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How can i tackle this algae ?

DPAZ101

Seedling
Joined
1 Sep 2016
Messages
9
Location
whitley Bay,North East England
Hi

New tank now running for 6 months .From about week 6 onwards the plants started to turn black in addition to BGA on a small amount of cosmetic sand i have. The black algae is extremely difficult or impossible to remove from leaves and although it doesn't have any of the long fluffy strands i'm guessing its BBA ?

This was my initial set up:

Tank: Aqua One 620. 90 Litres. 620 mm x 430 mm x 390 mm ( water to substrate 380 mm)

Filtration: Eheim eccopro 300. 750/ litres/h. coarse foam pre-filter plus medium/fine foams.
Media: Aprrox 1.5 kg biohome

LIghting: 1 x 24 w Aquaray Grobeam 600. 6500 K. PAR at 400 mm in air 61 uEinsteins/sec/m2. Total luminous flux 1029 lumens . Initially set at 6 hrs.

Heater: Eheim 100 w

Substrate: ADA Amazonia approx 7 litres , 1 litre ADA powersand , small amount of cosmetic sand.

Water: Tapwater + API water conditioner ( Northumbrian water which i believe to be hard)

No CO2.

Plants:A Pangolino , A petite, Crypto Petchii, Rotala Rotundifolia,Echinodorus Magdalensis, A Reineckii mini, Buceph sp Red, Eleocharis Acicularis

livestock: 6 ember tetra, 6 golden barbs, 1 panda loach, (from week 5), 8 cardinal tetra (week 12) plus a zebra snail

Given this set up i considered it to be a low energy tank and proceeded to maintain as such:

Water Chemistry.

First 2 weeks 90% water changes twice a week.
Weeks 3-4 approximately 60% changes twice a week
week 5 onwards 60 % minimum weekly

Temperature 21-22 C

Ammonia was 0 ppm by week 3 and at its highest in first week at 4 ppm
Nitrite was 0 ppm by week 4 and at its highest in week 3 at 5 ppm
Nitrate at 5-10 ppm by week 20 . in the first 5 months averaged around 20-40 ppm and was highest at 60 ppm around week 4-5.

PH started at 6.9 and is currently at 7.2 ,highest reading 7.4

Dosing - Initially 2ml Aquascaper complete per day dropped to 1 ml once algae appeared
Flourish excel from around week 16, 2.5 ml a day

At around week 16 when the algae was really taking over i switched lights off for one week while on holiday. My son also started dosing 2.5ml of flourish excel each day. When i came back from holiday there had been a marginal improvement however plants wont live forever without light so i decided to change to a lower watt light.

Im now using a 10W aquael leddy slim 'sunny' 6500k. 6-7 hours.

Plant growth in the first 4 weeks was good but thereafter is slow.

To increase plant mass ive stuck in an extra 3 pots of S. repens and a pot of B Compact.

It feels like an exercise in throwing good money after bad and although im seeing a small improvement all my plants are affected with even the new S Repens beginning to show signs of a darkening on the leaf edges.

I would appreciate any comments of where im obviously going wrong or any suggestions of what might improve the situation ?

Phew ! sorry for the length of the post but i was trying to give as much info as possible

Many thanks

David
 
Do you have any pictures you could upload? It will make it easier to diagnose the issue.

I think you should increase back to the full dose of the liquid fert. Plants which are deficient are prone to algae. Focus on healthy plant growth and algae should subside.
 
Photos - will upload a few over the weekend - start and as it is now (not good)
Dosing - Aquascaper complete liquid plant food - no technical specification given on bottle of what it is made up of - Guidance on bottle is 2ml per day per 50 litres for a medium tech tank; described as low-moderate lighting and liquid carbon with high plant biomass.
Correction to my initial post - the replacement light im using is an Aquael Leddy slim 'PLANT' ,8000K, 10W not the 'SUNNY' 6500K as previously stated.
 
I had a week without co2 right before I went on Holiday and came back to huge alge problems, mainly bba, took the usual steps to stop any further growth but it just wasn’t going away.

In the end I spot dosed hydrogen peroxide 3% and it died right off. I only did small sections right before a water change to play it safe and I didn’t lose anything including my baby shrimplets.

This method might help you get it under control.
 
Eventually a few photos - too ashamed to post anymore. I would say plants are existing rather than growing well and all are suffering algae. I just dont know what to change. Things improved (marginally) when i changed the light and maintained dosing at 2 ml a day, but still poor.
This is at 7 months.
Any suggestions appreciated
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I found this link on another post on the forum when researching this for myself:

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm

The advice seems to be to check your ferts are proving enough nitrates and check your c02 is enough/ the delivery is stable.

My experience was that I saw a significant increase in algae after my Amano shrimps died. Their constant work cleaning the rocks and plants seems to have played a very significant role in preventing BBA as well as controling other forms of algae.

Hope this helps.
 
Get some floaters to decrease light intensity and plant more fast-growing stem plants like Rotalas or Ludwigias etc. You’ll need about 70% (an estimate) of your tank surface area planted (at the start) to reduce chances of algae outbreak.

I would try to save current plants; uproot them when filter is turned off then treating them with Excel or hydrogen peroxide in a container. Then do a blackout in the tank for a few days. Meanwhile, purchase more stem plants and start planting. After a day or two, check if algae have been removed from current plants and introduce them into tank when ready.

Cheers
 
I think there is multiple types of algae here. ?BGA, BBA, GSA and even some diatoms maybe?

Suggest:
30% less light
Addition of a few nerite snails, and a few SAE (only needed temporarily to eat the algae on rocks).
Remove all the algae affected leaves and a subsequent large water change.
Reassess in 4 weeks.
 
I would also cut all the dead/damaged leaves right back to promote new growth.

Cheers Lee.
 
It's not going to disappear from the leaves it's already on, but your new growth looks good. I would cut off any damaged leaves on the crypts and once they stems have grown a bit more you can cut those and replant the tops. Aim to keep the new growth healthy and monitor that as your gauge for how well it's going.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. I think i had the mistaken belief that over time the leaves would clear up. I'll start the process of removing badly affected plants without taking too many away in one go and reducing the plant mass too much.
Spot treat some of the less affected plants

Cheers
 
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