Cloudy Water - Algae

[Miss Wiggle]

imbalanced may be the better word, you can miss a few doses, the plants will be ok, if you have nutrient substrate, then most of the pressure can be taken of the water column as there is still a way of sourcing nutrients. It is when you dose not enough that can also cause algae, this is linked to the green water.

ok so it's maybe not the fact that it's fluctuating but more than there's just not enough nutrients around full stop.

leeh, look at the post, it's not me asking for advice! the person asking for help hasn't posted since you asked the first time, they'll post back with info when they come on the forum i'm sure.

oh and for another example, here's my algae free tank that also gets 50% water changes weekly

 

[leeh]

here it is, i run the CO2 high, aboout 35ppm, 5ml TPN+ daily, 2.5wpg, 50% water change weekly.

endlers
RCS
Ottos

As you can see they are all well, and they are not the hardiest of fish. It is my 60l (in my sig) if you want to se the whole journal.

nice I just think in my opinion 50% is to much, am I not allowed an opiinion? if 50% works for you then fair enough, whats your ammonia and nitrate readings

imbalanced may be the better word, you can miss a few doses, the plants will be ok, if you have nutrient substrate, then most of the pressure can be taken of the water column as there is still a way of sourcing nutrients. It is when you dose not enough that can also cause algae, this is linked to the green water.

ok so it's maybe not the fact that it's fluctuating but more than there's just not enough nutrients around full stop.

leeh, look at the post, it's not me asking for advice! the person asking for help hasn't posted since you asked the first time, they'll post back with info when they come on the forum i'm sure.

oh and for another example, here's my algae free tank that also gets 50% water changes weekly

nice quite alot of plants!

 

[aaronnorth]

NH3 0
NO2 0
NO3 20

although there is always ammonia in the water, it is constantly being produced. Test kits cant always detct it, they show what levels are safe for your fish.

I know you had your opinion, but it is the fact that you kept saying it was the cause and you didnt back down to this statement. We were both saying that it is ok to do 50% and every time you went against this. Sorry if i was a bit attackive!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

nice I just think in my opinion 50% is to much, am I not allowed an opiinion? if 50% works for you then fair enough, whats your ammonia and nitrate readings

you are certainly allowed an opinion leeh, how a debate works is this

1 - you offer an opinion

2 - i offer an opinion which goes against it and some evidence to support my claims

3 - you give some evidence to support your claims or refute my claims

1 and 2 have happened, still waiting on no 3.

 

[leeh]

nice I just think in my opinion 50% is to much, am I not allowed an opiinion? if 50% works for you then fair enough, whats your ammonia and nitrate readings

you are certainly allowed an opinion leeh, how a debate works is this

1 - you offer an opinion

2 - i offer an opinion which goes against it and some evidence to support my claims

3 - you give some evidence to support your claims or refute my claims

1 and 2 have happened, still waiting on no 3.

Bite me

 

[darryl864]

This ones going well!

Ill try to answer questions as I can remember them but I've just had to read through a lot of posts so sorry if I miss any. First off no I didn't have the lights on for 22 hours with a 2 hour break. I have 5 hours then a 2 hour break and then another 5 hours. When I went on holiday I reduced this to 4-2-4 and put the rug over to prevent any other light getting in. It would have also helped keep the tank warm as the heating was off (in the house not the tank). Having only 10 hours light I wanted to stop any daylight getting to the tank in the morning and in the evenings. Its not near a window but its still a light room. I don't think the rug has caused me any issues so let move on.

Thanks for the advice on feeder blocks I wont use them again especially as I used 3 day ones in which case the friend popping in to put them in the tank could have just used the flake every three days. I thought the fish might be at risk because if I cant see through the water then all the stuff will be in their gills and perhaps cause trouble. I wasn't worried just yet anyway but now even less so.

Feeding has always been a bit of a feeding frenzy but some flake was making it to the bottom. I felt that this was good as it left some for the shrimp. However having now reduced the quantities the shrimp don't get much. I'm cot too worried about this though as I don't think their going to starve.

The filtration system is just a small internal filter and if you look at my diary in my signature you can see some pictures of it. It came with a carbon sack and a sponge inside. I have since replaced the carbon with another sponge. There was also some debate on whether to use the spray bar or the air tube to blow bubbles into the tank. I settled on the spray bar in the end as I feel it agitates the water well. There are no additional air pumps or air stones.

As for the water change I see no harm in doing a 50% or more should the tank need it. And think I might just do a 80% change after a good scrub to try to get rid of the algae spores. On reflection I perhaps should have done a water test when I came back just to see how bad the water got. I'm putting it down to the feeder blocks as everything has been fine up until the holiday.

Thanks for all your advice.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

This ones going well!

sorry!!

As for the water change I see no harm in doing a 50% or more should the tank need it. And think I might just do a 80% change after a good scrub to try to get rid of the algae spores. On reflection I perhaps should have done a water test when I came back just to see how bad the water got. I'm putting it down to the feeder blocks as everything has been fine up until the holiday.

I agree, test results from straight after the hols could be v revealing, and as we know ammonia is one of the main triggers of algae so this could def have been the problem.

i agree that you should try and give it a good old scrub off and a big water change. if it all goes back to normal then you can see that it was just whatever's gone on while you were on holiday.

 

[Dave Spencer]

However, three days later the water has started to go cloudy so I quickly did another 25% water change. This seems to have made things worse so I have been looking for some advice on the forum. I seem to be finding conflicting information. On the one hand people are saying that water changes are bad as this further increases the imbalance which caused the algae to grow. On the other hand others are saying that water changes are good as it removes the algae spores. Can anyone else help? Should I buy something to treat the algae?

Water changes as a means of fighting/controlling algae is not a contentious issue, to be honest. Ask Tom Barr, Takashi Amano, the Senske brothers. The person claiming water changes are bad in the fight against algae due to nutrient imbalance is posting unsubstantiated information that flies in the face of running a high light tank. If anybody is going to induce algae, it is people that run high light tanks such as the persons named above, yet they are able to run them algae free when people using half as much light constantly get algae.

I try to understand algae by triggering it through various means, and then finding out how to clear it. I have used CO2, nutrient deficiency, substrate disturbances (ammonia in the water column without water changes to clear it), heavy pruning, sunlight in a glass of demineralised water (to prove excess nitrate/phosphate do not cause algae).

I can trigger BBA, staghorn, BGA, spiorogyra, GDA and rhizoclonium. I can also clear them as well. if the person denouncing water changes has any empirical evidence to support their claims, it would be great to discuss them.

The lack of basic understanding of what will trigger an algae bloom can make this hobby too much of a PITA for some people, so they give up. The main reason for the lack of understanding is due to the perpetuation of high nitrates/phosphates cause algae. I prove this to be incorrect to myself every day when I fertilise my tanks, but have proven to myself that the exact opposite is true when I let the levels run to a level where they limit plant growth.

Anyway, rant over and time to get back on track. If you have green water, look to an ammonia source to be the cause. Like one or two others, I am going to blame the feeding block as the source as it broke down. Green water can be extremely difficult to shift, and the only real solution could be a UV steriliser.

Great looking tank Miss Wiggle, I didn`t realise you were so hard core.

Leeh, I am off to do an 80% water change in a tank with Otos and Amano shrimp.

Aaron you get books look on the internet you show me evidence of 50% weekly jesus christ,

Take a look at the journals on the planted forum. It`s full of people carrying out large water changes.

Dave.

 

[aaronnorth]

Great looking tank Miss Wiggle, I didn`t realise you were so hard core

i know me neither! Great tank

 

[Miss Wiggle]

lmao

i have no luck whatsoever with plants, thankfully my other half knows his stuff....... We have an arrangement now for our one remaining tank, I do what I like with the fish and make sure it's healthy, he makes it look pretty.... it works

that pic was actually a few months back when he was running EI (and as such was getting the 50% water changes each day) sadly he had a couple of busy weeks in work, couldn't keep up with it and it got infested with algae and we had to scrap the lot and start over again. Literally just the last week I've started looking at it and thinking it looks nice again, it's not back to that standard but it's getting there, just give it a few months for the plants to fill out and stuff, will take a while longer this time as we're not doing EI, too much work for now.

 

[darryl864]

Just to finish this one off I have now got clear water in the tank again. I removed anything I could and gave it a good clean. Tried to rub off the algae attached to th eplants and then did an 80-90% water change. I gave the filter a good clean out too as that was full of it. I then half filled the tank and replaced the filter in lower down. I left this running overnight and then cleaned the filter out again. I have also added a gauze to the filter to try and catch more bits.

The tank looks nice and clear again with only a few bits of algae on the java moss. (I might trim this off next clean out). I'll monitor the Ammonia levels in case of another spike but I'm putting this down to the holiday feeder blocks which I dont think I'll use again.

Thanks everyone who helped!

 

[aaronnorth]

remember ammonia spikes aren't always detectable. I too put it down to the feeding blocks.