Abit of help please 🙏

[Matty24]

Evening all can anyone confirm what aglae this is and a course of treatment, it's been an on going thing for a while now I've been playing with more nutrients, less light more light.. more light and more nutrients his week has defiantly made it alot worse I cant seem to get a balance l, I'm using a fluval 104 external filter, co2 maybe im over stocked (around 30 tetras, 12 mollys 4 Cory's 3 or 4 otos 2 bristlenose plecs group of amano/cherry shrimp and 4 nerites) I've been feeding once a day for a while now and that doesn't seem to of made a difference tanks around 9 months old i do a 50% water change every sunday never missed a water change, ive been dosing seachem products el dose style ever since starting the tank up, could poor circulation play a part? I will add some photos to the thread.

thanks

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Nice looking tank! Looks like maybe black brush algae. Is it black or dark red and hairy looking?

Call me crazy, but this really doesn't seem like a problem amount of algae.

 

[Matty24]

It's a grayish black colour it's not a problem at the minute, I thought it was staghorn to begin with but this week with more light and more nutrients it seems to be longer single strands more the the staghorn look, seems to be that area infront of the wood that's getting hit more left hand side of the tank its free 99.9 free of any aglae the java fern on the right of the tank it seems to come and go but the lilaeopsis brasiliensis seems to have the bulk of it was just looking for people's thoughts and ideas I dont mind it when when it's very fine strands but as it is at the minute I don't like

 

[Byron]

I agree it is black brush algae. This algae is technically a red algae, but it can be very dark green, grey, even dark brown. Like all "problem" algae it is caused by an imbalance in the light/nutrients.

A general comment. When you make a change to the light or nutrients, it usually does not manifest itself positively for a few weeks. Many fall into the trap of doing "x" and four or five days later do "y" because "x" made no difference. I battled this algae over the years, and always gave a couple weeks for results to appear after I reduced light duration or fertilizer or whatever. But here I mean positive results; if I/you increased light or fertilizer(s) and there was already a problem, then yes, you can expect to see it become worse in a matter of days. It is restoring the balance that takes time.

I also think that this is not really bad. But, as someone who has had this algae on and off over 20 years, I know that this minimal "problem" is probably well on the road to becoming a real problem which eventually kills plants by suffocating the leaves.

Water circulation has nothing to do with it. In fact, in my tanks with canister filters, even when this algae was not increasing anywhere on the plants or other surfaces, it would be on the filter return spout, or in the spray bar, where water was moving the swiftest.

One of Tom Barr's good bits of advice is to start with the light. Intensity and spectrum matter. Once this is set, then we add nutrients starting very slowly, increasing only if the plants show they need it. I have done this and it does work.

I realize you have CO2 diffusion, and you are likely using more than needed fertilizers. Can you confirm the CO2, and list which Seachem products? This is critical because aquatic plants have 17 nutrients, and these must be in balance with each other. An excess of one can cause plants to shut down assimilation of another unrelated nutrient. I will likely have more to offer when I know the products.

 

[Matty24]

Thanks for the reply yes I'm using co2, I will attach my dosing schedule, I only use the the green highlight products, I'm also using tropica aqua soil, you mention bba I believe that's on the tips of my java fern leaves but very very small it's very compact bushy shape have you to really look to notice it.

 

[Matty24]

@Byron where did you go

 

[Byron]

@Byron where did you go

Sorry, but as this is a high-tech method, I thought you will get better advice from the members with such setups, or better knowledge of them than I have. I sort of laid some groundwork previously. But while I am here, I will say that I would be concerned over all the additives, concerned for especially the soft water fish.

 

[Matty24]

To be brutally honest Ive been thinking of rescaping the tank, losing the aqua soil (maybe even the co2), thinking gravel sand root tabs, I have a tank in my shed which is low tech, couple media bags of aqua soil rest is gravel/fine gravel and everything grows some better in there than in the high tech (rotala rotundifolia) for example never would grow in my high tech in my low tech its growing pretty well I would say, I'm pretty sick of dosing different products each day I would like to maybe go low tech just use a all in one fert daily but I'm scared I'm going to ruin everything and end up packing the fish keeping in and risking the plants trying to regain a balance with a new set up, I say that as I'm not really sure the plants I have warrant the co2 I use I don't believe anything I have in the tank would be classed as a hard to grow plant.

 

[Byron]

Well, that is up to you of course. I will however say that the Corydoras fish are not advisable over any "plant" substrate, with or without a cap of sand. They naturally dig, and in the right substrate they can dig so deep that the front half of their body will be below the surface. Doing that with a "plant" substrate is a serious bacterial risk. Also, same fish need soft sand as a substrate, never gravel because they cannot sift the gravel through their gills as they should, and again the bacterial issue is way more risky in gravel. So rescaping a tank for them with inert soft sand for the substrate would be in their best interests.

I agree with you that some of the existing plants might not fare well with such changes, meaning light and CO2 primarily. These two factors do affect fish, and that has always worried me which is why I have never gone high-tech.

 

[ChasingFish]

To be brutally honest Ive been thinking of rescaping the tank, losing the aqua soil (maybe even the co2), thinking gravel sand root tabs, I have a tank in my shed which is low tech, couple media bags of aqua soil rest is gravel/fine gravel and everything grows some better in there than in the high tech (rotala rotundifolia) for example never would grow in my high tech in my low tech its growing pretty well I would say, I'm pretty sick of dosing different products each day I would like to maybe go low tech just use a all in one fert daily but I'm scared I'm going to ruin everything and end up packing the fish keeping in and risking the plants trying to regain a balance with a new set up, I say that as I'm not really sure the plants I have warrant the co2 I use I don't believe anything I have in the tank would be classed as a hard to grow plant.

Have you considered just stopping the CO2 and see what happens? I mean before you go so far as removing all the aqua soil...I might try that.

Unless you just feel like rescaping. It's a beautiful tank though just the way it is, I didn't see any algae until I saw the zoom in pictures, and even then - very minimal. If it were me, I wouldn't care about that little bit.

 

[Matty24]

Have you considered just stopping the CO2 and see what happens? I mean before you go so far as removing all the aqua soil...I might try that.

Unless you just feel like rescaping. It's a beautiful tank though just the way it is, I didn't see any algae until I saw the zoom in pictures, and even then - very minimal. If it were me, I wouldn't care about that little bit.

I mean I know no tank is aglae free but it worries me I've seen it get slightly worse over the past few weeks, it's on most plants but very little but I'm stuck in a hard place trying to work out why or where its started, I have noticed maybe cleaning my filter more regularly maybe also help the water flow had decreased I done my water change yesterday and thought I'll just open the filter as it was only a couple weeks ago I cleaned it and the filter was so dirty the foams were absolutely coated I'm still learning myself and I read and do my research but it's so misleading at times I don't know what to do for the best

Regarding the co2 I watched a few vids and read a little and I instantly thought I cant stop saying the tank will be full of aglae within weeks bla bla..

I had thought about maybe turning the light off for a few days, but again will the plants suffer more that way

 

[ChasingFish]

Well, I don't have experience with CO2, so I'll leave that to you. But, I do know that algae typically comes from: lights on too long or too high, overfeeding or not doing water changes often enough (since we are talking about total nutrients here - maybe cut back on the fertilizer regimen?), OR high flow / high oxygen situations. I know you mentioned before that you thought maybe increasing flow would help, imo it's probably not that. But i would look at the other things you mentioned, like the filter may just need cleaning a little more frequently. Sorry, I know it's not much help, but just spitballing. One more thing, maybe i missed it, but I didn't see tank size...is that a 20 gallon long set up? If it is, I would say, yeah it's probably a bit overstocked. So maybe cut back on some fish, but one I would try adding is a siamese algae eater...if it's the type of hair algae mentioned by these other posters, that little guy might take care of it.

 

[Byron]

Solely on the algae issue, which I also earlier said was not at all bad, but you are correct that it can become bad if conditions support this. The balance of light and nutrients in a planted tank has to be on the mark, or close to it, in order to provide what the plants can use which thwarts "problem" algae. When the intensity and spectrum are OK, you can adjust the duration. The other half of this though is the nutrient level, and this you can tweak because you are adding a lot of fertilizers. The brown gunk in the filter is organic matter, and this feeds the plants but also algae if the balance is out.

Many especially beginning aquarists fall into the mistake of feeding their fish way too much. This only turns to organic nutrients. Fish do not need much food, as being ectotherms they do not need all that food energy for generating heat. A hungry fish is more often a very healthy fish, if not carried to extreme. But healthy fish can easily go one week, two weeks, even three weeks without any food entering the tank. I'm not suggesting you do that, but rather the point is how little food regularly is needed.

 

[Matty24]

Well, I don't have experience with CO2, so I'll leave that to you. But, I do know that algae typically comes from: lights on too long or too high, overfeeding or not doing water changes often enough (since we are talking about total nutrients here - maybe cut back on the fertilizer regimen?), OR high flow / high oxygen situations. I know you mentioned before that you thought maybe increasing flow would help, imo it's probably not that. But i would look at the other things you mentioned, like the filter may just need cleaning a little more frequently. Sorry, I know it's not much help, but just spitballing. One more thing, maybe i missed it, but I didn't see tank size...is that a 20 gallon long set up? If it is, I would say, yeah it's probably a bit overstocked. So maybe cut back on some fish, but one I would try adding is a siamese algae eater...if it's the type of hair algae mentioned by these other posters, that little guy might take care its a

It's a 29 gallon yeah I would agree it's over stocked, I don't think i over fed, to be honest the past few weeks I've mainly been feeding decapsulated brine shrimp eggs as I had fry and the fish literally go into a frenze for them so I carried on feeding them, to be honest I haven't tried lowering the level of nutrients mainly because all the time I was dosing over the past months and months everything seemed fine maybe i should try that, i then I got a new light (fluval plant 3.0) and realy since then I havent got that balance back to how it was originally

 

[Matty24]

Solely on the algae issue, which I also earlier said was not at all bad, but you are correct that it can become bad if conditions support this. The balance of light and nutrients in a planted tank has to be on the mark, or close to it, in order to provide what the plants can use which thwarts "problem" algae. When the intensity and spectrum are OK, you can adjust the duration. The other half of this though is the nutrient level, and this you can tweak because you are adding a lot of fertilizers. The brown gunk in the filter is organic matter, and this feeds the plants but also algae if the balance is out.

Many especially beginning aquarists fall into the mistake of feeding their fish way too much. This only turns to organic nutrients. Fish do not need much food, as being ectotherms they do not need all that food energy for generating heat. A hungry fish is more often a very healthy fish, if not carried to extreme. But healthy fish can easily go one week, two weeks, even three weeks without any food entering the tank. I'm not suggesting you do that, but rather the point is how little food regularly is needed.

From how I understand it is that possibly I'm over doing it on the ferts and I should maybe try dropping the dosage