Tons Of Thread Algae In New Tank

[xxBarneyxx]

Over the last week I have had a massive outbreak of thread algae.

Tank stats.
160l,
ada substrate
dosing recommended dose of Brightly K every day.
CO2 constant at around 30ppm
108W for 9 hours, +1-2 hours 108w burst during the day
At least 90% of the tank is planted + floating plants (all plants seem healthy and are growing well).
Ammonia was over 5ppm for the first week and a bit and a bit and nitrates where also off the scale (150+).
ammonia is now 0 and nitrates are gradually dropping.
Have been doing a 30%-70% water change every two days removing dead leaves and as much algae as I can get too.
Tank has been running for just over 3 weeks.

I'm think that (and I'm probably wrong):
I have too much light on there.
While the ammonia was so high the plants where using it leaving a shed load of nitrate for the algae.

Will the Plants soon start to out compete the algae and will it just go away or is there anything I need to do? Other then a very small amount of green dust algae on the glass (where it meets the top of the substrate) there is no other algae in there.

Would appreciate any suggestions. from what I can gather this is common in new planted aquariums and will go away but just wanted some reasurance

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Oh yeah, will Amano Shrimp shrimp eat this kind of algae?

 

[garuf]

SNAP! ive got thread too, can you pass on any info on getting rid onto me please?
thank you
gareth

 

[xxBarneyxx]

SNAP! ive got thread too, can you pass on any info on getting rid onto me please?
thank you
gareth

How long has your tank been running and what are the water Stats, CO2, etc. Looking around various sites on the net I keep running into conflicting advice ranging from leave it and it will go away to rip all your plants out and bath them in bleach!

I think it is likely just a case that the excess ammonia at the start gave the algae a headstart but the plants will soon take over again. Unless anyone can advise better I'm going to just keep doing large regular water changes and removing as much as possible by hand and see if it goes away.

 

[reggieschuey]

I see you have 70% water change ?! isn't that a bit much? Possibly imbalancing your cycle system as well.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I see you have 70% water change ?! isn't that a bit much? Possibly imbalancing your cycle system as well.

Well the ammonia was way off the chart because of the ADA ammonia spike and nitrates where over 150ppm so a couple of very large water changes were needed to try and bring it back to semi normal levels One the Ammonia was back to around 5ppm I went back to just doing 30% ish water changes every couple of days.

 

[chuts]

Yeah get some amano shrimp and ottos in there, they love the stuff.

Also I think you should have started with low light and built up to more light as the tank and plants become more established. Thats what I have done, and with shrimp have never had any form of algae over the 6 months I have been running the tank.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah get some amano shrimp and ottos in there, they love the stuff.

Also I think you should have started with low light and built up to more light as the tank and plants become more established. Thats what I have done, and with shrimp have never had any form of algae over the 6 months I have been running the tank.

Thanks a lot for the reply. I have cut out the extra burst during the day so it works out at just over 2wpg for 9 hours. I was going to get some oto's last weekend but didn't get chance to in the end. Will be able to get some this weekend though and my LFS has some amano shrimp in too.

 

[chuts]

Yeah get some amano shrimp and ottos in there, they love the stuff.

Also I think you should have started with low light and built up to more light as the tank and plants become more established. Thats what I have done, and with shrimp have never had any form of algae over the 6 months I have been running the tank.

Thanks a lot for the reply. I have cut out the extra burst during the day so it works out at just over 2wpg for 9 hours. I was going to get some oto's last weekend but didn't get chance to in the end. Will be able to get some this weekend though and my LFS has some amano shrimp in too.

Fingers crossed then! Keep us updated.

Have you considered a 2 hour siesta in your lighting regime? Apparently it confuses algae but not your plants.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah get some amano shrimp and ottos in there, they love the stuff.

Also I think you should have started with low light and built up to more light as the tank and plants become more established. Thats what I have done, and with shrimp have never had any form of algae over the 6 months I have been running the tank.

Thanks a lot for the reply. I have cut out the extra burst during the day so it works out at just over 2wpg for 9 hours. I was going to get some oto's last weekend but didn't get chance to in the end. Will be able to get some this weekend though and my LFS has some amano shrimp in too.

Fingers crossed then! Keep us updated.

Have you considered a 2 hour siesta in your lighting regime? Apparently it confuses algae but not your plants.

Thats how I had it set up originally then some people on another forum said "wtf are you doing that for?" (actually a few of them people where very knowledgable which is why I stopped it).

 

[danski]

definately cut the light back..clean out your filter..do water changes and maybe cut back on the ferts a little till things settle down..can you remove any of it?
that might help also so it doesnt over run the tank..
dan

 

[xxBarneyxx]

definately cut the light back..clean out your filter..do water changes and maybe cut back on the ferts a little till things settle down..can you remove any of it?
that might help also so it doesnt over run the tank..
dan

I checked the filter at the weekend and it was ok. I have halfed the dosage of the ferts for the moment but have got conflicting informaiton on whether to cut the lighting back or not. seems one school of thought is to keep it as it is to encourage the plant growth which will out compete the algae and teh other is to cut it back (which could then lead to more algae).

The light levels actually reaching the bottom of the tank will be less as it has a lot of surface cover with salvina. will definitly cut out the 2 hours "burst" period for the moment though. It is fairly easy to remove and I have been removing it by hand every day. It just takes a long time and grows back REALLY quickly (I'm sure that by the time I work my way from one side of the tank to the other the first side already has more growing again! ). My Nitrates are down below 50ppm today before the water change which is the lowest it has been (before a water change) since the tank was set up so this is hopefully a good sign. I will make sure I post how things get on with just cutting back to 2wpg light and waiting for the tank to finish stablising.

I think on my next one I'm going to try cycing the filter with the tank empty first (it covered so there is no light getting) in and then plant up. In theory this should mean there is no excess ammonia/nitrates for the algae to use and the plants should outgrow them right from the start.

PS by the way the best thing to remove this type of algae by hand is an old toothbrush. It pulls it off nicely without snagging in the plants and uprooting them.

 

[SuperColey1]

The theory behind the siesta lighting break is that a lot of DIY/Yeast users struggle to keep their CO2 high enough and therefore the siesta gives time for the CO2 to build up anbefore the plants start using it again. With pressurised itf you need a siesta you have pvery poor circulation or you are not injecting 30ppm.

By pulling the lights back people are meaning there is no need for 12 hours. wuite often the plants will start to close their leaves up after 8-10 hours and of course are then not using the nutrients and guess what does!!!

If you want to see your tank outside of these hours, use independant lights so that you can have dawn/dusk either side where you have low light (mine is 0.6WPG) for a couple of hours either side of the full lighting.

The pic in my sig is in this 0.6WPG.

Andy

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Just as a brief update. Leaving it alone seems to have done the trick. Its still nowhere near gone yet but it has stopped spread and seems to be dying off now I did cut the lights down but I think what has done the trick is that the plants are soaking up every bit of nitrate in the tank (gone from an average of around 100ppm to about 10ppm in two days).

 

[garuf]

how long has it taken for yours to die off and what actions did you take in the end, mine seems to be more virilant than ever