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am I loosing the battle against brown algae?

Martin in China said:
sounds solid, but I'm sure Clive will not agree about



anyway, I won't touch my filter media now for the next 5 months ( I will let them run in a bucket when I re-scape the tank)
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I am not in disagreement with Clive. I am just expanding on the issue.
In a planted tank there is a scenario in which plants are not healthy, they contribute to the bioload, then organics/ammonia levels rise. In a new non-mature tank that will lead the least to diatom issues and possibly other algae issues. Diatoms will hardly happen in a new planted tank if you start with well mature filters which have been fed ammonia of some sort prior to that enough to support the future bioload. Therefore it's the health of the plants that contributed to the algae in this scenario which is what Clive tries to say. But if it's not the plants the issue and the extra bioload comes from something else, then you can't solve the diatoms by growing healthy plants which applies specifically to scapes like yours because you hardly have fast growing plants or any other plant mass that can actually grow fast enough to outcompete the diatoms and it's contributers(ammonia/organics), hence better filtration methods helps in any case and also as a prevention.

And there's a different diatom scenario in which plants or no plants, you biofiltration can't support the current bio load(plants produce organics too even when healthy so they come with a price) which leads to trace ammonia and thus diatoms/algae. This issue you can't solve with more CO2 or more ferts or more/less light as you may not even have plants in there or your plants have enough of that but get covered in diatoms/algae caused by other sources. You can solve it by either reducing the fish bioload/less feeding/more water changes or/and you increase your biofiltration with healthy mature filters, or just wait the new filtration to mature which will eventually outcompete the diatoms

All these scenarios need lots of oxygen to get the tank to a healthy state so if you've got low dissolved oxygen=algae unless you do daily 80% water changes and wipe clean everything that can produce the slightest amount of ammonia. This way, it don't matter if you have much filtration/nitrification or bacterial activity so you are in control. This is kind of Clive's view on planted tanks but I am rather lazy so I have my own methods.
 
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Filtration is your friend. It's a backup and preventative in case of bio overload such as suffering plants. Not proud of it but I can take plenty of pictures for you of algae deficient ptanks with plants falling apart in a couple of my tanks(due to not dosing anything at all, currently iron an potassium issues) and perfectly clean of algae. Unhealthy plants are a contributor to organics, healthy plants help with organics but filtration does not care about light, co2 or nutrients, as long as it has oxygen and has sufficient flow and media, it takes care of everything. Healthy substrate helps too of course.
 
flygja said:
Science fiction..I for one wouldn't mind seeing those pictures. Thanks!
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Below are close ups of one of the tanks. I hadn't been dosing anything since last year. Plants just withered and died so not much left but a couple of crypts some anubias and hydrophila are still standing and suffering severe deficiencies.
I started dosing iron last week as I was finally in the mood to get the tank back on track and the plants grew very pale all the time(if they grew at all)and some potassium this week and I'll build up from there depending how they grow:

These are pictures before I dosed:

Feeling sorry for itself anubias
Anubias_zps10766857.jpg


Severe iron deficiency in hydrophila. Pale new growth, then older leaves wither and die.
DSCF6065_zps1742a258.jpg

DSCF6083_zps8f0d4224.jpg


Below what could be potassium deficiency.
Hydro1_zps0184e9fd.jpg


On the bottom left plant you can see new growth responding to iron, slightly greener a couple of new leaves on top.l The lower leaves of the right plant showing what the plant went through while growing.
Hydrophila2_zpsc7d91c3b.jpg


The new recovered growth more visible on this picture which is from today.
Hydrophila_zpsf679a792.jpg


Here is the tank from today. I hadn't dosed not one bit of ferts since last year, most plants died after screaming at me for months so not much left but no algae issues either. Tank has 4 filters(two externals, a hood filter and an internal behind the plants. I still have to drill the other side of the cabinet so one external is a sore to the eye at the front still.
Fishtank_zps69db533c.jpg
 
And the second series, a 54l tank. This tank I am not even trying to fix because I am taking it apart and putting soil. It has two filters, an inernal 450l/h and a sponge filter connected to a powerhead.

Tank from today just now
SmallTank2_zpsff531405.jpg


Again, hydrophila on the left suffering severe iron and potassium deficiency the least(pale new growth and holes in the lower leave)

SmallTank4_zpse1ee928d.jpg


Look at the state of the dwarf hairgrass and especially the lone bacopa strand:

SmallTank1_zps2f0a52f7.jpg


And for comparison, a non-deficient of anything bacopa from the same species(australis) from another tank:

Tank13_zps6298fca5.jpg
[DOUBLEPOST=1400268816][/DOUBLEPOST]So to summarize without trying to be rude but where is the algae though my plants are lacking not just CO2 as you can see for yourselves.
 
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Sounds like quite a lot of light, and though your plants are deficient, there isn't any algae at all. This is really something new to me.
 
Yes, you can have deficient plants with no algae. And also, when you think of it, unplanted tanks do get diatoms, BBA, green dust, green spot algae, etc...So algae has nothing to do directly with plant health but the health of the tank itself. Healthy plants just help creating uncomfortable conditions for algae. Unhealthy plants just lead to increased organics which algae loves. But organics lovers have other enemies in the tank.
There are micro-organisms that too rely on consummation of organics to live and multiply and love stuff that plants and algae love such as nitrogen/ammonia too.
Plants and micro-organisms are all part of the big picture so you must think of your micro-organisms the same way as you think about the health of your plants and create conditions for them to live too, starting from oxygenated tank and substrate and enough filtration/bio-media for them to hang on to and don't disturb them with "mean" methods. Just because you can't see them, it doesn't mean you can't affect their diversity and numbers, and health.
If you think you can rely solely on plants in a planted tank, what you are essentially doing is cutting your left hand because you use your right most of the time. But what happens when you injure your right hand?
 
The tank is looking better and better day by day. Although there are still algae, it seems to do a whole lot better now. There are still things I need to adjust (filter, Light, CO2 ....) but the future looks bright.
I just made a snapshot when the filters were turned off to capture those pearly plants.
2014-05-27181555kleiner_zpsa38d80ca.jpg
 
sciencefiction said:
Looking very good Martin. Did you do any adjustments or it started disappearing itself?
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I actually lowered the CO2 input a bit and up the light period and gave it a sunburst moment added some plants and left everything growing as it pleased (except for that one fast grower also slowed down the outflow from the filters (as Victor suggested) and even took out the spray bars.
It all sounds counter productive but it did it for me :D....now the outflow from the filters is back to 100%...with the new installed chiller it's needed
 
Hi all,
sciencefiction said:
On the bottom left plant you can see new growth responding to iron, slightly greener a couple of new leaves on top
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My plants tend to look a bit like that (if I really don't feed them), with lots of different deficiencies, but not really any algae on the leaves.

Iron could definitely be one of the deficiencies, a quick way to tell is that when you add FeEDTA, or similar you should get fairly rapid greening of all the leaves, not just the new growth.

Potassium looks pretty likely as a deficiency, and the plants also look nitrogen deficient. Potassium nitrate (KNO3) should produce a rapid greening of the newer leaves

I'd be quite interested in what effect some magnesium would have (MgSO4.7H2O), as Mg deficiency produces similar interveinal chlorosis symptoms that are similar to Iron.

cheers Darrel
 
dw1305 said:
I'd be quite interested in what effect some magnesium would have (MgSO4.7H2O), as Mg deficiency produces similar interveinal chlorosis symptoms that are similar to Iron.
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The leaves on the hydrophila responded to iron immediately. I started dosing just iron nothing else three times weekly every second day to 0.2ppm each time and they responded straight away. On the second week I had visible healthy green growth for the first time in a while. They stopped drooling and the stems straightened up and new growth started growing green and healthy again. So it was definitely just iron deficiency in this case. Old growth did not recover but I think that depends on the species of plants and probably it was too far gone as I hadn't dosed anything in ages.
I think magnesium deficiency shows on old leaves first, not new ones such as in iron deficiency.
 
Another picture of the total look...it's not the best scape but more of a test scape ....
In my summer vacation this tank will get a new look.
smallertank_zpsca99f2b2.jpg

But at least I learned a lot. Although I still have algae they are a whole lot less and not so disturbing anymore. I don't bother with trying to clean the stones, as they will not make a comeback in the next scape.
 
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