New planted tank algae giving off bubbles

[dmense]

I have setup a 500L planted tank about 2 weeks ago. It was planted with approx 120 plants dry and filled over a few days. Couple of existing gourami's added after a week, followed by 13 other small fish. All looked very clean, Cabomba and Mayaca in particular growing well, others OK, Sagittaria died back quickly. After a week and half algae was noticed on the glass in particular, this spread to the substrate, decor and plant leaves within a couple of days. I only turned on the CO2 at this point, starting at 1bubble per second and up to 3 bubbles per second on the third day, with little sign of change in CO2 levels. Current water conditions are:
Nitrate - 10
Nitrite - Zero
GH - 16
KH - 6
Ph 7.4
According to the tables this means CO2 is still less than 10ppm.

Added 6 cherry shrimp yesterday (think I need more!). Looking for Otocinclus, but not found any yet. The algae seams to be growing very quickly and now ever surface is covered in tiny bubbles, I am guessing from the algae giving off Oxygen?!? See pictures. Algae is mostly fine green filimentous, although the fine leaved plants lower leaves now look a bit brown.

Can anyone give me some idea of what is going on and how to get the plants out competing the algae?

Tank info:
Lighting - 2 x 150W Freshwater Metal Halide's on for 8 hours a day, followed by low level lights for a futher 1 1/2 hours evening viewing.
Filter - Gravity fed filter tank next to main aquarium, through 3 layers of foam and 5L of Eheim substrat biological media. Returned by Eheim compact 1000LPH pump to main tank via manifold pipework to distribute flow around tank without breaking water surafce. (Pump turned down a bit as the 1.25" overflow is at its limit!).
CO2 - DIY fire extinguisher, current at 3 bubbles per second, fed to inline reactor on pump return to tank.
Fertiliser - Small amount of Tropica plant nutrition added first week, none since.
Water - 80% rainwater UV filtered for 24hours before adding to tank, 20% (hard) northamptonshire tap water. 15% changed once so far (Holding tank with UV holds 15%, so plan to change that amount every 1-2 weeks).
Substrate - 2-3" Eco-Complete

Images link (cant work out how to get a BB Code?):
http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/490849100

 

[Dolly Sprint 16v]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Sorry for being so prompt - but if you don't nip this in the bud you are going to have major porblems

Probably causes of algae:
To much lighting and too long a lighting period 300 watts for 8 hour
500 litre of water - hourly turn over should be 5000lph
Co2 3 bps not enough - I have a 200 ltr tank and pumping co2 in that quick I cannot count it.
Fertz not enough.

The golden rule for running high lighting is high co2 levels and high fertz regime.

So if it were me - reduce your lighting, vastly increase water circulation and as for fertz regime whith the quantity you should be adding you would be better of using E.I - see attached link of detail http://www.ukaps.org/EI.htm and you should be adding liquid carbon as well.

Regards
paul.

N.B - have a read at the attached - viewtopic.php?f=37&t=12235&p=129321#p129321.

 

[dmense]

Many thanks for your quick responce. I have increased CO2 to almost continous bubbles. I can't easily reduce light levels (anyone know if I can run say 100W bulbs in my 150W Arcadia metal halide pendants), so have changed the Halides to 3 hours per day, with 2 x 16W T4's on before and after that making it up to 9.5 hours total. (T4's create a good effect, but not enough for plants to do anything with). Will the plants be OK with this short photo period? With nearly 2' depth, normal flourescants would be rubbish. I have also added 25ml of Plant nutrition (half the recommended, but I figure the plants need time to recover first). I will look at EI later on when I have some more time, if I need to dose that heavily it looks like there are some cost savings to be had. I already have the Tropica and time is more important at the moment!

I can't get my head round the 10x turnover. I already struggle with the gravity return at under 1000LPH and the flow in the tank is pretty powerful. My under substrate distribution system works well, returning water at various heights and locations around the back of the tank, so nearly all the plants moving around in the currents. I had planned to add another 400LPH tank water circulation (not going through the filter).

Am I doing the right thing, do I need to do anything else short term to get it on track?

 

[Burnleygaz]

Easiest way to reduce your light levels is to raise your lights higher away from the substrate.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
To find out if you can run 100W MH lamps you need to have a look at the electronic ballast in the fitting, it will either be rated for 75 - 150W (in which case you can) or from 150W - 250W (the upper figure may vary). The bubbling is definitely the algae photosynthesising, this is why you get "blanket weed" on ponds in the summer, the filamentous mass rises from the bottom as PAR increases and the O2 evolved acts as a float. Having seen the pictures I think you need a lot more plants, I'd add some "floaters" immediately, PM me if you can't source any, I've got plenty of Ceratophyllum, Limnobium and Salvinia you can have.

It looks like you have a lot of diatoms, but I'd try and get things stabilised before adding any Otocinclus, because they are cheap to buy people regard them as easy fish, but they definitely aren't, they are very sensitive fish and require good quality stable water conditions (think of them as little Baryancistrus, and you won't go far wrong). I'd also try and buy them from a specialist LFS, as a lot of the chain store ones aren't fed seperately and are often too far gone before you buy them.

cheers Darrel

 

[Dolly Sprint 16v]

I can't get my head round the 10x turnover.

Dmense

The 10 x the turnover is filtration / circulation, you will not be able to find "A" filter that will accomplish the 10 x the turnover of water - this why the guys / gals on here run with "TWO" filters units or one filter and add a or two circulation pumps Hydro Korilia are a favourite, this eliminates dead spots or where there is very limited flow within the tank.The additional circulation with push the fertz / co2 within the water column into these dead spots.

The filter people state that their filter produces any output of ???? lph - yes when empty - not when full of media so to help with the circulation an addition filter is add or a circulation pump.

Eg. 60 ltr tank @ 10x turnover required a 600 lph filter - yours 500 ltr @ 10x needs a 5000 lph filter which will be very hard to find, the only option is as above first paragraph.

Hope this helps

Regards
paul.

 

[dmense]

I get the principle, I just find it hard to see that 10x is necessary when I look at the water currents I have with my distribution system and 2x. I would have thought the plants would be uprooted by the flow. The good news is that I know my flowrate will not reduce as the filter clogs, as it is a stand alone pump, not sucking through a filter. So does that mean that others size for 10x, knowing that they will get less than that as the filter slowly clogs?

With the CO2 turned up I can now see the water turbulance very well as the inline reactor is probably not up to the job anymore and I have tiny little bubbles streaming from all the return points. Looks like I may need to add a second reactor to the circulation pump when I add it.

 

[chrisfraser05]

I've got 1500lt hr turnover in my 80lt tank and it's only just now helped me keep the algae at bay.

Before with 600lt hr I had algae issues even with co2 and enough nutrients, this after alot of research was all down to lack of flow.

In my new 300lt I have got a 1200lt filter and 2 2800lt hr power heads for circulation.

Thats 6800lt hr or over 22x flow.

Believe me, the guys on here know from experiance that you really cannot underestimate the amount of flow you need and get away with it!

 

[dmense]

I have managed to increase the flow by using the 1000lph pump to fed the distribution manifold straight from the corner overflow (via the CO2 reactor). Then temporarily used an old fluval 2 for the filter return - more powerful replacement on its way, but the gravity fed overflow for the filter can't cope with more than about 600-800lph, which should be plenty for the filter. I know thats only around 3-4x total turnover, but with it not being reduced by filter clogging and well distributed back into the tank I will concentrate on the lights before making any further changes. Especially as I am trying to keep to having no visible equipment in the tank itself, hence the hidden retrun manifold.

Working on how to downgrade the halides to 70-100W, looks like it will require a new ballast. I am keen to keep the halides as I love the single point source light effect showing the ripples in the tank (plus they are far too expensive to give up on!). Will post seperatly in the light section.

On the plus side, plants are growing very well considering. Vallis is growing lost of runners, Cabomba and Mayaca Fluviatilis have grown a good 100mm in the first 2 weeks, Crypts now looking healthy after first week shock knocked them back. The ones that have struggled are mostly at the front HC moss, E.Tennellus and the Saggitaria which died away immediately. Wondering if this is light penetration (unlikly) or the flow was better further back.

Many thanks for all who replied.