350L low tech tank algae problems

[drooke]

Hi all,

I've recently moved from a 125L tank to a 350L tank - I had some algae issues in the previous tank and want to get them resolved for the new tank. I'm hoping you may be able to help me.

The new tank holds 350L, I have 10L Tropica Plant Substrate capped with about 45KG of play sand. Temperature is about 22-23C with pH of about 7.

Lighting
The lighting is 120W in total with the photo period (currently reduced to help with algae):

60W 16.00 - 21.00
60W 17.00 - 22.00

Filtration/Circulation
1 x Eheim 2128 Thermo
1 x Hydor Koralia Evo Nano
1 x Hydor Koralia Evo 4000 (17.00 - 21.00)

Plants
I don't have many plants:

• 2 x large Amazon swords (15+" tall)
• 5 x smaller Amazon swords
• 20ish Blyxa Japonica
• 5 stems of Rotala Green Sp.

Fertilisers

10ml of Tropica Plant Nutrition+ a week

Fish
I have:

• 4 x Angel fish
• 4 x German Rams
• 2 x Dwarf Rainbow fish
• 5 x Lemon tetras
• 4 x Neon Tetras
• 2 x Platy
• 17 x Corys

I've attached some photos of the algae after acculating for about 3 weeks. I think I have:

• Green/Brown dust algae
• Hair algae
• Some BBA too on plants

Everything I've read suggests that I need to use CO2 to get this under control. I would like to keep my ongoing costs low and so I'd like to stay low tech if possible. I will consider CO2 if significantly easier though. Please can you help?

 

[CeeJay]

Hi drooke

Everything I've read suggests that I need to use CO2 to get this under control.

In a low tech this is not quite the case.
What you appear to be suffering from is fluctuating CO2 levels (Hair and BBA at least).
So my first question is, are you doing any water changes? Carrying out water changes on a low tech is an absolute no no, as your tap water contains higher levels of CO2 than your tank. So if you change the water you add CO2, during the next couple of days the plants will use that CO2 and the levels will drop and there's your fluctuating CO2 . Doesn't do the plants any good either.

I have had more grief with my low tech, than I've ever had with my hi tech. I have found silly things like moving a spraybar to increase surface agitation can induce BBA.
I have found a low tech is what is says on the tin, low tech. Don't do anything to it except feed the plants and fish and clean the filter every now and again. I think I've cleaned mine twice in 18 months . If you have enough plants in the tank, these will assist with the filtration of the water anyway.
If you ever got the urge to do a water change sometime down the line, I would recommend that you stand the new water in a barrel/tub/bath/buckets for 24 hours and this will allow the tapwater CO2 to escape to atmosphere. Agitating the water speeds up this process too. Then, when you add the new water to the tank, the CO2 levels will be around the same as the tank water. Less of a CO2 fluctuation .
I also note that you have tons of flow around this tank. Whilst it's highly desirable in a hi tech, it is not required in a low tech as the whole pace of life and uptake of nutrients etc is a lot slower. I would reduce this so you have just enough that you don't have any dead spots in the tank.

My advice for now, would be to stop the water changes (if you are doing any), reduce the flow, clean the glass and trim the infected leaves.
I would also up the TPN+. I use a lot more than that in my 90 litre low tech although it has a few more plants than yours.

The brown algae you have could be diatom which happens in most new set ups. Either keep cleaning it off as it appears or get some Oto's to eat it. Either way this will disappear when the tank has fully matured.
I also suspect that the 'Green Dust' algae you refer to is GSA. This is the very reason I upped my (home made) TPN+, it is very low in Phosphates. Clean it off, increase your dosing and it shouldn't come back
Just a few pointers, hope they help

 

[drooke]

Hi CeeJay,

Thanks for your reply.

As it happens I have yet to do a decent water change since setting up the tank (about 8 weeks). I did change about 10 litres this week to allow me to clean the filter, but this was after I took the photos.

I'm not sure that I could commit to never changing the water as I need to ensure the health of my fish. So it sounds like I have two options:

- leave replacement water to stand for 24 hours to reduce CO2 level
- go high tech to stabilise CO2 level

I'm not too sure the first option is viable with the volume of water i would have to let stand. Perhaps I need to read up about the second option.

I shall try increasing the TPN+ dosage to 20ml a week and see what difference that makes for now.

Cheers,

Dan

 

[CeeJay]

Hi Dan

I'm not sure that I could commit to never changing the water as I need to ensure the health of my fish.

The health of your fish will be taken care of by the plant mass.
Take a look at the third post on page 3 in this thread viewtopic.php?f=19&t=8592&start=20. and pay particular attention to the first pic and it's heading. It was posted by a man called Tom Barr (aka plantbrain). He knows a lot more than most about planted tanks

 

[Brenmuk]

When I see this situation in my low tech tank its is a cue for me to prune.

The swords you have look nice and healthy with only the outer leaves having algae growing on them. Sword plants I find are greedy feeders and can dominate other plants when they get growing. I am often quite brutal with them when they need a good prune sometimes all the way back to only 1 or 2 new leaves. When I do this algae stops growing and the other plants start growing.

As you noted most of the algae that you have is a sign of lack of CO2, you can either up the amount of CO2 or reduce the amount of plant biomass and reduce CO2 demand. I think with sword plants though you could end up chasing your tail.

I would not reduce your light levels any further I might be tempted to increase the photo period a bit. I would also be tempted to add floating plants, these can use aerial CO2 and provide some shade (might be a better option to reducing the photo period any further).

I don't have rams but I do have a pair of angels which spawn all the time (and eat their eggs ) and I don't do regular water changes. I do a small w/c's every now and then when I maintain the filter. Perhaps rams are more sensitive to water conditions?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Carrying out water changes on a low tech is an absolute no no, as your tap water contains higher levels of CO2 than your tank. So if you change the water you add CO2, during the next couple of days the plants will use that CO2 and the levels will drop and there's your fluctuating CO2 . Doesn't do the plants any good either.

I'd give exactly the opposite advice, in my experience water changes are an essential for low tech aquaria, unless they have miniscule bioloads. If you use tap water for your water changes let it outgas for a period before use. Personally I remain unconvinced by the water change = CO2 hypothesis.

My suggestion would be to prune off any heavily algaed leaves, and then go to a regular small water change regime. I use rain-water and 10% a day, although this probably is more than you need. I try and keep all other types of intervention to a minimum, I do add some NPK to the tanks, but at a level far below what you would use for EI or similar.

cheers Darrel

 

[CeeJay]

Hi Darrel

I'd give exactly the opposite advice,

I can only convey what I see with my own eyes 8)
My heavily planted low tech tank is very nearly 'a la Walstad', except I haven't got enough bioload to feed the plant mass in it's entirity, so I add NPK and Trace once a week.
Works for me

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I can only convey what I see with my own eyes

Yes it isn't intended as a criticism, we can only go forward as a hobby if we record our personal observations. What has happened is that, by observation and experimentation, you have found out all sorts of things that are different from the excepted norm. This is why this forum is so interesting, it doesn't regurgitate, parrot fashion, a series of "facts".

The really difficult bit is finding out why we achieve an "acceptable balance" in one tank", but not in another "identical one". This is really the difficulty in all dynamic "ecological" systems you have a lot of "moving parts".

cheers Darrel

 

[CeeJay]

Hi Darrel

Yes it isn't intended as a criticism,

I didn't think it was for one minute. I know your style.
I read your posts with interest, gleaning useful information, which is helping me to understand the ecology better.
Your knowledge of the ecology/chemistry bit is truly impressive and way over my head sometimes.

The really difficult bit is finding out why we achieve an "acceptable balance" in one tank", but not in another "identical one".

I think this is why I find this hobby so fascinating.

Without trying to sound like I'm blowing my own trumpet, 'hi tech' is relatively easy when you pay attention to all the usual parameters and maintenance that goes with it.
Still got lots to learn about 'low tech' though .

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Without trying to sound like I'm blowing my own trumpet, 'hi tech' is relatively easy when you pay attention to all the usual parameters and maintenance that goes with it.

I think that this is the secret of the success of EI, it isn't my "thing", but from what I've gleaned from this forum is that it takes away a lot of the guess work from planted aquarium keeping.

If you keep to the EI recipe, including maintenance, flow, water changes etc. it obviously works.

For me the down side is that if things do start to deviate from the desired state it can go "wrong" really quickly, probably because of the larger amount of nutrients, light, CO2 etc. in the system.

I think it's really "horses for courses" approach, and the "best way" is the method that suits you best.

cheers Darrel

 

[CeeJay]

Hi Darrel

For me the down side is that if things do start to deviate from the desired state it can go "wrong" really quickly, probably because of the larger amount of nutrients, light, CO2 etc. in the system.

I can vouch for that. I got it wrong in my early days .

I think it's really "horses for courses" approach, and the "best way" is the method that suits you best.

Couldn't agree more
It's a case of deciding how much time you're prepared to put in to the maintenance of your tank.
Most of all, everyone should enjoy the hobby, whichever path they choose

 

[drooke]

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. I have been clearing off the glass when the algae grows and have upped the TPN+ dosing to 20ml a week. I haven't noticed any improvement in the length of time it takes to grow back, if anything it seems to grow back a little faster now.

I'm not able to clean the back pane of glass very easily, so I haven't cleaned it. I have noticed that the algae seems to be clearing in patches all by itself now which is good.

Going high tech seems to have it's problems too from the replies, the same with EI. If anyone has any more suggestions for staying low tech I'd appreciate it. In terms of time available for maintenance, I don't have a great deal so low tech suits me well in that respect.

Cheers,

Dan

 

[Anonymous]

I'd adjust the powerheads (if you can) to no more than 10x /hour flow rate. Aim for a circular movement in your tank so the leaves swing gentle in the flow.

You can also buy some ancistrus (if you like them of course) and let them clean your glass (at least they have some free food now) .

Cheers,
Mike

 

[CeeJay]

I'd adjust the powerheads (if you can) to no more than 10x /hour flow rate.

You can get away with a lot less in a low tech

 

[drooke]

Thanks for the advice. How long should it take to see an improvement? I'm still getting new algae growth on the glass

I've increased the surface agitation in the tank increasing oxygen levels. I've upped dosing of TPN+ to 20ml a week. The lighting period is the same as originally posted.

Thanks for any further help.

 

[Brenmuk]

Your algae problems are due to a lack of CO2 so adding more TPN+ which is NPK plus trace elements won't affect the CO2 levels in your tank.
If you have solved the underlying problem you should see a halt in algae growth almost immediately. Your observation that you are getting more algae growth suggests to me that you have not yet tackled the lack of CO2.

Have you tried pruning the swords back?

I would be tempted to have mostly slow growing plants in a tank like yours such as crypts, mosses and anubias that are not so demanding for CO2 and do not look too straggly in low light. You could also add shade by growing floating plants and emergent plants such as water lilies etc. Another option is to add more fish/inverts to naturally add more CO2 and/or feed more (just make sure your filtration can handle increase bio load otherwise this can cause more problems than it solves).

 

[drooke]

I haven't added CO2 to the tank no, I want to stay low tech if I can help it.

So would you say that the swords are high CO2 users? Is this causing low CO2 levels generally which is triggering algae?

I haven't pruned the swords back no, but if this will reduce the CO2 usage and hence improve algae in the tank I can do this. I might have thought this would trigger lots of new growth and so higher CO2 usage. I wouldn't say they look straggly, they're very full and bushy. Interestingly when I first put them in from my old tank, they all had a significant prune and I would say they're now back to their old size if not bigger.

 

[roadmaster]

Recently set up 300 L Non CO2,low light,low tech tank and quickly discovered that I was trying to run too much light.
Under lower light there is less demand for nutrients and CO2.
I began with T5 bulbs at around 108 watts 6500 K which increased the demand for nutrient's and CO2 which I could not provide.
Algae thrived and plant's were covered with varius forms.I then lowered the light to 72 watts of compact fluorescent bulbs 6700K and ceased with the water changes and began dosing NPK as suggested by ceg4048 here,who helped you with your 125 L ,and Tom Barr (Tom Barr's NonCO2 method).
Once the plants adapted to the lower CO2 as supplied by the fishes and waste from same,and nutrients were in adequate supply for the relatively low demand,and lighting and photo period was corrected,alage subsided and the plant's began to thrive sans algae.
I'm no expert but after focusing on advice offered by the two mentioned above with regards to low tech planted aquaria, I began to see the light.
I might review what type of bulbs are being used ,all I saw mentioned was 120 watts. If the bulbs are T5 HO then perhaps this could be a bit much and indeed CO2 demand along with nutrients would be higher than under lower lighting such as T8 or CFL in my humble opinion.
My tank has been set up since July of this year and has received two water changes both due to re-planting- re-arranging,
Fish load is approx 45 fish at present (tetras,barbs,cory's oto's,bristlenose)
Agree with other's, if you feel you can't resist water changes ,then store enough water for a water change and perform far fewer of them. CO2 levels in low tech will remain more stable in this way.
As ceg4048 and Mr. Barr have noted, plant's can and do adapt to low CO2 and low light. Nutrient demand is still present but it too is on much lower scale. Large water changes were the hardest thing for me to refrain from but I can plainly see the benefits and more importantly for me,, the fishes are thriving.
I loaded the tank from the outset with plant's and am just now having to prune so for me,, my goal is being achieved,low maint,low tech (once a week or two NPK),and slow yet steady growth.

 

[drooke]

Hi roadmaster,

The lights are all T8s with 2 x Sylvannia Gro-lux and 2 x Osram 865 daylights, all 30w.

I have only performed a water change of 5 litres in the time the tank has been setup, about 2 months now, and all the fish are healthy so I haven't felt the need to do more.

So from what you've said, I think I have these aspects right at least.

 

[drooke]

Hi all,

I thought I'd post an update and ask for a little more advice!

I've been keeping the Amazon swords trimmed back and have yet to do anything but a small water change. In the last 3 weeks pretty much all of the Blyxa has melted away, the Amazon leaves look thin and have holes in and the algae seems to be going strong. I have also lost about 5 fish in this time and there seem to be some health issues in the others at the moment.

I've tested the water and there's no ammonia or nitrates however the pH is reading at the lowest my test will read at 6. The only thing I can think of is the addition of a large piece of redmoor root. Could this be the cause of my recent problems?

I'm very tempted to perform a large water change at the weekend. Can anyone give me another option?

Cheers,

Dan