Out of Control Algae

hansgruber7 said:

I would just caution that if you do a deep clean, be careful to do it in a way that does not kill all your beneficial bacteria. Did you cycle your tank before adding fish? That could be contributing to the issue if it wasn't fully cycled. I also think you have a lot of fish in there; that increases the bioload which can increase algae. On the margins, Nerite snails and shrimp can help reduce algae but it doesn't address the root cause of a major outbreak. Check out Aquarium Co Op on youtube. They have some great videos on battling algae. Also, switching to RO water can reduce algae in my experience. Good luck!

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Yes, about a year ago I cycled my tank. It was fully cycled before I added any fish. ( I used beneficial bacteria). I'm hesitant to do deep cleaning because it took me a while to have this many fish in my tank without high ammonia or nitrite levels. I've had a lot of fish in this tank for several months; this issue started when I replaced my substrate.

Was your gravel dark before? I wonder if it was, perhaps the extra light reflecting off of the light colored substrate could be contributing. Just trying to see if we can find the connection between the subtrate change and the algae bloom... perhaps you are lacking a nutrient that was in the gravel? Gravel tends to be dirtier than sand no matter how much you vaccuum, because 'stuff' can get all the way to the bottom of the tank and there are lots of crevices etc. Intuitively we might think algae is happening because of too many nutrients, but it can also occur from too little, which causes an imbalance. Removing the gravel could have removed nutrients as well.

A few days without light or with very low amounts of light (reduce to only a few hours) shouldn't significantly harm your plants, if you want to try that to see if it helps. The sun isn't out every day in nature are you able to reduce the output of your light? Ie, run them at 50%.

Sorry if I missed it, but what exact fertilizer are you using? Any root tabs? And what exact light/bulbs?

squidneh said:

Was your gravel dark before? I wonder if it was, perhaps the extra light reflecting off of the light colored substrate could be contributing. Just trying to see if we can find the connection between the subtrate change and the algae bloom... perhaps you are lacking a nutrient that was in the gravel? Gravel tends to be dirtier than sand no matter how much you vaccuum, because 'stuff' can get all the way to the bottom of the tank and there are lots of crevices etc. Intuitively we might think algae is happening because of too many nutrients, but it can also occur from too little, which causes an imbalance. Removing the gravel could have removed nutrients as well.

A few days without light or with very low amounts of light (reduce to only a few hours) shouldn't significantly harm your plants, if you want to try that to see if it helps. The sun isn't out every day in nature are you able to reduce the output of your light? Ie, run them at 50%.

Sorry if I missed it, but what exact fertilizer are you using? Any root tabs? And what exact light/bulbs?

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My gravel was tan, there was a TON of 'stuff' in the gravel, so maybe a nutrient was removed.
lol maybe I should turn the light off for a couple of days. I can't reduce the output of my LED's and they are extremely bright. I should mention that my light is relatively new as well. Maybe a month and a half old.

It could be the lighting then. Do you have the old light still to test if algae improves if you switch it back?

hansgruber7 said:

It could be the lighting then. Do you have the old light still to test if algae improves if you switch it back?

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No, I threw the old one out because a) It did a bad job of growing live plants; b) It encouraged algae growth anyway except the algae was brown and not as widespread because the lights were very dim.

You could try adding some frogbit to soak up nutrients and it would naturally dim the lighting as it covers the water surface. That helped me in one of my tanks. Some nerites and a small army of shrimp can be a good clean up crew too.

hansgruber7 said:

You could try adding some frogbit to soak up nutrients and it would naturally dim the lighting as it covers the water surface. That helped me in one of my tanks. Some nerites and a small army of shrimp can be a good clean up crew too.

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I'll look into that; would fully planting my tank help as well?

Silencedogood said:

I'll look into that; would fully planting my tank help as well?

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Yes, I think more plants are always better when combating algae. It just gets tricky because as your plants change, so does the ideal nutrient/light balance. It's largely trial and error in my experience.

Toss a rubberlip in there and call it a day.

Natural algae control. Snails require masses to accomplish the task. One hungry rubberlip or bristlenose will take.care of that for you easily and happily.

Either reduce the light or add more plants. Because your light is only on for 7-9 hours per day, I would add more plants. A few bits of Water Sprite on the surface would probably fix the problem.

Silencedogood said:

I think the plant leaves just recently started falling off because they were covered with black algae. The leaves at the top are new so they don't have any algae (yet). I am using a plant fertilizer, and my gh is on the higher side. I definitely have nitrates and I think my calcium and magnesium is good because my snails have healthy shells.

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The shells typically don't tell if if your Ca or Mg levels are correct. Most animals get there minerals through the food they eat not the water. IF the snails are eathing algae they will get what they need. Typically the only thing you will see on the shells is erosion which is primarily an indication of a PH problem. Typically hard tap water has a lot of calcium and little to no magnesium.

Also I have had very bad algae issues in the past (much worse than yours) and algae growth on leaves generally doesn't cause the plant to shed the leaves. Tissue narcosis due to deficiencies is typically the cause.

hansgruber7 said:

My understanding is that usually algae outbreaks are caused by an imbalance in nutrients and lighting based on what your plants are using. Usually you need to reduce one or the other. But sometimes you need to increase one or the other. Any time you have excess of either lighting or nutrients based on what your plants are using, it creates space for algae.

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In my experience with fertilizers is that they are the biggest source of nutrient imbalance. There are 14 nutrients plants need that should be in fertilizer but it is not hard to find fertilizers with less than 6 nutrients (Leaf zone only has 3). What fertilizer are you usin? You would think they fertilizer companies would make a fertilizer balanced so that the plants would have enough to grow but not too much. But If you look you will fined almost all fertilizers don't have calcium. Ian those that do don't have enough for the plants. Magnesium is also typically in short supply. Zinc and copper are often missing or at level of about 1/20th of what plants need. The nutrient levels in most commercial fertilizers do not match the levels found in plant tissue. In fact it looks like commercial fertilizers are assuming your tap water contains most of the nutrients plants need.

My RO tank was a constant algae farm for years and no amount of cleaning or lighting would resolve the issue and my plants would eventually die. After trying 3 fertilizers and years of effort I gave up and made my own fertilizer. Now the tank can go 2 weeks without a water change and don't need to clean the glass of the tank. My snails can easily keep up with the amount of algae I do get. My current fertilize now has more N, P, Zn, Cu, and Mo than the best commercial fertilizer I could find and it has less iron. Now the main reason for a water change is to remove the excess floating plants in it.

I tried using the API fertilizers but they didn't seem to do anything so I switched to EasyLife. It seemed to do a pretty good job, imo.

After algae-scraping last night.

Silencedogood said:

I tried using the API fertilizers but they didn't seem to do anything so I switched to EasyLife. It seemed to do a pretty good job, imo.

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I have never sean anoone on a forum with really lush tank using only API fertilizers.

I don't have any experience with Easylife but for theirecomplete fertilizer at the manufactured recommended dose:
K 0.5072ppm
Mg 0.0951
Fe 0.25ppm
Mn 0.043ppm
B 0.0085ppm
Zn 0.0021ppm
Cu 0.0002ppm
Mo 0.0021ppm
Ni 0.0011ppm

This information is from an aquarium fertilizer calculator. This calculator fortunately for you have easy life products listed. All you have to do is to enter the size of your tank, select Premixed , Sellect the Easy life product from the list, Then select Result of my dose and then enter the ML of fertilizer you add to the tank.

Note I only listed for the plant nutrients in the bottle. It has about 2.5times the amount of iron I use . Mn is at the same level I dose, B, Zn, Cu are deficient compared to what I dose in the fertilizer I make. It is seriouslydeficient in K and Mg and no N, Ca, Cl, S, or P is listed. these are all micro nutrients macro nutrients and should be at levels 1ppm or higher.

Of corse this is assuming your tap water, substrate, and fish waste has no nutrients. An Assumption that is likely wrong. Also N, K, P, Mg and Cl are all mobile nutrients. And your new photos in my opinion clearly shows a mobile nutrient deficiency.

Silencedogood said:

My gravel was tan, there was a TON of 'stuff' in the gravel, so maybe a nutrient was removed.

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That is likely what happened. Substrates are sometimes rich in Ca and Mg.

hansgruber7 said:

You could try adding some frogbit to soak up nutrients and it would naturally dim the lighting as it covers the water surface.

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Colin_T said:

Either reduce the light or add more plants. Because your light is only on for 7-9 hours per day, I would add more plants. A few bits of Water Sprite on the surface would probably fix the problem.

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Colin_T said:

Either reduce the light or add more plants. Because your light is only on for 7-9 hours per day, I would add more plants. A few bits of Water Sprite on the surface would probably fix the problem.

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None of In my opinion of these recommendations are unlikely to work. You have too many possible deficiencies. Adding more plants will push anything the is close to being deficient into deficiency. Making the problem worse. And in my experience only one nutrient deficiency is needed to kill plants in the tank. I actually killed off duckweed in my tank due to deficiencies I didn't understand at the time. Most people would agreed duckweed is hard to fully remove from the tank.

Algae likes deficient water. And from everythingI see your plats are struggling to get enough nutrients.

You could try adding Magnesium sulfate (Epson salt, (MgSo4) your water Only 5 to 10ppm Mg would be enough to eliminate the possibility of Mg and S deficiency. I am assuming your water has enough Ca and Cl. But I could be wrong. You might have enough fish to maintain decent levels of NPK but that is a guess. As to your micro deficiencies I will have to think about it. There are few simple solutions. for micros.

For your reference I maintain 10ppm nitrate using KNO3, 1ppm phosphate using KH2PO4 to satisfy my plants needs for N P K. for micros I am dosing 0.1ppm Fe, 0.05ppm, 0.025ppm B, 0.03ppm Zn, 0.01ppm Cu, and 0.01ppm Mo, and 0.004 ppm Ni. I use a GH booster that is a mix calcium chloride and magnesium sulfate.

StevenF said:

And your new photos in my opinion clearly shows a mobile nutrient deficiency.

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What deficiencies are you seeing from the photos?

StevenF said:

You might have enough fish to maintain decent levels of NPK but that is a guess

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I have 50 fish in my tank at the moment and I'm doing water changes once every week. I live on Long Island and my water tends to be on the soft side but my tank evaporates like crazy which ( I think) builds up minerals. My gh is 150-200 ppm and my kh is slightly higher. My nitrate is generally 20-30 ppm.
Where are you getting all the minerals to add to your tank? It's safe to add Epsom salt to my tank?