Lauris
Member
Hello!
I'm newbie here!
This forum was suggested for me to try to understand the cause of my
issue with algae in my fish tank. I will try to find a time to introduce myself
here but first of all I'm desperate to resolve my algae problems or at least to
start to head in the right direction.. Let me describe the situation first...
Dear fish\plant Friends!
I'm in this hobby a bit over a year and I'm just trying to get things right and learn
from my own mistakes...
Really it's nothing new - I have Algae in my tank. I tried to get some advice from ppl on
different forums but the real thing what confuses me is - some of the people are saying
it is PO4 (phosphate) problem, some of them - DIY Co2 + Lighting issue
So I really don't know from where to start. I would like to take a good advice and more
opinions from here so I might be able to put this all together and finally start to do
something about it in the right way. As we all do know if you have an Algae issue in the
tank you need to locate the CAUSE! And this part for me is quite tricky. Few suggestions
out of one Facebook post for a start:
Advice No1 :
" Your lights are fine, they are not the problem, in any case brown algae indicates low light, green algae indicates too much light. The Kelvin rating of your tubes are fine as is the method for switching. As I have mentioned already, it's most like to be phosphate, and more than likely out of ratio with the nitrate. You NEED to know the exact level so you must test it for yourself. In a heavily planted tank there is always some degree of decay due to plant leaves dropping and mulching. Whilst this is good from a nutrient point of view it's the number one reason for increased phosphate. One way of dealing with the mulch and recycling is by having a good head of snails, essential in a planted tank, but it wont lower your phosphate - thats where your problems are. As well as the nutrients building up in your tank you also adding more in the way of ferts, you are fuelling algae. Stop dosing ferts, easycarbo and Co2 is good, do a number of large water changes and clean the filter to help reduce phosphate, but test it!"
Advice No2:
"you might want to try a phosphate remover. My phosphates were as high as yours at one point, I was doing major water changes twice a week and the levels weren't getting any lower. The problem with phosphates is that they are absorbed by everything in the tank; substrate, rocks and even the fish. For example if you put some of your fish into some clean, phosphate-less water, within a few hours you'll see phosphates start to rise"
Advice No3:
"High phosphates have absolutely nothing to do with algae, If your plants are unhealthy or have algae problems then you should be adding more phosphate (in fact more of everything, macro and micro) NOT reducing.
As you are doing ei, just continue dosing as you are or dose more, x2 x3 if u want because excess nurtriants do not cause algae in a planted co2 enriched high tech tank! To much light and poor co2 distribution/flow does cause algae! Ei dosing takes away all the guess work around ferts so you can concentrate on getting you flow, co2 and light spot on! As for test kits, it would do you good to throw them away, they are never ever ever correct, the best test kit you have to hand is your eyes seeing how healthy your plants are!"
So.. they all sound like experts to me *grin*
BUT this is freakin CONFUSING ! (sorry for my French)
Ok - so what I have:
Size: 125L
Age: 10 months
Filtration: 2 externals 440L\h each.
Light: 10.5 a day. description:
Bulbs: 1 x 28w JBL Color 10k, 1 x 28w JBL Nature 9k
1 x 35w JBL Tropical 4k, 1 x 28w Juwel Nature 6k
(Higher K bulbs turns ON 1hr before the other adds on
and lower K bulbs stays 1hr at evening after the 1st 2 turns off)
Total W on 125L = 105w
Plants: Heavy planted
Co2: DIY, managing to keep around 20-25mg/l +
Easy carbo - 6ml daily
Ferts: Dry Salts Kit, EI. dosage - as recommended by supplier
+ a wee bit extra potassium sulphate.
Water changes: 45-50% weekly
Live stock: around 35 fishy-friends (not overfeeding)
Gravel: Dennerle black
Substrate: JBL Aquabasis plus (just under selected areas)
Nitrates: around 30ppm
...so - it is not a "fresh" set-up, the light is fair enough, water changed every week, hovering only the ground plants but it's not too necessary (a very small amount of mes comes out) so I presume my filtration does the job. easy carbo and Co2 in use. best possible ferts in use... but...
so far I did a changes since last week -
changing my water in addition +50% during the week
Reduced my macro and micro mix to dose it every second day 5ml per dose
Reduced my light to 9.5hrs
PO4 test done every 2nd day - says about 2ppm
Scraping my glass every 2nd day like a mad (this stuff is green but not GSA)
And now it looks dreadful see pics attached if they are any good to determinate
If this is a fault of CO2 DIY - I will prepare myself to change it to a proper system
with gas and regulator (between what can say other CO2 DIY users about this??)
But I don't see a big issue with my DIY - morning time I gave around 19mg/l
and evening it adds up to around 25 mark. Or maybe this is an issue?
If that's a light issue I can try to reduce the light time during the day
If that's a PO4 issue I can try to get away with water changes and cleaning
In case I fail on previous one I can use the Po4 remover
LOL. I CAn Do EVERYTHING needed! I just need to know I'm doing it right
PLEASE! HELP! (I know, I know - nothing to panic! BUT I'm desperate!!)
p.s.
between - after one week of My holidays my tank looked like this -
there was some algae but MUCH less than now and less than before
I left on holidays (this means no ferts were used while I was away)
I'm newbie here!
This forum was suggested for me to try to understand the cause of my
issue with algae in my fish tank. I will try to find a time to introduce myself
here but first of all I'm desperate to resolve my algae problems or at least to
start to head in the right direction.. Let me describe the situation first...
Dear fish\plant Friends!
I'm in this hobby a bit over a year and I'm just trying to get things right and learn
from my own mistakes...
Really it's nothing new - I have Algae in my tank. I tried to get some advice from ppl on
different forums but the real thing what confuses me is - some of the people are saying
it is PO4 (phosphate) problem, some of them - DIY Co2 + Lighting issue
So I really don't know from where to start. I would like to take a good advice and more
opinions from here so I might be able to put this all together and finally start to do
something about it in the right way. As we all do know if you have an Algae issue in the
tank you need to locate the CAUSE! And this part for me is quite tricky. Few suggestions
out of one Facebook post for a start:
Advice No1 :
" Your lights are fine, they are not the problem, in any case brown algae indicates low light, green algae indicates too much light. The Kelvin rating of your tubes are fine as is the method for switching. As I have mentioned already, it's most like to be phosphate, and more than likely out of ratio with the nitrate. You NEED to know the exact level so you must test it for yourself. In a heavily planted tank there is always some degree of decay due to plant leaves dropping and mulching. Whilst this is good from a nutrient point of view it's the number one reason for increased phosphate. One way of dealing with the mulch and recycling is by having a good head of snails, essential in a planted tank, but it wont lower your phosphate - thats where your problems are. As well as the nutrients building up in your tank you also adding more in the way of ferts, you are fuelling algae. Stop dosing ferts, easycarbo and Co2 is good, do a number of large water changes and clean the filter to help reduce phosphate, but test it!"
Advice No2:
"you might want to try a phosphate remover. My phosphates were as high as yours at one point, I was doing major water changes twice a week and the levels weren't getting any lower. The problem with phosphates is that they are absorbed by everything in the tank; substrate, rocks and even the fish. For example if you put some of your fish into some clean, phosphate-less water, within a few hours you'll see phosphates start to rise"
Advice No3:
"High phosphates have absolutely nothing to do with algae, If your plants are unhealthy or have algae problems then you should be adding more phosphate (in fact more of everything, macro and micro) NOT reducing.
As you are doing ei, just continue dosing as you are or dose more, x2 x3 if u want because excess nurtriants do not cause algae in a planted co2 enriched high tech tank! To much light and poor co2 distribution/flow does cause algae! Ei dosing takes away all the guess work around ferts so you can concentrate on getting you flow, co2 and light spot on! As for test kits, it would do you good to throw them away, they are never ever ever correct, the best test kit you have to hand is your eyes seeing how healthy your plants are!"
So.. they all sound like experts to me *grin*
BUT this is freakin CONFUSING ! (sorry for my French)
Ok - so what I have:
Size: 125L
Age: 10 months
Filtration: 2 externals 440L\h each.
Light: 10.5 a day. description:
Bulbs: 1 x 28w JBL Color 10k, 1 x 28w JBL Nature 9k
1 x 35w JBL Tropical 4k, 1 x 28w Juwel Nature 6k
(Higher K bulbs turns ON 1hr before the other adds on
and lower K bulbs stays 1hr at evening after the 1st 2 turns off)
Total W on 125L = 105w
Plants: Heavy planted
Co2: DIY, managing to keep around 20-25mg/l +
Easy carbo - 6ml daily
Ferts: Dry Salts Kit, EI. dosage - as recommended by supplier
+ a wee bit extra potassium sulphate.
Water changes: 45-50% weekly
Live stock: around 35 fishy-friends (not overfeeding)
Gravel: Dennerle black
Substrate: JBL Aquabasis plus (just under selected areas)
Nitrates: around 30ppm
...so - it is not a "fresh" set-up, the light is fair enough, water changed every week, hovering only the ground plants but it's not too necessary (a very small amount of mes comes out) so I presume my filtration does the job. easy carbo and Co2 in use. best possible ferts in use... but...
so far I did a changes since last week -
changing my water in addition +50% during the week
Reduced my macro and micro mix to dose it every second day 5ml per dose
Reduced my light to 9.5hrs
PO4 test done every 2nd day - says about 2ppm
Scraping my glass every 2nd day like a mad (this stuff is green but not GSA)
And now it looks dreadful see pics attached if they are any good to determinate
If this is a fault of CO2 DIY - I will prepare myself to change it to a proper system
with gas and regulator (between what can say other CO2 DIY users about this??)
But I don't see a big issue with my DIY - morning time I gave around 19mg/l
and evening it adds up to around 25 mark. Or maybe this is an issue?
If that's a light issue I can try to reduce the light time during the day
If that's a PO4 issue I can try to get away with water changes and cleaning
In case I fail on previous one I can use the Po4 remover
LOL. I CAn Do EVERYTHING needed! I just need to know I'm doing it right
PLEASE! HELP! (I know, I know - nothing to panic! BUT I'm desperate!!)
p.s.
between - after one week of My holidays my tank looked like this -
there was some algae but MUCH less than now and less than before
I left on holidays (this means no ferts were used while I was away)