Haze/Fuzz in new planted wasteland tank

Hello, I just joined the forums and posted an introduction, but I’m really hoping to get some help with my new tank.

It’s only 7 days old, but the plants don’t seem to be doing well. There’s a fuzz or haze around them and the driftwood.
I showed pictures to my LFS and they said it looked like biofilm and told me that the Oto would help clean it up. So far the oto hasn’t done anything but stay on the glass.

It’s a wasteland or low tech tank. No filter or skimmer. Just lights and a heater. I’m doing daily water changes. Between 25 and 50%. My ammonia just reached 0 yesterday for the first time. (Tested before the water change).

I just started using RO/DI water because I was having issues with hardness and pH. Levels all are in normal range now.

The tank is a 10gal, base of gravel, Fluval Bio Stratum, and sand on top of those. Some rocks and driftwood. I planted a bunch of things already. I went with the Aqueon Live planted clip on light.
No clean up crew yet.

Is the light the issue? Is it too strong, not strong enough? I was told that it would grow pretty much all the easy plants. But again, they have a film on them. The floaters, the Java fern, everything seems to have a haze.

Thanks for any advice!

From the photos I think all I see is problem algae (I was wondering about a fungus but see no signs of whitish fuzz on the wood so that's good), and I certainly see black brush algae on several plants and the wood. Common algae is normal and to be expected and easily dealt with, but a "problrm" algae as this species is needs to be dealt with so it does not increase. Problem algae is caused by an imbalance in the light/nutrients. New tanks are still becoming established so algae has a further advantage in the fluctuating water conditions.

Light aspects are intensity, spectrum and duration. Any data on these you can provide will help. As for nutrients, obviously feeding fish is a major source, and thre is also plant additives, so can you mention any you are using and how often.

The substrate also can factor in, depending. It looks like sand, but is there any "plant" substrate under the sand?

I have battled black brush algae a few times. I have experiemented to find the issue, and it became clear that the light is most often but not always the issue, be it the intensity, spectrum or duration. I have also had this algae suddenly increase with additional fertilizer, and the reverse. I have had it increase in summer because of the brighter and longer days. Point is, there are many factors, but all are the same--the balance of light and nutrients. Nothing else.

Thank you so much for that explanation. I haven’t dosed anything up until yesterday. I was thinking that they were dying so I went and got some flourish and iron. I used that on yesterdays water change.
Other than that, it’s just the substrate…base of gravel, Fluval Bio Stratum (the bag of aquarium ‘dirt’ from petco), and sand on top of those.

I will reduce the light to 6 hours. I’m currently running it on 12. Should I add carbon?

Byron said:

From the photos I think all I see is problem algae (I was wondering about a fungus but see no signs of whitish fuzz on the wood so that's good), and I certainly see black brush algae on several plants and the wood. Common algae is normal and to be expected and easily dealt with, but a "problrm" algae as this species is needs to be dealt with so it does not increase. Problem algae is caused by an imbalance in the light/nutrients. New tanks are still becoming established so algae has a further advantage in the fluctuating water conditions.

Light aspects are intensity, spectrum and duration. Any data on these you can provide will help. As for nutrients, obviously feeding fish is a major source, and thre is also plant additives, so can you mention any you are using and how often.

The substrate also can factor in, depending. It looks like sand, but is there any "plant" substrate under the sand?

I have battled black brush algae a few times. I have experiemented to find the issue, and it became clear that the light is most often but not always the issue, be it the intensity, spectrum or duration. I have also had this algae suddenly increase with additional fertilizer, and the reverse. I have had it increase in summer because of the brighter and longer days. Point is, there are many factors, but all are the same--the balance of light and nutrients. Nothing else.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for that explanation. I haven’t dosed anything up until yesterday. I was thinking that they were dying so I went and got some flourish and iron. I used that on yesterdays water change. But the plants already looked this way before adding anything to the tank.
Other than that, it’s just the substrate…base of gravel, Fluval Bio Stratum (the bag of aquarium ‘dirt’ from petco), and sand on top of those.

I will reduce the light to 6 hours. I’m currently running it on 12. Should I add liquid carbon? After looking BBAlgae up, I read that liquid carbon kills it. I just don’t know what that will do to my fish and plants.

The Big Figfetti said:

Thank you so much for that explanation. I haven’t dosed anything up until yesterday. I was thinking that they were dying so I went and got some flourish and iron. I used that on yesterdays water change.
Other than that, it’s just the substrate…base of gravel, Fluval Bio Stratum (the bag of aquarium ‘dirt’ from petco), and sand on top of those.

Click to expand...

Do not use iron. You can easily kill delicate plants, and it harms fish. I killed my floating plants with adding iron in addition to the comprehensive, but there is adequate iron in the Flourish Comprehensive to balance the other nutrients, and that is important. Excess iron alsocauses plants to shut down assimilation of some other nutrients.

The Fluval Stratum is hit and miss. But the issue we are dealing with is excess nutrients causing algae, and this may be part of that, but lets work around the other factors first and hope for success.

The Big Figfetti said:

I will reduce the light to 6 hours. I’m currently running it on 12. Should I add carbon?

Click to expand...

Six hours is fine, you might be OK with 7 or even 8. Generally when making these significant changes, you want to do one change, and not too much, then after a couple weeks see the results and proceed with another or leave it, according to results.

Do not use carbon, it removes nutrients like dissolved carbons which are beneficial for plants.

The Big Figfetti said:

After looking BBAlgae up, I read that liquid carbon kills it. I just don’t know what that will do to my fish and plants.

Click to expand...

Do not put Excel in any tank with live creatures, be they fish, plants or invertebrates. I know not everyone agrees with me, but I state my view and one can accept it or not. Excel is a form of glutaraldehyde, a toxic disinfectant (look it up). I have read knowledgeable aquarists (some on TFF) say it is harmless, and I have read other aquarists elsewhere call it basically a death knell. We do know that at the recommended dose it will usually kill some plants like Vallisneria, and it is detrimental to mosses. Overdosed the entire tank would be dead. I don't care what anyone says, it is sheer folly to put such a substance in a container with living creatures. Enough said.

It is an imbalance of light/nutrients that causes BBA, and correcting/establishing the balance will stop it from increasing.

Byron said:

Do not use iron. You can easily kill delicate plants, and it harms fish. I killed my floating plants with adding iron in addition to the comprehensive, but there is adequate iron in the Flourish Comprehensive to balance the other nutrients, and that is important. Excess iron alsocauses plants to shut down assimilation of some other nutrients.

The Fluval Stratum is hit and miss. But the issue we are dealing with is excess nutrients causing algae, and this may be part of that, but lets work around the other factors first and hope for success.



Six hours is fine, you might be OK with 7 or even 8. Generally when making these significant changes, you want to do one change, and not too much, then after a couple weeks see the results and proceed with another or leave it, according to results.

Do not use carbon, it removes nutrients like dissolved carbons which are beneficial for plants.



Do not put Excel in any tank with live creatures, be they fish, plants or invertebrates. I know not everyone agrees with me, but I state my view and one can accept it or not. Excel is a form of glutaraldehyde, a toxic disinfectant (look it up). I have read knowledgeable aquarists (some on TFF) say it is harmless, and I have read other aquarists elsewhere call it basically a death knell. We do know that at the recommended dose it will usually kill some plants like Vallisneria, and it is detrimental to mosses. Overdosed the entire tank would be dead. I don't care what anyone says, it is sheer folly to put such a substance in a container with living creatures. Enough said.

It is an imbalance of light/nutrients that causes BBA, and correcting/establishing the balance will stop it from increasing.

Click to expand...

I’m not sure what Excel is, but good to know!
I’ll start with less hours and go from there. Is there a good chance that my plants will die in the meantime? It sounds like this will take weeks to heal. It only took 3-5 days to get this bad.

Excel is Seachem Flourish Excel, one of several products sold as "liquid carbon". I have not yet discovered one of these products that does not contain glutaraldehyde.

The Big Figfetti said:

I’ll start with less hours and go from there. Is there a good chance that my plants will die in the meantime? It sounds like this will take weeks to heal. It only took 3-5 days to get this bad.

Click to expand...

The plants will not die. Some info on how this works.

Plants need a specific intensity of light to drive photosynthesis, and each species varies in what this has to be. Slow growing plants need less intense light than fast growing plants. Same thing as what works in your home garden, with plants that must be planted in full sun and other plants that need shade. Spectrum also enters this, as red and blue wavelengths drive photosynthesis. Adding green to the red and blue does increase plant growth. Provided the spectrum is right, and the intensity is right, the plant will photosynthesize full out, so long as the other necessary nutrients are in sufficient levels. As soon as any one of these factors is missing, photosynthesis will slow and may stop, depending upon the factor and plant species. What this means is that the plants will grow well if they have say six hours of sufficient light and nutrients, and if these all continue for say 8 hours, the plants will continue to use them. At some point though something is going to become exhausted. In the planted tank that uses the natural or low-tech method, this factor is usually carbon. In high-tech systems we add diffused carbon to overcome this, but then we must also have more of the other nutrients, and more intense light, in order to keep the balance.

So, the duration is not as critical generally speaking, provided everything is available. I worked on this balance to deal with the same algae some years ago, and I got the tank lighting down to seven hours, which balanced the naturally-occurring CO2 and the nutrients from the fish as well as minimal plant fertilizing. For more than six years this algae has been gone from my tanks. For the first two summers I noticed it increased during the sumer, and I realized that this was due to the increased light duration and brightness in summer, so I completely blacked out the windows (this was a dedicated fish room, so easy todo this) and that stopped the bba in summer. This again all points to the need for balance between light and nutrients. The plants can "grow" for any number of hours, and will rest for the intermediate hours.