Algae war

[metal-head]

I am off to war with algae after skipping a couple of weeks with the water change/making the tank look good the algae grew very rapidly. in the front its brown, and the back some is green and then periodically there is long green strands about 3"+, and on the plants theres short dark green/grey and the long green stuff as well. where do i start? I usually scrap once a week so there must be something wrong. pH 7.2 and the rest is good with the nitrates a 5.0 ppm, the plants get 9 hours of light. I was thinking about getting a UV sterilizer or maybe even RO/DI for extra fire power if i absolutly needed, and put my algae srapper on the front line as well as send sicors on infected plants. but im afriad i wont have any plants left if i do that because its really bad. And this from my knowledge is pretty much all i could do but any suggestions are most welcome.

[AngelMom]

Sounds like you have a major imbalance of nutrients. What fertilizers do you use, and how often do you add them?

[metal-head]

just flourish 1/4 cap once a week and with a water change its closer to 50% capfull definatly less though. i put in some root tabs but only partial i cant say how much but probably 1.5 to 2 full tabs. i just cut some off and stick it under new plants to help them get their roots in faster.

[AngelMom]

One thing that stands out to me is that you have no carbon source for the plants. It doesn't have to be CO2 gas ...... I prefer the liquid form and use Seachem's Flourish Excell.

I'm thinking this is your 55 gallon tank? If so, get some Excell to add to the mix. Up the Flourish to a full capfull once a week and add 3 capfulls of the Excell initially (and at each water change) and supplement with an additional capfull of the Excell once or twice during the week between water changes.

Once the plants get some carbon to use, they should use up the rest of the nutrients before the algae can.

HTH

[metal-head]

seems logical to me since plants need CO2, H2O and light in order to make food for themselves. Arighty ill give it a try thanks

[Jay+]

Hi metal...

Your post is just a little thin on the information side to be of real help here as the strategies for war on algae are a little different depending on the plant density of your aquarium.

Specifically is your tank heavily planted; moderately planted, or lightly planted.

How may watts per gallon are your lights producing.

What is the temperature of the water.

Besides the plant tabs (what are they) and the Flourish, are you adding anything else?

I can understand that there are three different algae species that are out of control from your post. All are easy to beat back and control :) Just need some info.

IMO beat back without throwing expensive equipment at them like UV.

Jay

[metal-head]

moderatly, 80wpg, ah dunno it should be 78 F i just look make sure its within the "green zone", thats all the plant ferts, lets see ill try my best once i have more time im going to look at how to get good pics.:

short dark green/dark grey strands on leaves mainly my crypts and anubias most likely bba

on the front glass its actually more green very hard to get off, structured like this "/" sorta with more of a curve.

on the back it seems like ive got 2 kinds of algae
one long green strands of algae hair algae and the other is green with some brown patches

i cleaned the tank did a w/c im going to the pet shop tommarrow to get some excel.

2 things there seems to be a lot of just like detritus floating around my tank as well and it gets stuck in the algae and it seems to mass by where the plants stick up from the grave especially by my crypts...could this mean in need more filtration or should i just clean out my filter? thats the best description i can give detritus. And should i go ahead and start chopin down the forrest or should i wait to start that i would just be concerend about alage growning instead of plants. Any questions anyone may have for me feel free to ask

[Jay+]

I’ve got good news and bad news…

The bad news is that your setup is a little weak for growing plants successfully. 80 watts translates into less than 1.5 watts per gallon. You need to get up to 2 wpg.

A nutrient imbalance in a planted tank means that the nutrients needed by the plants Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potassium and Carbon are in limited supply or missing. Flourish is only supplying trace nutrients not the major ones.

These two conditions not enough light intensity, and a limited nutrient supply, grow algae not plants.

The good news is; a good cleaning of glass, and filters a fifty % water change, and then a complete black out of the tank with black plastic garbage bags. No light for three days (fish will be fine) then unwrap and another water change, that should wipe out most of the algae.

I think you will need to rethink live plants for now at least until you can get the light intensity up. Continually fighting with algae is frustrating, and yours will come right back without these fundamental changes.

Jay

[metal-head]

so nitrogen comes from the fish excraments, flourish does provide phospate so K and CO2 are what im lacking along with light.

Im not comfortable with a black out just yet only because i would like some time off just to make sure i get things set but for now ill see what i can do about Kand CO2. and i will definatly clean my filter. And i have looked online and im going to check the pet stores on lighting i may be able to trade in the existing light or something but anyways thanks for the help

more comments welcome

[ghetzel]

I have found that dosing SeaChem Fluorish Potassium nearly every day is necessary in my tank. Without Potassium the plants quickly stop growing, leaves get holes, and the algae quickly coats everything. Holes in the leaves is the clue that you have Potassium deficiency. I also dose Fluorish twice a week. I weekly measure Nitrogen and Phosphorous levels and generally don't need to add them. Apparently flake food is source for Phosphorous and Nitrogen comes from the fish.

In my aquarium, Potassium is the secret to the battle against algae.

[Jay+]

Remember the three fundamentals for planted tank success. In this order...

Sufficient watts per gallon to fire photosynthesis.

A consistent reliable source of Carbon

Plant nutrients in sufficient quantity that NONE of them become limiting (exhausted)

Fish and fish food will not supply a consistent, and non limiting (plants will not have enough) level of the nutrients that plants need for health. FYI Flourish at the recommended dose contains .002 ppm of Phosphate, you need at least 1.00 ppm.

For example; It is not the K in ghetzel's tank that inhibits algae growth it is Healthy Growing Plants. There are no silver bullets for algae,But you can be successful growing healthy plants and the algae will retreat.

If you are serious about a light upgrade, and growing plants then yes you would then need to look at a source of carbon. Excel is an excellent one, not as good as CO2 but good.

Then the essential nutrients maintained at levels where they cannot become limiting. There are lots of good places and tools out there to help you along with dosing ferts. If you would like I can direct you to a few.

It is generally accepted in the planted tank community that minimum target levels of nutrients need to be established and maintained.

Here is one set of levels, a little on the low side for me, but they do work.

Nitrogen - NO3 - 20 ppm
Phosphate - PO4 - 1-2 ppm
Potassium - K - 15 ppm
Magnesium - Mg - 10 ppm
Calcium - Ca - 20 ppm

Trace Nutrients (flourish) as per bottle instructions

An adequate supply of Carbon. Excel by the bottle instructions.

The ingredients are easy to obtain, the amounts to add are easily established. The hard part is understanding WHY all this works, but you can work on that while you enjoy your healthy plants.

My advice is to not go at this piecemeal. A years supply of the ferts I listed can be had for $15 plus shipping. You know about Flourish and Excel. The major cost is probably going to be your light.

Jay

[metal-head]

Alrighty so i got flourish excell and the flourish pottasium....im sure i could do something cheaper but the convience is hard to pass up....anyways i actually dosed according to what the bottle reccomended just wanted to see what the reaction is to that. i would also like to get the phosphuros and iron bottles as well at least i could have them on hand. if i can get decent growth with the flourish products i then might try the EI method but ill see how this works for now.

But this weekend im gonna clean and do a 33%? w/c one day and then clean the filter the next day....im not replacing media so im not gonna wait longer. and im gonna do what angelmom said to do with the flourish and excel. what should my K dosings be 50% inital and a little bit once or twice in between w/c? and if im not getting favorable results like algae still growning faster or the leaves are "burning" within the next 3 weeks i may switch to daily w/c at 10% so how should i dose then?

THanks for all your help so far i appreciate it


Thanks for the help i aprecciate it alot

[Jay+]

K only needs to be available in the water column to be useful. It can be dosed once a week at water change. .The accepted range is 10 - 15 ppm.

If you feel you need K you probably need Magnesium as well.

If you raise your light level, you will definitely need NO3 and PO4 or your frustration level will go up.

Good luck :)

Jay

[metal-head]

Ill start from after this thread started i guess so i noticed an improvement with the algae it seemed to subside. So i thought hey ill prove that the algae comes back by not adding anything again so i still did water changes but sure enough the next week it had started to take over again. So now that im able to "control the algae" somewhat slow it down somewhat im still not happy with the results im getting....the long strings of algae seem to be the kind i have beaten back but i still get this brown stuff that covers the front glass but its basically diaganal lines kinda like this / maybe a little curve that seems to come back still and so does the green algae thats in the back as described b4. and the plants the middle to bottom leaves look terrible its the upper portion close to the light (hint anyone :BW ) seem to look the best. altho i did take some cuttings and those seem to be doing well for now we'll see though.

Anyways my plan of action for this weekend was to do some hardcore scrapping of the front glass and ill do my best with the back and sides. I'll leave some but my thinking was that its too established right now, so when i get that section cleaned, i cant get at the other or its hard to even get off, so then it just grows back. Ive been taking my magnetic scrapper and taking the scraping side with my hand instead of using the other half but now i have a putty knife brand new so hopefully it will doe better.

Any ideas for the plants i need them to help keep back algae but im having trouble keeping them so its like great :( is there anyway that i can modify my existing lighting cheaply and that avoids ording stuff online?(don't like to mess with shipping waiting having stuff back ordered and all that good stuff)

[metal-head]

Okay today I bleached plants removed most algae. There are some leaves still have algae but its white now and easier to see. I also scraped the glass as best i could still some in corners and on the intake tube. Also 50% water change. Added plant nutrients.

[AngelMom]

I found this link which helps to understand the amount of each nutrient as it's added: Fert Friend (http://www.fishfriend.com/fertfriend.html) Interesting at least.

[metal-head]

Angelmom: That was fun to play around with you can see what the given ferts add and stuff :cool:
I found what appears to be a good article (http://www.floridadriftwood.com/plantinfo/control_of_algae_in_planted_aqua.htm)
however i have not verified it but at first glance looks like good info. I kinda just skipped down to the discusion/recomendation.

[metal-head]

LOL maybe its not such a good article kinda old early 90s

[AngelMom]

It's a decent article, but they are lacking in some of the understanding on how algae and higher plants operate. Have you checked out the "Plant Health" and "Algae in Planted Takns" links in my signature? His articles are some of the better ones I've seen and they are easy to understand. :D

[metal-head]

Today is the first day that i have noticed most of the leaves disinegrating i gues...lost color and see through pretty much. Where there is new growth however just starting appears to be fine. 2 possibilities is that i od on ferts but that does not seem likely as any build up would have been removed in the w/c unless i put too much in with the new water. Or it could be something did not go well with the bleach. Too long or to concentrated. Im leaning maybe a bit too concentrated 20 Tablespoons of bleach in 3 gallons of water and i could have left them in there for too long. Will do a 10% water change in case there is a build up of nutrients.

[AngelMom]

Are you adding any potassium? My plants get the "see through" thing when they are deficient for too long.

[metal-head]

i do dose with flourish potasiumm...i did a 10% w/c and i was unsure of how much to add the directions say that 5 ml will raise the amount by 2ppm in 30 gallons of water. so how much should be adding and how often?

[AngelMom]

If you are already adding it, then just removing the dead leaves will help the plants. I add potassium twice a week along with the other ferts (though I just use the general purpose stuff once a week).

HTH

[metal-head]

This is of my 10 gallon but as you can see....its easily removed buy again keeps coming back parameters are normal and i dose the same as i do the 55 gallon

[metal-head]

The 55 again....have not changed anything accept i put in new plants a while ago.....due to the file size limit quality was lost so i could email better pictures...i will also take a few more pics later b4 i change the water and clean that algae off :(