Hi,jarthel said:I was reading another forum yesterday and it was mentioned that algae blooms are common in new setups especially those using commercial substrate?
The cause of algae during startup is a result of a couple of different things. Firstly, many people are under the impression that one needs a lot of light for planted tanks and they go overboard. Light causes algae and excessive light causes excessive algae. One is well advised to keep the lighting low, at least for the first few months of a setup.jarthel said:What is its cause? Can it be prevented/minimized?
This is part of the reason I like a long setting up period before adding any fish, rather than just trying to cycle the tank. By allowing the tank to stabilise micro-biologically and the plants to have an extensive root network (rhizosphere) in the substrate you get past the all the initial large oscillations in conditions and achieve a fairly stable state. I like to add some MTS and allow some build up of organic matter and DOC, although other will disagree.......have a poorly developed or non-existent bacterial colony in the sediment, filter and water column. Nitrifying bacteria detoxify the environment by converting ammonia to nitrate, however you need billions of billions of individual bacterium. That takes a few weeks for the population to rise to sufficient levels which results in varying levels of ammonia production in the tank.....