, the ammonia provided by rotting pellets will be depleted by the developing algae.  When there's no food for the algae, they die.

So it's important to replenish the ammonia producing pellets in fishless green water cultivation or risk seeing dead algae that settle down when there's no aeration in stagnant water.  Eons ago I capped a small bottle of green water and kept it in a dark closet for 2 weeks.  Without food/sunlight/DO, needless to say the algae are dead when I took the bottle out of the closet.  What I found was settlements of green algae on the bottle's floor and the water is now clear.  Shaking the bottle a few times "blended" the dead algae and the clear water returned to *almost* the same green water tint it used to be.  So when your algae is dead yet with current circulating them, it will be hard to tell.

I did a green water kick-start with the Fishless method a second time. Done a test to my green water today, which is after the 8th or 9th cycle after the virgin brew. This is how the sampled green water (should) look like after letting it settle for one hour plus:


Your green water would be "dead" if your water clears up (with algae sediments at the bottom) after letting it settle for some time. The tricky part of attaining "undead" green water algae for this (fishless) kick-start method is to add excessive pellets at the beginning. And I let the light on for 24/7.

Thanks to ET and HB for pointing this out.

Note: An observation I made was that, for the 2nd time, I achieved green water faster - in merely 4 days. It could be due to me adding much more pellets and lesser water this time. Another difference I did was, I have covered the exposed area of the tank with masking tape to prevent houseflies or beatles from committing suicide in my brew (as they were very attracted to the strong light). The stale air MIGHT have some influence, which I can't explained