Update Following "trying Not To Get Discouraged"

[carolisles]

I'm trying hard to do all the things I'm supposed to for my plants to thrive.

I do a 40-50% water change every week without exception. I've been adding modest amounts of liquid fertilizer. I've just put a new bulb in my 65-watt lamp, which for 26 gallons should be enough light. My pressurized CO2 system has been installed for four days now.

We've just taken a new measurement of the pH and kH to work out the CO2 level, and surprisingly it's unchanged since before the installation. We've now increased the bubble rate from 30/minute to 60/minute and hopefully that will help.

So here's the bad news. I got home from work this evening and discovered that my formerly crystal-clear tank is now cloudy with one-celled algae. It seems that all I have to show for this effort is an environment that the algae thrive in.

I had a problem with a cloudy tank about a year ago, which was shortly after I set up my aquarium, and utlimately the only thing that fixed it was an agaecide, which in desperation I've resorted to again this evening.

Anyway, that's the end of the story. I'd appreciate any words of sympathy or advice!

Carol

 

[dirtyfishtank]

That sucks I had the same problem. Green water for the past 2 weeks, I did water changes, etc. I do not use pressurized CO2, I use DIY. But none the less I still use CO2, my tank has a good mass of plants and out of desperation, I blacked out the tank. I will remove the black garbage bags saturday morning. But now I sit and wait. Good luck, I will let you know how I do with this method, maybe it might be worth a shot if yer at yer wits end like I am/was. Pray my fishies are ok.

 

[Themuleous]

Ive been struggling with planted tanks for well over a year now and I'm still not completely there yet, in fact I'm miles away! So please don't get to downhearted, it can be a battle but its worth it (sorry for the Cliché)

Have you thought about getting a UV steriliser? They'll clear any free floating algae in a few hours and you can get fairly cheap internal ones these days, which you can use when you need to but remove easily when you dont?

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=170098950551

Sam

 

[BHornsey]

Hi Carol,

What dosing routine are you using? EI or a low tech approach? Do you have a heavy plant load?

If you have a good stock of plants, CO2 and a good fertilising routine the plants will keep algae at bay.
If CO2 or ferts become restricted, plant uptake slows down and the algae make hay

I wouldn't try chemical removal of the algae, that's just treating symptoms, not causes and it will come back.

 

[sophos9]

Carol, algae is the biggest pain in my butt! I'm in the same boat, seem to be doing everything with only 1 result - MORE ALGAE!

With all the time I'm spending on my tank I would be better off changing to marine

 

[Dave Spencer]

The bloom could well be caused by an Ammonia spike. A major disturbance of the substrate or your plant mass could have caused this.

I am not sure of the most effective way of dealing with this. Maybe a large water change, three day blackout and another large water change will weaken it sufficiently for your plants to be able to take over.

A UV steriliser will clear it in a day or two and give you crystal clear water.

Dave.

 

[carolisles]

Thanks so much for the very helpful replies -- as well as the sympathy!

I don't think I've ever heard of a UV sterilizer, but it sounds like it's just the thing I need. I'll have a look on the Internet. Meanwhile, if anyone has any recommendations for a source or brand, please let me know.

I haven't had any substrate disturbances or ammonia spikes, but there are other things that are not quite where they should be. . . .

First, I'm sure I'm under-planted and the plants I do have are not exactly flourishing, so they aren't much competition for the algae. I've been buying plants from our little local store but they haven't always got a very good selection and so I've ordered an assortment of 24 and am waiting for them to arrive. Added to what I already have, I should end up with a nice full tank.

Second, the CO2 is rising slightly but still very low (less than 1 ppm) so as that builds up to the recommended level, the plants ought to perk up.

Third, my fertilizing regimen has consisted only of adding a liquid fertlizer with the last couple of water changes . . . my next project will be to learn about fertilizing and do it right.

By the way, a year ago when I used this particular liquid fertilizer I had an immediate algae bloom, so I've only resumed using it recently -- and now I've had my second algae bloom! It could be a coincidence, but I think I'll hold off on using this fertilizer until the other elements (plant volume and CO2) are where they should be.

Carol

 

[lowee]

Have you considered E.I fertilising?

 

[carolisles]

The short answer is that I have no idea what EI fertilizing is . . . I've seen references to it on this site but haven't looked into it yet. I'm willing to try anything that helps the plants and fish.

I should mention that if I weren't at work right now just sneaking a few minutes on line I would have spent some time finding out what it is before answering this post and admitting my complete ignorance to the world!

 

[lowee]

Check out the sticky on it, it all sounds very complicated at first, but with plenty of reading it is quite simple and can be very beneficial to your plants!

 

[BHornsey]

Hi Carol, meant to get back to you yesterday but couldn't

You have quite a bit of light over that tank. Light drives the plants to take up nutients and grow. However, they can only do this when all the other nutrients are present; CO2, nitrogen, phosphate, potassium (called the macros or NPK) and the trace fertilisers such as iron, zinc, etc (called micros or traces)

If CO2 is low, the plants cant take up the fertilisers easily (carbon is a major part of a plant) so all the ferts you put in the tank recently are present but the plants are struggling to take them up so the algae, which are better at growing in limited conditions, are grabbing the nutrients instead.

I assume you're interested in a planted tank (whaddya mean your not ) Firstly, you need to improve CO2 and put in some more plants to out compete the algae. About 75% of the substrate needs covering. To start, just use fast growing stems such as hygrophila, cabomba, etc. You should search through this forum for 'drop checker' which will give you a means to measure your CO2, or there are commercial ones available (more expensive than DIY)

Then order some dry ferts. This is the cheapest means of dosing. You can use commercial liquid ferts but you pay a lot more. I get mine from AquaEssentials but there are other places.
You need;
Potassium Nitrate (KNO3), your source of nitrogen with some potassium
Mono Potassium Phosphate (KH2PO4), your source of phosphate with some potassium
Traces mix, for all the micros the plants require.
I use the AquaEssentials traces mix but there are lots available and lots more opinions
My local water has lots of nitrate and phosphate in it already so I don't dose these after a water change and I bought some potassium sulphate (K2SO4) which I dose instead.

You are gonna use far more KNO3 by weight than the others so be aware of that when ordering.
Then dose
1/2 teaspoon of KNO3
1/16 teaspoon of KH2PO4
1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon of traces
three times weekly, the first one straight after a water change. This is EI in a nutshell. If you live in a soft water area, you may want to consider some GH booster as well.

If you have a look on your water authority's web site, most now do water reports. Have a look at it and see whats in your area's water. As I said, mine has about 20ppm nitrate and 2- 3ppm phosphate so I skip these for the first dosing and simply add about ½ teaspoon of K2SO4 instead.

As for your algae, try covering the tank for three days with a heavy blanket (anything that blocks the light). You need to turn off lights (obviously) and CO2 (the plants cannot use CO2 without light so you may gas your fish). You can also drop in an airstone.
Also, a big water change (75%) every day during the cover up. I've also had good success with Seachem Excel but it is a little expensive.
Alga hate good plants and fresh water. The Excel also hits algae as well.
Pick off any algae on the plant. Any plants badly affected try to replace.

Hopefully, by then, you should have stocks of all you need. Plant up, raise CO2 up, THEN turn the lights back on, not before.
I tend to shut off CO2 at night. Always make sure it comes on about an hour before the lights to allow levels to come back up. You always need good CO2 when the lights are on or the algae will capitalise on it !

Wow, this is a long post. Gonna have a cuppa to get my strength back

 

[carolisles]

Brian, thanks so much for the great information in your very helpful post. I've printed it out and will get started ordering what I need.

We can't check our current water content since we live in the country and have well water. I do know that it's very hard and the pH is at least 8.5.

I've ordered a UV sterilizer which should arrive in a couple of days, and I'm hopeful that it will fix the algae bloom. Meanwhile we're reducing the hours that the light is on. We've just done our weekly 40-50% water change and, as always, have scrubbed visible algae off of surfaces. If the sterilizer doesn't fix it, then I guess we'll have to do a black-out for a few days, but I'm hoping to avoid that.

Before we did the water change we checked the pH and it's still high at 8.3, so I'm assuming that the CO2 level hasn't risen much despite a week of bubbling; the charts indicate that it's not even at 1 ppm yet. We're up to 2 bubbles per second and aren't turning it off during the two-hour afternoon siesta.

Can anyone tell me if it's normal for the CO2 to increase so slowly? At the rate we're going it seems we'll never get to the recommended 20 - 30 ppm, especially with our 40% weekly water changes.

I guess the good news is that my plants seem to look marginally healthier than they did last week, which may be my imagination but I'm interpreting it as a sign of progress!

Carol

 

[BHornsey]

Hi Carol

Firstly CO2 doesn't take long to build up. My water is medium (6 kH) and loses about 10ppm overnight but is back up within 2 hours of switching on in the morning.

Firstly;

how big is the tank?
What's the kH of the water?
I take it you're not using an air stone?
What type of filter do you have? Internal / canister / sump?​

There should be just enough water flow to ripple the surface of the water. Too much, or an airstone, causes surface disruption which gasses off CO2.

You should get you yourself a kH / gH hardness test kit.
You can get other test kits but most are notoriously vague. For example, I have different nitrate test kits and they all vary in accuracy, even between batches of the same make!
If it's well water it'll depend on where you are as to what's in it. You may still find your local water company will report on it, it maybe that they sampled the wells in the surrounding area and may give average values. Where are you?

If it's a big tank you may need more than a bubble or two a second. My 115 Gall has a bubble rate that is too quick to see! Just turn it up a bit at a time until it comes up. All tanks are different. My Juwel Trigon is very economical on CO2 whereas my big tank has a sump and took a lot of work before I could improve it to the level it is now.

 

[Kevstir]

Hi m8

The uv sterilizer will get rid of the green water no probs , i went from

THIS

TO THIS

in about 5 days

Never had a problem since ..

Kev

 

[Underwurlde]

Poxy algae!

STABLE CO2 is very important. I think that by CHANGING the amount of CO2 you are injecting may have let the algae get a foothold over your plants.

Wait for the plants to catch up with the change in conditions and say goodbye to the algae...
(If you have a lot of plants of course, i.e. >50% coverage)

Andy