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What should i do?

seedjar

Let's positive thinking!
So I looked today and found algae growing like crazy with some gemmae and young plants that I recently recieved. Is this a danger to my plants? One pot is all peat, the other two are peat and sand. I think I read that low light helps control algae, but what else can I do? I'm going to try to scrape it off with a butterknife or something. Any help would be great.
Thanks,
~Joe
 
You can scarpe it off. Another thing you could do is temporarily flood the pots and the algae should float or at least be able to be removed as a mass - unless you are concerned about seedlings being discombobulated by the flooding.
 
Don't change the light levels! Do what jim says and remove it the best you can.

I get some algae and moss in all my pots eventually. You just have to control it the best you can.

Also, I think there's a sticky in the sundew forum about what to do when your pots are overrun with moss. You could do that.

Capslock
 
I scraped it off and put the pots under lower light. I guess all I can do now is wait. I think that somehow the algae was a result of the wooden stakes I was using for ID tags, as the tags were covered in algae along the top of the soil and some sort of funky rot below. Oddly, two other pots I have from the same batch with the same ID tags are fine - they've been under lower light.
All I can do now is wait. If it gets bad, I'll try floating the rooted plants. I think I'll stick to scraping the gemmae, as they're in sand and peat and the algae comes up really easy off of that.
Thanks!
~Joe
 
algae is a fact of life when growing CP's. constantly moist soil is ideal for the stuff. dont reduce light. the advise on scraping and floating it off is about all you can do.
 
It could be the level of nutrients in the soil if your peat is poor. Try repotting or flushing the soil with watter to eliminate or dilude the nutrients and whatnot. It could be disastorous for seeds, but seedlings that are big enough should be able to go through it without harm.

I dont think alegae does too much harm to live plants. I have a few pots in the summer that have alegae in them and they did fine, but seeds may be smothered.

I don't know how varying light levels will effect your plants or the alegae, but algea problems in aquariums can be solved with a blackout (few days without light) or a reduced photoperiode. Now I dont say you whould try any of these two, but if if all else fails, it could be worth a shot. Zongyi
 
I think that high water levels might have been an issue too. It's got a full-spectrum bulb now and is still fairly close to the high-light spot; I just want to slow the algae down to give the gemmae a chance to get established. Three out of nine have browned tops, and I think it might have something to do with the algae. I wouldn't worry so much about it but the algae wasn't really there at all two days ago, and I'd like to figure out what made it grow so fast.
~Joe
 
The answer to that is,whatever conditions you had the soil in, was perfect for the algaes growing conditions. It demonstrated that by growing faster than you could believe. Algae does that sometimes. Well, around here, all the time!
 
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