Algae help

hi there everyone just would like some help with this type of algae i would like to know what is it and what is causing it to happen and some help in preventing it please

i am using easylife fertilizer and doing half the recommended dose as i do not have many plants in the tank the root plants i do have i am using seacham root tabs.

my tank is 6x2x2 using a tmc reef tide 8000 pump in the sump

please see attached photos

Seems to be beard algae. Your light level seems a bit bright, crypts do better with low-medium light else you get algae problems. Can you dim the light at all? Or pick up some floating plants to create some coverage. Otherwise you should reduce the amount of time your lights are on for

Agree, that is brush/beard algae. Some can be expected, but when it increases as it has/is here, it means the balance of light/nutrients is off. Algae takes advantage.

Reducing the light intensity, or sometimes the duration, should help. Feeding more nutrients is unlikely to help here, more likely the opposite.

Ok thanks will reduce light should I cut back on the fertaluzer as well

Thanks fornthe help

Warriors said:

Ok thanks will reduce light should I cut back on the fertaluzer as well

Thanks fornthe help

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No, not at this stage. Reducing the light may solve the issue. Don't expect the existing algae to disappear, it will not. The goal is to not have it increasing, that means the balance is restored.

Also, when making changes to deal with a problem like algae, do one change at a time and give it a few weeks to see the results. Problems can be due to one or several issues, but we try to start with the most obvious (which is light when it comes to algae) and proceed accordingly.

ok i get what you mean i have 2x 3ft fluval 3.0 and 1 x 4ft fluval 3.0 on the tank due to its size so i have switched off the 4ft light and will see how that goes for a few week to a month and if i don't get anymore algae than i will know it was too much light.

but i will carry on with the dosing as normal one step at a time

thanks for the advise

regards
Gary

Warriors said:

ok i get what you mean i have 2x 3ft fluval 3.0 and 1 x 4ft fluval 3.0 on the tank due to its size so i have switched off the 4ft light and will see how that goes for a few week to a month and if i don't get anymore algae than i will know it was too much light.

but i will carry on with the dosing as normal one step at a time

thanks for the advise

regards
Gary

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The fluval 3.0 where you can alter the brightness with the app via Bluetooth? If so, look at dimming the lights, in particular the cold white and the blue.

I have the lights on a ramp up and ramp down please see photo so the pure white is not 100% all day

First off, I know nothing about LED or this particular unit (how it works, what the chart really means), so my comments here are general. The best light for your plants is a combination of pure white and warm white, on together for "x" hours. Do they provide any Kelvin ratings for any of these? Plants respond best to light in the Kelvin range 5000K to 7000K, with the most benefit in the 5500K to 6500K middle. This light is high in red, blue and green, which replicates mid-day sun very closely.

Too much blue and algae has an immediate advantage. This is why marine-intended "cool blue" and actinic lighting is not suited to plants, but algae can be a real problem.

Red and blue drive photosynthesis, and red is the more important of the two. Adding green does improve plant response, probably because the green adds light intensity in general, and the plant is reflecting much of the green (which is why green leaves are "green" to our eyes). Red leaf plants reflect red light, and because red is also crucial for photosynthesis (growth) it needs to be especially strong with red plants present. Red is included (presumably) in the bright white mix and certainly included in the warm white.

The brightest light needs to be controlled; it can be six hours up to whatever, depending upon the factors (light, plant load, fish, nutrients) provided algae is not encouraged. As soon as this occurs, the light is too long and feeding algae (or something else in the spectrum may be out, or insufficient nutrients available...etc). My tank lighting is on seven hours daily, and over several years I was able to work down to this time for my particular lighting, to benefit plants but discourage algae, and for five years now I have not seen algae issues at all.

Warriors said:

I have the lights on a ramp up and ramp down please see photo so the pure white is not 100% all day

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Try and stick to whichever pattern you have selected and are happy with. Overall, seeing as you don't already have many plants (do you just have these crypts?), then dim all of the lights except for the blue (this is already low), down 30%.
So the pure white peaks at 70% etc. I can't see the line for the cold white, I assume this is following the same pattern as the pure white? if so, the cold white should be much lower as this is within the blue spectrum. id have this peaking at around 50%.
Whatever levels you decide, try and keep them set for a couple of weeks and in the mean time, manually remove the algae.
If you introduce more plants, you'll likely want to increase the lighting intensities slightly. Also, when more plants / hardscape is added, try and use them to create some over above the crypts.

the pure white and the cold white are @ 100% from 12 noon until 3pm the drop of to 75 and 65% and then get lower and lower until 8pm

so you are saying lower the pure white and cold white to max 50 and the pure white to 70% on all lights

i have a couple of other crypts and some val in the tank as well as some Anubis

thanks for all the replies

gaz

I would suggest;
pure white to peak at 80% (70% might be too drastic)
warm white to peak at 70% (warm includes the more important red)
cold white to peak at 60% (seeing as your blue is almost non existent (used more for night>day transition?))
red to peak at 50%

what about fertilizer i am using easy life brand and dosing half of the recommended dose. they say 10ml per 100ltr i am doing half that as don't have many plants and easy carbo which doing the same half what they say on the bottle.

they say 1ml for 100ltr per day so i am doing half that

is that correct or still too much ??

Warriors said:

what about fertilizer i am using easy life brand and dosing half of the recommended dose. they say 10ml per 100ltr i am doing half that as don't have many plants and easy carbo which doing the same half what they say on the bottle.

they say 1ml for 100ltr per day so i am doing half that

is that correct or still too much ??

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The plant pictured is a crypt and crypts are heavy root feeders, the liquid fert isnt being used as much by the crypts so the algae use it. Get some root tabs for the crypts. The algae is black brush algae. Easiest way to get rid of it is turn off light for a few days, do a water change to get rid of excess nutrients, clean the filter in take squeeze out filter pad, reduce feeding as food leads to nutrients in tank, if feeding twice a day go to once if once a day go every other day. Stop the luquid fert while doing the light black out. Make sure to get root tabs.