AphoticPhoenix
Seedling
- Joined
- 22 Sep 2009
- Messages
- 4
First post as I've been lurking around for a bit. Great forum, and have learned tons! Unfortunately I've got a bit of a brown algae problem on my two year old tank, and there are multiple potential sources, so I'm hoping someone here can help me find the root of the problem. I apologize for the huge wall of text that is going to follow, but since no one here is familiar with my tank I thought it best to give as much info and back history as possible. XD
Aquarium age: 2 years
Size: 28G / 105L 24L x 16W x 21.5H (61x41x55 cm)
Lighting: 65W CF, ~7 hours per day
CO2: Yeast system + 2.5 ml Excel daily
Dosing: PMDD + PO4, and root tabs
Filtration: 2x HoB rated for a total of 350 gph (1325 lph) - if cut in half would be 6x turnover per hour.
Substrate: 2 inches plain gravel (should be deeper, but tank wasn't originally meant to be planted)
Water chemistry: ~ 160 ppm / 9 dGH (altered chemistry as the tap is 320 ppm / 18 dGH)
Animal stocking level: Fully stocked
Plant coverage: Mostly new plants so hard to gauge accurately
So first of all, this isn't really *my* tank. It's the household tank that appeared one day, and I was asked to "help" with it. (I.E. be responsible for anything more complicated than feeding the fish.) I learned a lot in the first year, and was having success with keeping some delicate fish species, but made the mistake of letting the actual owner take care of the tank while I was busy with studies for at least half a year, and it was a horrible horrible mess when I came back. :/
Several fish had died, and had most likely never been removed. The bulb had blown out the higher powered hood, and instead of replacing the bulb, they threw the old .5 wpg bulb on, and probably didn't turn it on very often anyway because most of the remaining fish were skinny and malnourished. Java moss was a straggled mess, full of crud, and the leaves of the biggest anubia had a thick coat of both diatoms and perhaps BBA. There were some heavy brown patches of brown algae on the tank walls as well.
Sooo... over the next few weeks I did several large water changes, manually removing as much of the algae as I could, deep vaccing the gravel, gave the filter media a really good rinsing (not both at the same time), removing any dead bits of java moss I could find etc. I was then begged to restock the tank, which I did, and then my boyfriend decided to buy a 75 gallon that he want's to go high tech with...so my experiment with planted tanks began.
Within the last month I have:
- Replaced the blown out bulb, and am now running the tank at 2 WPG 7 hours a day.
- Rescaped the tank, adding some new plants including Cryptocoryne walkeri 'lutea' , Microsorum pteropus, and Hygrophila difformis (Have more coming in soon too)
- Started the DIY CO2 (mixture replaced each week), and dosing excel.
- Started mixing my own ferts.
- Replaced some (not all) of the old filter media (which was basically just expired carbon) with ceramic media.
Yet, despite trying to remove as much dead/rotting material as possible the brown algae seems to get even worse. :/ The anubia that wasn't really affected before is now gets it almost as bad as the other. The large rock in the tank has become covered, and the patches on the walls reform within a few days time. So now I'm trying to find out the WHY.
Some possible sources:
1. I've caused a small mini-cycle in the tank by mucking with my filters too much? Although I kind of doubt this, because I always rinse in tank water, and didn't remove that much of the original media, I suppose it is a possibility.
2. My housemates started overfeeding the fish, causing a snail population explosion, and now the baby snails are dying in the substrate? Once I was around to pay attention to the tank, they started feeding the fish again...and suddenly lots of MTS babies appeared. >_> I said something about it, they got busy, and now that I've been feeding the fish over the last two weeks I'm finding tiny empty snail shells getting sucked up by the siphon.
3. Decaying roots in the substrate? I was pretty careful to keep as much of the anubias root system intact as possible when I pulled them up for the rescape, and trimmed them before replanting so I'm not sure this is much of an issue.
4. Damaged plants leeching ammonia? The H. difformis I bought last week was in pretty crap shape when I bought it. Almost every leaf had some sort of mechanical damage, and although I removed the worst of them, I had to leave at least some leaves on. These plants aren't really growing any algae, but I've recently increased my trace dosing since the new leaves seem a bit pale and thin. Both anubias don't seem especially happy after being moved, as all the leaves collect algae now, and I'm not sure how many leaves I can safely trim off them. The crypts never melted, but some of the bigger (I presume emersed form) leaves are starting to get a little brown dusting.
I would actually like to pull everything out, stick it in my spare tank, give the current gravel a good clean, and lay down a layer of fluorite before replacing the old gravel since my current bed isn't very deep at the moment. While I could see this potentially removing some decaying matter that I've yet to find, I'm worried that it'll be rough on my anubias and crypts that were only planted/replanted about 3 weeks ago. If I'm not mistaken, crypts should be given at least a month between being moved? Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm not dosing EI, at first I didn't understand how flexible it was (50% waterchanges gets expensive when you use distilled water to cut your tap), and I'd really like to get a firm grasp on both methods anyway.
If you've managed to finish reading all of this...thanks. Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Aquarium age: 2 years
Size: 28G / 105L 24L x 16W x 21.5H (61x41x55 cm)
Lighting: 65W CF, ~7 hours per day
CO2: Yeast system + 2.5 ml Excel daily
Dosing: PMDD + PO4, and root tabs
Filtration: 2x HoB rated for a total of 350 gph (1325 lph) - if cut in half would be 6x turnover per hour.
Substrate: 2 inches plain gravel (should be deeper, but tank wasn't originally meant to be planted)
Water chemistry: ~ 160 ppm / 9 dGH (altered chemistry as the tap is 320 ppm / 18 dGH)
Animal stocking level: Fully stocked
Plant coverage: Mostly new plants so hard to gauge accurately
So first of all, this isn't really *my* tank. It's the household tank that appeared one day, and I was asked to "help" with it. (I.E. be responsible for anything more complicated than feeding the fish.) I learned a lot in the first year, and was having success with keeping some delicate fish species, but made the mistake of letting the actual owner take care of the tank while I was busy with studies for at least half a year, and it was a horrible horrible mess when I came back. :/
Several fish had died, and had most likely never been removed. The bulb had blown out the higher powered hood, and instead of replacing the bulb, they threw the old .5 wpg bulb on, and probably didn't turn it on very often anyway because most of the remaining fish were skinny and malnourished. Java moss was a straggled mess, full of crud, and the leaves of the biggest anubia had a thick coat of both diatoms and perhaps BBA. There were some heavy brown patches of brown algae on the tank walls as well.
Sooo... over the next few weeks I did several large water changes, manually removing as much of the algae as I could, deep vaccing the gravel, gave the filter media a really good rinsing (not both at the same time), removing any dead bits of java moss I could find etc. I was then begged to restock the tank, which I did, and then my boyfriend decided to buy a 75 gallon that he want's to go high tech with...so my experiment with planted tanks began.
Within the last month I have:
- Replaced the blown out bulb, and am now running the tank at 2 WPG 7 hours a day.
- Rescaped the tank, adding some new plants including Cryptocoryne walkeri 'lutea' , Microsorum pteropus, and Hygrophila difformis (Have more coming in soon too)
- Started the DIY CO2 (mixture replaced each week), and dosing excel.
- Started mixing my own ferts.
- Replaced some (not all) of the old filter media (which was basically just expired carbon) with ceramic media.
Yet, despite trying to remove as much dead/rotting material as possible the brown algae seems to get even worse. :/ The anubia that wasn't really affected before is now gets it almost as bad as the other. The large rock in the tank has become covered, and the patches on the walls reform within a few days time. So now I'm trying to find out the WHY.
Some possible sources:
1. I've caused a small mini-cycle in the tank by mucking with my filters too much? Although I kind of doubt this, because I always rinse in tank water, and didn't remove that much of the original media, I suppose it is a possibility.
2. My housemates started overfeeding the fish, causing a snail population explosion, and now the baby snails are dying in the substrate? Once I was around to pay attention to the tank, they started feeding the fish again...and suddenly lots of MTS babies appeared. >_> I said something about it, they got busy, and now that I've been feeding the fish over the last two weeks I'm finding tiny empty snail shells getting sucked up by the siphon.
3. Decaying roots in the substrate? I was pretty careful to keep as much of the anubias root system intact as possible when I pulled them up for the rescape, and trimmed them before replanting so I'm not sure this is much of an issue.
4. Damaged plants leeching ammonia? The H. difformis I bought last week was in pretty crap shape when I bought it. Almost every leaf had some sort of mechanical damage, and although I removed the worst of them, I had to leave at least some leaves on. These plants aren't really growing any algae, but I've recently increased my trace dosing since the new leaves seem a bit pale and thin. Both anubias don't seem especially happy after being moved, as all the leaves collect algae now, and I'm not sure how many leaves I can safely trim off them. The crypts never melted, but some of the bigger (I presume emersed form) leaves are starting to get a little brown dusting.
I would actually like to pull everything out, stick it in my spare tank, give the current gravel a good clean, and lay down a layer of fluorite before replacing the old gravel since my current bed isn't very deep at the moment. While I could see this potentially removing some decaying matter that I've yet to find, I'm worried that it'll be rough on my anubias and crypts that were only planted/replanted about 3 weeks ago. If I'm not mistaken, crypts should be given at least a month between being moved? Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm not dosing EI, at first I didn't understand how flexible it was (50% waterchanges gets expensive when you use distilled water to cut your tap), and I'd really like to get a firm grasp on both methods anyway.
If you've managed to finish reading all of this...thanks. Any input would be greatly appreciated!