Green fuzz algae

[Biglog]

I’ve been struggling with fuzz algae in my 36 gallon bow front for a while now so have been really trying to nail down the nutrients but that hasn’t seemed to help. I have rotala, Ludwigia, red tiger lotus, crypts, red myrio, and dwarf sag but everything in the tank just keeps being covered in green fuzz. My drop checker is lime green all day and blue at night when the lights are off. The hygger-957 is on for 12hrs including the 1 hour sunrise and sunset. Any ideas?

 

[Uberhoust]

Green fuzz algae is usually caused an excess nutrient or light issue though I don't have any experience with CO2. 12 hours of artificial light in my tanks is too much light ( I use 9 to 10 hours) but might be appropriate for your system. I also get green algae as a phase when establishing a new aquarium which as the aquarium matures goes away. Your nitrates are higher than I normally run with and for some reason I thought the Nitrate Phosphate ratio is best at 10:1 but don't really know. Again I don't use any CO2 so what I state may not be applicable.

 

[Biglog]

I transferred over everything from my old 29 to this one about 3 months ago so maybe it is from that. How would I prevent it, lower lights and nutrients temporarily? I got the dosing targets from a combination of the EI and PPS dosing systems and am trying to adjust the dose amounts so that the system becomes somewhat “self sufficient” holding those target levels.

 

[Uberhoust]

I would lower the nutrients first, keeping to about 15ppm of nitrates at most. Then I would look at the lighting, though I try to change only one thing at a time. I don't use CO2 but even with nitrates at 10 ppm and 8 hours of about 100 par lighting, I remove about 1 gallon of plant material from the tank weekly. You are using CO2 which complicates the matter and makes my observations and research not as appropriate. I don't fertilize my plants except for with fish poop and SeaChem tabs every 6 months.

Each Nutrient and Lighting configuration will encourage different types of algae growth. You will have to try some trial and error. I would go with the minimum of nutrients unless you see some deficiencies in the plant growth, such as chlorotic leaves (yellowing).

My current tank took about 6 months before I got it established except in my case I was fighting cyanobacteria.

 

[Biglog]

I’ll give that a try unless anyone else that runs CO2 has any other ideas.