I've read all the stickies and quite a few other articles about the causes of the different kind of algaes, but I still have doubts about what is going on.
Tank is 360L/90G and 6 weeks old.
Dropchecker is light green and fairly stable from day to day (on 2 hours before light on and off 1 hour before light off)
Lights are LED - 2 x plantlight (5200 lumen combined) on for 7 hours and 1 x white light (4000 lumen) on for 5 hours. All the light combined comes to about 24 PAR, so it's a little bit above medium afaik.
Full tank length spraybar pointed slightly up to the surface and distribution looks to be good in most of the tank (some of the hardscape might be blocking some spots). HC on "the hill" is pearling nicely, starting in halfway through the photoperiod.
Water is very hard and PH is about 7.6 before CO2.
Dosing liquid fertilizer without PO4 and NO3 daily per instructions for medium plant mass.
NO3 readings were stable at 35 but dropped to 15 after a 10% WC and cleaning of the filter 2 days ago.
PO4 reading is 0.05, which I know is low for the plants abillity to uptake CO2, so I dosed a week ago per the instructions on the bottle, which made the reading off the scale (>2.5) I therefore did a 35% WC and the next day it was back at 0.05 - I haven't dosed this since.
Filter material is recycled and using the Seachem Stability bacteriastarter, I haven't been able to detect any NH3/NH4 or NO2. So I doubt it's an immature tank issue.
Fish load is 72% according to AqAdvisor
A lot of RCS, 5 amono's, 5 oto's, 3 algae eating snails, none of them ofcourse touch this algae.
Let me know if I missed any important information.
I have some EasyCarbo and Seachem Flourish and I am prepared to spot treat if you so recommend
My question is in short: cause, treatment and future prevention? Dose more/less/other? More/less light? More WC's or less?
I have a big testkit and can test for pretty much anything.
Thanks A LOT for your time.
First an overall picture of the whole tank, to get an idea of the plant mass and distrubution.
A closeup of the left side where the problem is. On this side of the tank I have a TwinStar Nano+ reactor, which I just turned off today to see if that has an effect:
Closeup of the top of the red plant seen from the side to show it's not only black algae but some green as well (okay this is very close to the strong white LED):
A closeup of the Aubias in the front lower middle of the tank, which looks to get an okay amount of flow according to the visible bubbles:
A closeup of the right side of the tank with very minimal algae for comparison (except the GSA on the glass, which is normal and caused by the young age of the tank I believe):
Tank is 360L/90G and 6 weeks old.
Dropchecker is light green and fairly stable from day to day (on 2 hours before light on and off 1 hour before light off)
Lights are LED - 2 x plantlight (5200 lumen combined) on for 7 hours and 1 x white light (4000 lumen) on for 5 hours. All the light combined comes to about 24 PAR, so it's a little bit above medium afaik.
Full tank length spraybar pointed slightly up to the surface and distribution looks to be good in most of the tank (some of the hardscape might be blocking some spots). HC on "the hill" is pearling nicely, starting in halfway through the photoperiod.
Water is very hard and PH is about 7.6 before CO2.
Dosing liquid fertilizer without PO4 and NO3 daily per instructions for medium plant mass.
NO3 readings were stable at 35 but dropped to 15 after a 10% WC and cleaning of the filter 2 days ago.
PO4 reading is 0.05, which I know is low for the plants abillity to uptake CO2, so I dosed a week ago per the instructions on the bottle, which made the reading off the scale (>2.5) I therefore did a 35% WC and the next day it was back at 0.05 - I haven't dosed this since.
Filter material is recycled and using the Seachem Stability bacteriastarter, I haven't been able to detect any NH3/NH4 or NO2. So I doubt it's an immature tank issue.
Fish load is 72% according to AqAdvisor
A lot of RCS, 5 amono's, 5 oto's, 3 algae eating snails, none of them ofcourse touch this algae.
Let me know if I missed any important information.
I have some EasyCarbo and Seachem Flourish and I am prepared to spot treat if you so recommend
My question is in short: cause, treatment and future prevention? Dose more/less/other? More/less light? More WC's or less?
I have a big testkit and can test for pretty much anything.
Thanks A LOT for your time.
First an overall picture of the whole tank, to get an idea of the plant mass and distrubution.
A closeup of the left side where the problem is. On this side of the tank I have a TwinStar Nano+ reactor, which I just turned off today to see if that has an effect:
Closeup of the top of the red plant seen from the side to show it's not only black algae but some green as well (okay this is very close to the strong white LED):
A closeup of the Aubias in the front lower middle of the tank, which looks to get an okay amount of flow according to the visible bubbles:
A closeup of the right side of the tank with very minimal algae for comparison (except the GSA on the glass, which is normal and caused by the young age of the tank I believe):