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Not sure which size bottle you have mate but Trop Spec is very weak in Nitrogen and Phosphate to starts with, the 125ml bottle 1 pump is 1.2ml which means 10ml per week, that's not going to be anywhere near enough in a 110 ltr tank. According to Rotala that's 1.2ppm nitrate per week. With decent...

Nice one, did you up the ferts on the trop spec for the first pic? I'm guessing the salts have arrived just in time for it running out. Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk

No problem buddy, just keep your hands away from that light control for a while. Once you see the plants starting to cheer up and fill out after dosing higher ferts for a while that's the time to notch it back up again.

Just to add make sure you add magnesium sulphate or Epsom salts as its known. Your ferts don't have any and neither does your tap water. A level teaspoon per week will do.

Looking on Rotala again TNC complete looks to be a very similar makeup as Trop Spec but with marginally higher Nitrogen so you will still need quite a lot of it. Flourish Comp is even lower still than the Trop Spec. Make the initial investment in the salts mate and spend the savings you're going...

Its a trade off mate. The higher the light the more ferts the plants consume, the choice is lower the lights or increasing the ferts. I would personally lower the lights until I had more ferts and let them have a rest to build up reserves. Up the dose then gradually increase the lighting over...

Tropica stuff is very weak in comparison to the methods we generally use. They are based on not very high lighting and quite a heavy fish load providing the nutrients like Nitrate and Phosphate but we tend to change a lot of water weekly to remove other excess organics that promote algae which...

At present you're adding about 1.33ppm of nitrogen to the tank per week with your 3x2ml doses. To answer your original question based on that lighting what your plants are telling you is I'm Hungry ;):)

If you look on Rotala Butterfly you can see that to achieve the correct amount of iron you would need to dose 17ml of Trop Spec 2 to 4 times per week and each dose will add 3.88ppm of Nitrogen so three dose would be 12ppm. Unlimited EI ferts is based on around 20-30ppm Nitrogen, that's not to...

I would still also drop the light to 50% for a couple of weeks while you get things in order to give yourself a bit of room for error.

If you have a ph pen test your water before injecting co2, aim for 1 drop in ph by the time the lights come on and hold it there ie 7.0 before co2 aim for 6.0 by lights on. As a rule of thumb this should give you 30ppm co2 but you don't need to be exact. Te drop checker has a delay of around 2...

Also put your drop checker lower down, about 100mm from the substrate. Co2 levels are higher further up the tank but what want to see what's going on further down.

Yeah I'd rearrange the inlet and outlet like mentioned, maybe turn the light down to 50% and double the fert dosing. Trop Spec is very low in Nitrogen, you have to dose quite a lot of it. If you've used a substrate that contains nutrients after 10 months I would say they're running out.

No problem pal, the main thing you need to keep in mind when dealing with these kinds of issues is fertiliser (which includes nitrate) will never cause algae problems. Only the lack of them can do that. Pushing plants to grow with no food weakens them and gives algae the upper hand. Think of it...

I would leave the lights and use the complete for a month or two and see how this pans out. Adding co2 increases growth and demand on nutrients especially nitrate as nitrate is the plants staple diet. Sounds like you increased growth with co2 addition while at the same time tried to take away...

I would put some pictures up if you can mate.

You can buy a more precise needle valve separately and just have the existing one on the reg fully open. I have a reg set that's a bit feast and famine so I bought a separate inline one, have the existing one fully open and first in the line then use the second one for adjusting. The one's I...

Very strange though :confused:

Like @foxfish says mate do a PH test with your pen starting before co2 comes on the every half hours throughout your lighting period and let us know the results, your tank has good surface agitation which will gas off a fair bit of the co2 but keep the water well oxygenated. The oxygen side of...

Just to add to that, if you fancy some extra water changes say mid week as well which is a good thing as it removes more organic waste which algae thrive off just do the same again on a macro day, change some water and then dose again preferably before the lights and co2 have came on. Nothing...

What colour is the stuff that came from HK? I got some from China a long time ago which was orange and had bother getting a reading. The ferts will always be enough or higher than required with EI dosing if you dose after water changes. The principle of it is never to run out or have less than...

Just a thought, you're using a 4dkh premixed solution with bromo blue right? Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk

Ahh you could be on to something here mate. The co2 should be on a couple of hours before the lights to give the gas time to dissolve into the water. The plants will start soaking up the co2 and when the lights kick in they'll use it for grow. If the gas doesn't have time to dissolve the...

Are you saying lights come on half an hour after the co2 switches on or have I picked that up wrong. Co2 should come on 2 or 3 hours before the lights mate. Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk

Getting there mate. Browning of leaves is sort of too much light or more specific, too much light for the nutrients you're providing. Turning lights down reduces the amount of ferts needed but as mentioned earlier I would chop these leaves off, I don't think they'll repair. Not sure what you...

It's just a process of elimination mate. There are 4 things you can do here to eliminate possible issues. First and foremost is run a tight ship. Dirty gravel, filter medium and water create organic fuel for algae to feed off so that should be first on list. Secondly ferts, the principle of EI...

Don't want to be the one who p1sses all over George's parade here, I follow his work and see he and many others are getting great results using those ferts, what the secret ingredient is or if there is one i don't know. What I do know is the same results can be achieved just using the raw...

There isn't a lot to understand with EI salt dosing. The only thing that needs to be understood is if you add the suggested amounts there is more fertiliser in your tank than you will ever need. Understanding done [emoji6] Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk

Hiya mate, it wouldn't take very long for any trapped air to get out of the system. We're probably talking a matter of hours here. You need to reset the tank and lowering the light is a step in the right direction to take the pressure off. Firstly I would check your connections on the co2 setup...

Last time I was checking specialised out I think it was quite low in nitrates if using EI as a comparison.

I tend to agree George, there's a lot of discussion about BBA and it's causes but even in a healthy tank with ferts and co2 in order BBA will raise its head if you neglect maintenance. Soon as I see it I use that as an indicator to clean my filter and do an extra WC.

No problem buddy, fight the good fight, in tanks every thing in there is fighting over the real estate and what's available to be the dominant species. Even the plants are trying to shade each other out to out compete each other. If you provide optimum conditions for plants they will beat algae...

Pretty much yes, Algae of any type has been around since the beginning of time, it only has one goal in life and that's to survive and reproduce. It needs very little to do that. If you address the reasons why the Algae flourish in your tank their spores will still be around but they won't be...

Cherry shrimp don't really make much of an impact IME, Amanos will have a bloody good go at it if they are not fed for a while. Cherries tend to graze on newly formed algae at micro level before it gets "tufty" All you can do is probably cut back the plants so you get some new growth, if there's...

Nice one mate. If that's one of them chihros light things from what I understand they are quite bright. Turning it down and all the above you have mentioned will get things back in your favour. In my experience BBA doesn't go away on its own, chop off leaves it on just leaving new growth and...

Sorry hit reply by mistake :) Was saying my water is soft so takes little to drop ph. one thing I will investigate though that's crossed my mind is my inline diffuser seems to start slow then pick up speed through the period. I maybe give it a bleach clean tomorrow and see if the bubble rate is...

Co2 is a fine line we are walking mate. I've probably wrongly used the word optimum when I shouldn't have. Different tanks need different amounts so I just used 30ppm. Nothing to say that my tank actually needs that much, the graph could actually be saying my co2 levels were fine for my setup...

Great we have all these ways to check if our co2 is right and none of them seem to work eh :D I'll have to ask the plants and see what they say.

Apologies to @Planted Bows for jumping all over your post but I think we are talking the same thing. Getting injection right at lights on can cause ph to keep dropping after causing problems with your livestock. However, you only suspect problems rather than see them so injecting more co2 might...

Optimum levels for me based on the numbers we use for indicators roughly coincide with the point my fish don't seem to like. Or the Rams anyway, maybe I should stop using the fish has an indicator as they may just be co2 sensitive. Being the biggest fish in there though you would have thought...

Nothing too techy here Clive, mainly manual. The first light just comes on on a timer and stays on throughout, 2nd Light comes on on a timer at 50%, I manually switch the light up to 100% around 7pm then knock it of around 9pm, and then they both just knock themselves off on the timers again...

That's my point mate I think, If I was to up injection then at some point I'm going to hit somewhere the fish don't like, just earlier but there will still be some time left when ideally i should be injecting co2. It seems like I can't have it both ways.

@ceg4048 out of curiosity mate, do you ever knock co2 off and restart it again during the co2 period? Reading through your post and knowing how difficult it is to get the co2 part right I'm just wondering if that's something you ever do? The reason I ask is I've carried out the above tests...

Something I've considered, dropping phosphate rich water down the drain which inevitably ends up in streams and 90% of the co2 we use being pumped into the atmosphere. Low tech with salvaged rain water is the future of the hobby I reckon :)

Quick one, I have to correct something I said earlier. The APS is 250lph and Eheim 350lph. Apologies for the misinformation.

Every couple of days on the APS once a week on the Eheim. The sponge on the aps is very small, the one on the Eheim probably twice the size. We're not looking for any bio media effect here so size isn't that important, it's purely there to mechanically filter out bits of leaves etc the main...

With you all the way Dave, the OP was asking originally if it will " Stop it in its tracks" unfortunately not, that will need manually removed, dealt with by BBA loving species like SAE or bombed with harsh chemicals. Increasing o2 generally will help to prevent it coming back or any algae for...

No problem. I'm victim to branding as well [emoji3] eheim have a good name in the industry and I bought one just because but really they are no different. I think the thing I like about the aps the most is being able to pull the filter sponge out and clean it without taking the unit out the...

Just ton add, the reason I run 24/7 as oppose to just at night is because it creates water movement in a dead spot in the tank across the back. Dual purpose if you like.

People have came up with different solutions including putting a coarse filter sponge on the intake, for me I put black looms bands around it to form a grill if you like which reduces the size of things that can be sucked in which works for me although I no longer keep RCS in the tank. When I...

I personally run mine 24/7 only knocking it off for half an hour or so during feeding to prevent food being sucked into it. I have two versions which I sort of done a review on in this post, they both have their pros and cons. You can if you wish just run it over night, the upside of this is you...

Totally agree with this, reducing the interval time of cleaning my filters has been by far the most beneficial thing I've ever done. Filters fill up with rubbish far quicker than most think and as you say waste being sucked into the filter isn't the end of it, its still breaking it down. When...

It's unlikely that better oxygen will deal with BBA. From what I can make out its linked to fluctuating co2 levels. Having said all that increasing oxygen is always beneficial to tanks as is the increased water changes so go for it anyway. The filter is only limited to the amount of waste in...

Good to hear the meds are shrimp safe. Better safe than sorry.:thumbup:

Not familiar with the product mate so I would check if it's shrimp safe. Saying not safe for snails is a worry. Don't want to lose your Amanos. Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk

Yeah, that's the way, basically lowering lighting, cleaning filters, increasing carbon and changing water will solve most ills . Word to the wise, be very careful with medications especially if they are copper based. Some can kill off shrimp. Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk

I run higher bps prob around 5/6 bubs a sec which means absolutely nothing. Size of bubbles makes a big difference so isn't really something you can compare. I very rarely see my plants pearl if at all but I personally think you need to have quite high lighting to produce pearling. The plants...

It's something I've considered as well. I only have a couple of plants that are classed as high lighting requirement. Sometimes I wonder when most are dosing EI regimes with probably an abundance of fertiliser and not really needing it whether cranking up the lighting would be beneficial. First...

Take off all the affected leaves and try and replant. You don't need much of the stem left for them to make a come back as long as there is still some viable leaves left. BBA is generally associated with fluctuating co2 and can be spot dosed with liquid carbon to kill it.

Basically the plants and the fish are constantly adding nasties to the tank which the algae thrive on but with extra leg work to do with tank hygiene it's more than possible as we have seen on numerous occasions. You just have to be prepared for that hard work and decide how much time you have...

Pure RO water is indeed "too pure" for anything to live in it or even to drink to that matter. Most people will either do a combination of mixing it with tapwater or re-mineralising it with additives you can buy to put the essential electrons etc back in. My first port of call would be one of...

It can also soften edges of equipment in the tank. I tend to leave BBA on my heater cable for this reason.

Mate I passed a van on the motorway and thought of this post. Not sure if they could help but maybe worth a try Eurofins UK how you getting on with the tank these days?

Do you have any other tanks?

Just wondering, some of the people who use this board have access to some fancy equipment that they work with well beyond the realms of our bank accounts :) Possibly ask them nicely if you could post them a sample of this stuff and see if any of their equipment could analyse it.

I would also agree with that. Until a tank is biologically sound there are a few strange growths. I had a search today to see if I could help you at all but couldn't come up with anything like you're describing. Having said that, I've been keeping fish tanks for over 20 years and I've never came...

How are you testing for o2? How reliable is the test?

I don't have any way of testing oxygen levels but lost no shrimp over it.

I cleaned my pipes and lily today for the first time since putting them on, after putting the brush through them they were full of what looked like fat. Like mentioned I only seem to get this with new soft plastic which goes away and get replaced with the usual brown gunge when they've been in a...

Ok mate I understand. regarding the filter, not sure how much damage to the bacteria colony is damaged just with exposing it to the air but washing in tank water is the main thing. I don't think leaving your filter for 3 or 4 week would do any harm. In a balanced tank with plenty of healthy...

Apologies if someone else picked up on this, I did read through just never seen. If your 4DKH fluid with the bromo already added is green before you put it in the DC and tank then that sounds like a faulty batch unless some thing's changed I haven't heard of! Your 4dkh should be blue when...

Its more usefull to me now than it was when I started it :) makes a lot more sense now I understand a bit of the lingo. Its been really good reading back through an old post some things I didn't fully at the time make more sense when I have tried them and seen the improvements they made. In fact...

Hmm interesting thoughts, those diffusers do seem quite high up in the tanks. It's sort of counter intuitive, the deeper down the tank it is surely will prolong the bubbles contact time with the water and surely you would want the the koralia pointing down to get co2 rich water to the carpet...

your tank problems sound very similar to mine. I regularly syphon up the gravel and clean the front glass with a credit card to prevent new growth right along the front edge which brings new clean gravel to the top. I have also read another recent post that was similar and the three all seem to...

Sorry m8 I'm not familiar with those ferts, I dose dry powder. Yes you could up the dose of the EC.

I notice your near a window there. I often wonder if fluctuations in the co2 may be caused by the photo period :? For example my tank is next to a patio door which gets light early morning. On the sunniest days this light is quite intense but my lights on period is from 5 until 11 pm for...

Remember on though what was said earlier, improving plant growth also improves algae growth so be careful not to have a knee jerk reaction and immediately blame the co2. It may be that you have just improved conditions for growth all round. I run my tank on 3xT8's 70watt in total and grossly...

M8 I am having the same problem as you its a PITA. I am starting to get a little of the upper hand but never quite totally rid. A few things that I have noticed about your post are turning the co2 up and dosing EC then not. The BBA loves fluctuating co2, keeping things as steady as possible and...

That was my point earlier on in the thread, would plants that are grown in this way take time to recover thus making all the time, effort and OTT sterile environment counter productive if the plant is on the back foot from day 1 in your tank? I remember discussing with Clive the snorkel effect...

yep I guess so, a bit like the more bacteria on your chopping board than your toilet seat advert :shock: Initially you think best buy some then think hold on that means I don't need it because I never had it before which means up to press I could have chopped food on my toilet seat and still...

Tropica are pretty much saying that they sell plants with no nuisance algae already on as oppose to algae full stop. That has to be the standard surely anyway? Anyone who sells plants already with it on isn't going to be selling them long I guess. A bit like selling ice cream guaranteeing its...

It would appear so :? and nature all things being equal once in the tank soon would have some on. Well worth posting the theory though ghost we all learned something from it (except Clive and George that is :D ) Thats is after all what theories are for.

What does Tropica do to be able to sell their plants as algae free? Not disputing that they are just wondering if they can make this claim when we are talking about things at microscopic level. Maybe they are grown hydroponic so no algae that lives in water but then they would take time to...

:D First time I've heard a post on algae being a friend. Maybe we should look at it from now on the same as a DC indicating problems. Creating a truly sterile environment has always been problematic, as soon as we mess with nature it comes back even stronger to bite us. You only have to look at...

Interesting one m8, I don't know much about algal spores and their survival outside of the aquarium. There could be problems possibly from fish or water when adding fish from the other systems. I know previously I have add small breeding tanks which were sterilised and RO buffered water with the...

I personally I use JBL Aquadur to re-mineralise RO water as it's already in the right mix regarding KH/GH rather than trying to work both out. There are plenty of other brands available specially designed just for RO water. Like Clive says though it's not that important unless in extreme values...

I have turned duration down for now and see how I get on, I have 70 watts made up of of 3 t8 tubes so I also have the option of reducing the watts if needs be. Conditions seem to be improving at the moment with the changes I have made to distribution of co2 and movement in general. I have...

:D Vaguely, just trying my best to understand what's happening in the tank.

Yeah that's pretty much what I'm doing, just thinking if increased ferts=increased plant uptake and growth with everything in order then by default does that mean the algae is also increasing uptake and growth so it would be an option to reduce the ferts to a point of slow growth while your...

Wow all good information. I was having a think about what everyone here has said and it crossed my mind, without knowing what I know now I attempted to increase the conditions for growth by turning up the ferts and the co2 thinking that the BBA would be beaten off by the plants. This it turns...

The problem I have found with Rams particularly is they are a hard fish to diagnose any problems with as they can randomly die without any visual symptoms. I have kept and bred them for a long while although the ones in my current tank are just for show. I have had fish from different places and...

Possibly, the size of my water changes are not generally too big. The excess build up if there is one! I can imagine being the case. I think from the start I may have over estimated the amount of ferts being needed, my tank is not too brightly lit and I don't change a lot of water but I started...

WWWhhhooaaaa there I knew it was a bone of contention :D I'm not going down the route of testing for nutrients to fathom out my dosing regime. The tests were £29.99, I use the gh/kh for checking my water for re-mineralising de-io water and making 4dkh solution and this was £10 quid and some...

I know that test kits are often the bone of contention in here but I bought the full Hagen set :o bit of an impulse buy really :D I was only going to get a KH/GH test which I use for testing for buffer on my DE-IO water and making 4dkh mixes. It was on offer for £30 and came with tests for...

CO2 staying off at night then cheers again Clive.

Thanks I am working hard on co2 and its distribution at the moment as well as 2xdosing EC with some good results. I don't have a solenoid for the co2 so I'm trying to be as consistent with it manually. Having 2bps when I leave for work in the morning then turning it up a little when I get home...

BGA grows rather fast and can be seen getting worse as soon as within a day, rather than wait until WC day I would rake over the gravel and run my fingers over affected big plant leaves until the BGA was clumped into big bits then syphon them of daily and add your ferts right afterwards so your...

Although blackout is tried and tested I also got rid of BGA without doing one so it is possible.

Actually surprisingly my hard scape items are OK, they were covered badly to start with but some direct dosing cleaned them up and touch wood never came back. The shrimp seem to keep on top of it on hard scape before it can get a good hold. My main affected area are some crypts around the front...

Pete have a read of this from Clive also viewtopic.php?f=19&t=12101 I spent some time applying all the advice he has given me with good results for my plants but this appears not to be enough to kill existing algae as that topic will explain. Now you have your easy carbo it might be a benefit to...