Hi all,
I've reached the end of my tether now and am on the verge of tearing my tank down and starting from scratch (new substrate etc.) but just after some final advice before I do so.
My Juwel Rio 240 has been running now for almost 2 years. It has a layer of John Innes soil, topped with gravel. The tank is heavily planted, has never had Co2, always low-tech with a half-dose of EI every day.
For the first year, I had very little in the way of algae problems. I had the usual outbreak of diatoms covering the tank walls for the first few months, but this went away once the tank was established.
Throughout 2019 I have been constantly battling with all different types of algae. Initially the plants started becoming affected, with green spot algae, diatoms all over the walls, green dust algae all over the walls, rocks and wood, but the most persistent of all was lots of hair algae covering the substrate. The hair appears to be growing from out of the substrate itself, and every single week when I do my water change I am pulling out large clumps of the gravel which are completely covered in hair algae and throwing them away. I have thrown so many plants in the bin because the plants no longer grow healthily and quickly become covered in algae. I cant even get my crypts to take now, they are overrun with green spot.
Anyway I have tried pretty much everything now. I reduced my lighting to 4 hours / day for a few weeks but all that seemed to do was damage the plants even more, I have a ridiculous amount of flow with a 1000 internal filter, 1,400 lph external filter and 2,000 powerhead, I dose with Easycarbo every day and half EI.
So based on all of the above, I have come to the conclusion that the problem must be originating from my soil substrate, and that I need to remove it and replace it with something that won't rot.
Does anyone have any final advice before I pack it all in?
Many thanks,
Sacha
I've reached the end of my tether now and am on the verge of tearing my tank down and starting from scratch (new substrate etc.) but just after some final advice before I do so.
My Juwel Rio 240 has been running now for almost 2 years. It has a layer of John Innes soil, topped with gravel. The tank is heavily planted, has never had Co2, always low-tech with a half-dose of EI every day.
For the first year, I had very little in the way of algae problems. I had the usual outbreak of diatoms covering the tank walls for the first few months, but this went away once the tank was established.
Throughout 2019 I have been constantly battling with all different types of algae. Initially the plants started becoming affected, with green spot algae, diatoms all over the walls, green dust algae all over the walls, rocks and wood, but the most persistent of all was lots of hair algae covering the substrate. The hair appears to be growing from out of the substrate itself, and every single week when I do my water change I am pulling out large clumps of the gravel which are completely covered in hair algae and throwing them away. I have thrown so many plants in the bin because the plants no longer grow healthily and quickly become covered in algae. I cant even get my crypts to take now, they are overrun with green spot.
Anyway I have tried pretty much everything now. I reduced my lighting to 4 hours / day for a few weeks but all that seemed to do was damage the plants even more, I have a ridiculous amount of flow with a 1000 internal filter, 1,400 lph external filter and 2,000 powerhead, I dose with Easycarbo every day and half EI.
So based on all of the above, I have come to the conclusion that the problem must be originating from my soil substrate, and that I need to remove it and replace it with something that won't rot.
Does anyone have any final advice before I pack it all in?
Many thanks,
Sacha