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Dan's 45p - A Blank Canvas.....

Some pics of the diatoms, still struggling to keep these under control, manually removing what I can. Ottos don't seem to be that bothered for them!

What should I be doing, should I be increasing water changes or will this worsen things?

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Dan
 
That is still looking bad. Water changes never hurt specially when your tank is so affected the more the better. I can't remember which ferts you were using but it may be worth dosing the macros after water changes. Daily water changes for a week are probably needed but I know this is not always feasible so just fit as many as you can and do manually removal of algae. amano shrimps will also help, they really helped me achieve the balance I was looking for on my tank after struggling with brown algae for a month
 
Following this with interest. I'm about to start up my own tank and am learning a lot too!
 
I had this filamentous algae before. Never managed to beat it but I saw a difference when I decreased light intensity. Tom Bar suggested that it was due to low biomass which was true in my case but I think in your case its more about low CO2 and high Lights. Since you have fauna in there I would not suggest you increase the CO2 or at least increase it slowly always observing fish behavior. I would also add liquid carbon (Easycarbo or Excel) in overdose (x3 or x4 suggested dose), just ensure you have no shrimp in there. You have your lights at 50% now which is good but since I don't know much about the ADA lights I would even go down to 40%. All you need is some healthy growth and when this happens you can stop dosing the liquid carbon. Have in mind the liquid carbon will kill off all of the algae when overdosed however if you stop it, the algae will come back if the root problem was not fixed. Also don't cut of the liquid carbon immediately, go from 1 week of x4 overdose to 1 week of x3 overdose and so forth until you stop adding it.

This is MHO:
Lower light
Increase CO2
Siphon all algae
Overdose liquid carbon

What kind of substrate do you have?

Thanks
 
Hi,

Thanks people. I have ADA Aquasoil Amazonia Powder Type with Powersand Special S below.

I tried dosing easycarbo last night actually but my too's seemed to go a bit mad/ distressed and the drop checker went yellow so I did a 50% water change. I think my CO2 is ok as the drop checker is lime green. I have moved my lily pipe tottery and improve flows bit.

To be honest when I reduced the lighting it seemed to just make the problem worse so I've just decided to increase it and see what happens (it's all about experimenting in this game).

Dan
 
I've actually been fighting this algae in my tank lately too.

I'm pretty sure its a low biomass situation in my case too, but I've found that doing daily water changes while rubbing down all branches and harscape, removing with a toothbrush etc, seems to have helped.

It's taken two weeks of daily maintenance and each day it seems there is less and less growth.
 
I'm just manually removing the algae now and letting things ride themselves out. I don't want to keep changing things as it will just make everything unstable. I know my CO2 is fine at the drop checker is spot on and even goes yellow by late evening (fish fine). I may just play with improving the flow a bit more.

Dan
 
Hi,

Well the diatoms seemed to have just disappeared over the past week. I have the lights running on full and that seemed to clear them! Also the Monte carlo is picking up and even Santa's in on the scape now :)

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Dan
 
Major trim today, Monte carlo definitely picking up. I'm going to keep the hydrocotyle more limited as it get's a bit out of control. Aiming for a full backdrop of rotala!

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Realised I had set the auto doser wrong (well the instruction manual was wrong) so the ferts were only getting dosed every 2 days, oops.
 
Ha, yeh I've asked for the lily pipe brush from Santa so they might get a scrub in the new year.
 
Decided to remove quite a lot of the hydrocotyle as it was over shadowing the monte carlo. Now trying to encourage a full carpet in front of the wood. Major trim of the rotala too.

CO2 is looking a little on the low side too...time for a refill soon me thinks

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I am glad to see things are progressing better than what they were
Although it still seems to be affected by a small amount of brown algae
 
Hi,

Yeh the brown algae is the next thing to battle. First it was the diatoms, then the green stuff, now this....
 
Hi everyone,

Current issue is all this horrid green stringy algae that is getting into my carpet and other plants. I have dimmed the lights a bit to see if that helps, would reducing ferts also help. CO2 is running on borderline yellow on the drop checker so not a lack of CO2, but circulation might be an issue?

BTW this was the state after I was away for a week, I promise it is not this shabby looking normally!

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Any thoughts?
 
For some reason this tank seems especially gifted in the algae department ;)

Who's in your algae crew?
(I think that Stiphodon Gobies are likely the keenest consumers of this type of algae but look at their requirements & decide if they'd suit)

Meanwhile clean/physically remove as much as possible - may work to "twirl" with a brush (pretty sure there are some other journals where this sort of algae is discussed)
Daily water change & removal
Add some floating plants or check that rotala growth is vigorous (don't recall which variant) ie when in algae situation some fast growing plants are helpful
 
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