Green Algae Growth - Must Get Rid

[sophos9]

I missed out the word NOT when I said dangerously high. Your nitrates and phosphates are OK for fish. I am surprised noone shot me down in flames with this statement!

Thats cus no-one else reads this thread anymore

Glad to hear increasing your CO2 has helped, but double check your fish are OK tomorrow during lights on. If you ever decide to go>2WPG and settle on a stable fert regime with CO2 at 30ppm, algae will only appear when you get something wrong. Plus, you can grow what you like.

Dave.

Will do

As soon as I see what happens to nitrates over the next few days I will have a stable dosing programme, something like KNO3 3 x per week at 1.6ppm per dose and K2SO4 at 3.3ppm, will probably not dose phosphates (will have to see how they settle) then decide...

I'm enjoying the learning experience - think my biggest problem was dosing P when I should not have...

 

[Dave Spencer]

I found I was overdosing P after I added my fish, so I now only dose it after a water change and midweek. I am still geting enough K in the tank by dosing my nitrates at 5ppm every other day. You will soon get a feel for what your plants need and test less and less.

The increase in pearling from extra CO2 should see off your algae with time. The CO2 started to run out on my 120l which resulted in hair algae, as always, and a little BBA which I have never had before. Changing the bottle resulted in the BBA disappearing on its own, and the Hair algae no longer growing. I still had to remove the hair algae by hand though, it seems to be the way with this stuff.

Dave.

 

[sophos9]

You dose 5ppm nitrates, Jesus... your plants must be sucking that up! Did you get your CO2 sorted?

Please, I want to test less.... what started out as something relaxing has turned into a pain in the ass although I feel I'm on the right track now...

Thanks for all your help Dave

 

[SuperColey1]

I am dosing KNO3 on Tues/Thurs and K2SO4 Sun /Tues/Thurs the tap water seems to have enough phosphate in it and also Nitrate, so I let the tapwater nitrate be used instead of adding first time around.

And we are reading your thread matey, with interest.

 

[sophos9]

I am dosing KNO3 on Tues/Thurs and K2SO4 Sun /Tues/Thurs the tap water seems to have enough phosphate in it and also Nitrate, so I let the tapwater nitrate be used instead of adding first time around.

And we are reading your thread matey, with interest.

Sounds like a good plan!

Cool stuff, hope it adds value somehow to others and creates a few laughs on the way

 

[Dave Spencer]

This is an intersting thread and it shows how much thought you are putting in to this.

My personal feelings regarding people that start planted tanks are that:

A) Tanks are not planted with a sufficient number of fast growing stems at the start.

B) 95% of all problems thereafter are CO2 related (to quote Tom Barr).

Algae is definitely easier to prevent than remove, but if you keep that Champagne bottle effect and always think about what your plants need and not how to beat algae, you are on the right track.

I run my tank at 3.4WPG, 20ppm nitrates, 2ppm phosphates and 30ppm CO2. If I ever notice algae, it is because I am getting one of these factors wrong. At 3.4WPG, getting things wrong means algae in lightspeed time, so I tread a fine line. The light levels are fairly set in stone, I dose in accordance with EI, so the only thing that has caused me algae over the last three months has been my CO2 bottle running low. Had I noticed the low level, this would never have happened.

Once you get on top, you will be able to grow anything you like. I have planted Didiplis diandra in my 120l tank, which is considered to be a medium difficulty plant to grow. At the moment it is easily keeping up with my Rotala rotundifolia, which is considered to be a beginner`s fast growing stem. It is EI that is doing this, not me.

Dave

 

[sophos9]

This is an intersting thread and it shows how much thought you are putting in to this.

Great, hope other newbs can use it to help them start!

My personal feelings regarding people that start planted tanks are that:

A ) Tanks are not planted with a sufficient number of fast growing stems at the start.

I can vouch for that

B ) 95% of all problems thereafter are CO2 related (to quote Tom Barr).

Now that is really interesting, shall see how things go!

Algae is definitely easier to prevent than remove, but if you keep that Champagne bottle effect and always think about what your plants need and not how to beat algae, you are on the right track.

I'm there, last night the tank was like a spa bath! I dosed the usual amount of Flourish Excel, micros and the last Protozin whitespot dose went it (spot is all gone but going up to 16days to be sure). This morning I found my NEW L260 Queen Arabesque laying on its side gasping so I quickly got him out into a mix of water from my other tank and this then added him to my old tank... Now there is a correlation here between adding Flourish Excel and L260's rapidly getting ill - Read more about it here

I run my tank at 3.4WPG, 20ppm nitrates, 2ppm phosphates and 30ppm CO2. If I ever notice algae, it is because I am getting one of these factors wrong. At 3.4WPG, getting things wrong means algae in lightspeed time, so I tread a fine line. The light levels are fairly set in stone, I dose in accordance with EI, so the only thing that has caused me algae over the last three months has been my CO2 bottle running low. Had I noticed the low level, this would never have happened.

Again, that's interesting... There are types of algae that would love that nitrate level!

 

[Dave Spencer]

Again, that's interesting... There are types of algae that would love that nitrate level!

I keep the nitrates at that level in the interest of my plants. Algae doesn`t come in to it.

Dave.

 

[sophos9]

Today was 50% water change day so I decided to give the tank a good clean down...

Trimmed down the plants that had grown out of hand, ditched the stems and kept the cuttings so it all looks good. Also have noticed that all new leaves do not get the green fuzz/beard algae so I trimmed out the worst of the old leaves.

Today, the tank looks the best it ever has... Water is crystal clear, tank is pearling well and the plants look like.. erm... plants instead of a sloppy green matter!

I dosed 2.66ppm KNO3 and 5.7ppm of KS2O4 - its clear that I do not need to add KH2PO4 so I've left that out and will measure phosphates in a couple of days

Dare I say I'm starting to get the advantage on the war against algae?

Today also saw the rejection of 5 glolite tetras and the addition of another 2 Ottos and a male & Female Krib!

 

[Dave Spencer]

Good stuff. Perhaps one day we will be able to sit back and enjoy our tanks.

 

[sophos9]

Cheers Dave and thanks for all the help! Will keep this thread updated then drop a nice clean tank photo in at the end!

 

[sophos9]

Thought I would update this thread with some observations with my dosing experiments

To refresh, my nitrates were sitting around 20ppm, this mean that I was lacking a nutrient so I started dosing K2SO4, within 48hrs, my nitrates had fallen to 5ppm. My phosphates were at 5ppm

Since, I have been dosing twice a week KNO3 - 2.5ppm and K2SO4 - 5.75ppm with no KH2PO4

Testing tonight, my nitrates are at 5ppm and phosphates are about 2ppm - this is good as the nitrates are being consumed and algae growth is definitely on a decline (lots of brown dead algae balls collecting around the tank in the current) and my presumptions about the tank naturally having enough phosphates was correct so my experiment was a short term success

Over the next 4 weeks I will keep the same dosage pattern and see what happens over time

 

[SuperColey1]

Congrats matey. glad to hear you got it sorted.

Andy

 

[sophos9]

Another observation dosing micros...

Dosing 4ml Flourish before lights on results in a significant increase of green algae, this has happened every time so I'm going to cut down dosage from 2 x 4ml per week to 2 x 2ml per week and observe over the next few weeks

My guess behind this is the plants are no consuming the quantity of micros and the algae is using it?

Andy, not sorted but I think I'm on the journey

 

[nry]

Flourish before lights on...I am dosing Flourish daily in the morning around 7am, tank lights come on at 3pm until 10pm at present. I have worked out the daily dosage and this is what goes in. I've been doing this for months now, can't say it has increased algae for me though I did only have 1wpg until recently and the tank gets a degree of light through the room windows (though non direct). If algae starts to appear now my lighting is 2.4wpg then I will try dosing Flourish (and Flourish Trace) when I get back home from work around 5pm, it seems a good point you make!