Plants Vs Algae

So when I first planted my tank I upped the light hours quite a lot and my plants grew fairly fast. with the exception of the sword, which can be expected, the anubias and java ferns were growing like mad.

My tank is dosed with liquid nutrients weekly and liquid co2 daily, and I'll get the exact wattage per gallon of the led lights when I'm home. However I quickly now acquired an algae problem.

Green spot algae grew all over the plants, patches of green algae on rocks and brown algae covered the glass and parts of the substrate too. My moss that covered a piece of driftwood also turned almost entirely brown from its previous vibrant green.

In an effort to control this algae that I was having to scrape and clean DAILY I reduced the lighting hours down to just four a day. The algae is still present but is massively reduced and is just some addictional scrubbing during general water changes, but plant growth has slowed to a halt and my moss is still brown in colour, with only green at the very base of then tufts closest to the wood.

Is there a fine balance or something that I'm missing in the battle of plant growth versus algae growth?

 

So more water changes probably. Check your nitrates, if they are above 30ppm it's probably the cause. Phosphates too. If its hair algae it's a pain to get rid of but a few species of shrimp and flying foxes will eat it. Check your fert to make sure it isn't adding any extra phosphates to your tank. How many fish? What kind? Over stocking could be the cause as well as over feeding as well. Maybe a pleco is all you need?

 

Ill check nitrates later too, but I defo can't add a pleco to this tank it would overstock me like crazy. It's a 20gal long with 6 albino corydoras and two honey gourami with 1 nerite and 6 Amano shrimp. I didn't have the algae problem before the plants and the increase of lights, but I will check the phosphate for sure as that's not something I've checked before.

What lighting time would generally be suitable for the plants that I have? My lights also have a dimmer so reducing the light intensity as oppose to the time Is also possible.

What are your thoughts Aquaphobia ?

 

imo get a fast grower like hornwort or water lettuce . They suck up so much excess .

 

I always ask for hornwort at my LFS but they never sell I think because they say it makes more mess than it's worth because of the needless it drops like a Christmas tree cichlidman

 

To get the algae under control no less than 4 and no more than 8 hrs a day. Lowering the intensity is also an option where you could keep it on a full 16 hours, but that's something you would have to play with and could take many weeks. Try to take a picture of the problem algae so someone may be able to id it. Shrimp and snails should eat it depending on what kind.

 

I always ask for hornwort at my LFS but they never sell I think because they say it makes more mess than it's worth because of the needless it drops like a Christmas tree cichlidman

maybe when its first out of a pond... I sell the stuff all the time and never had anyone complain

 

I recently added a nerite so when I get home I can observe whether he has curbed the problem, but I don't seem to have any joy resurrecting the moss at the moment, though I don't think it's completely dead yet. Even when the major problem started it was 7-8 hours daily light

 

I love my hornwort. I use a ton of light next to a window plus as much light as I can fit on top. About once a month I clip off about 6" on my 3 strands and get rid of the rest which is usually several feet.

 

Jeez that's kinda like a whole lot of plant xD does yours shed at all?

 

Not in a long time. I recently broke down my tank and re worked the entire setup because my rooted plants weren't doing very well. I was expecting drops and a lot of leaf melting but got almost none. But I've had the same hornwart and wendtiI many generations and many tanks for the past 10 or so years.

 

AH ok so it's just something that it does when you? That seems fine. I have an army of shrimp too that I assume will probably enjoy eating it

 

I'm surprised that your Anubias and Java Ferns were growing quickly but your Amazon Sword was not! It's usually the other way around.

What nutrients are you dosing?

My first thought is to split the photoperiod. So on for a few hours in the morning and afternoon but off through midday and overnight. Algae doesn't like that

 

the plant fertiliser is not one I had seen before but its just what my LFS had -

I'm never home in the daytime so its sort of the other way round for me and the lights are on in the evening, but I can break up the hours for sure.

 

I'm surprised that your Anubias and Java Ferns were growing quickly but your Amazon Sword was not! It's usually the other way around.

What nutrients are you dosing?

My first thought is to split the photoperiod. So on for a few hours in the morning and afternoon but off through midday and overnight. Algae doesn't like that

This.

It makes me think this is a low light tank and could use more light.

 

It's 12 volts 1watt per gallon LEDs. The swords are much newer to the tank so could just be acclimating.

 

Good point, plants don't grow their greens unless their roots are established

And don't worry about the volts, that's just what LED's operate off of and what the power converter changes your 230VAC to

Also, watts/gallon rules were developed for a completely different kind of light. It no longer applies as LEDs are so efficient. What kind of light is it, does it have a brand/model?

 

They are built in to my Superfish Home 80 tank. I've ordered some hornwort that is on its way!

 

Hmm, can't find much on them but this page says they're ideal for aquascaping!

SuperFish Home 80Aquarium White 80L: Tanks: Aquarium - Buy pond liners, underlay, pumps, filters and pond equipment from Pondkeeper: fishing out the best deals on the net.

 

Yeah nor can I, but I definitely think the lights aren't a oroblem, they are super high

 

Hornwort has arrived and been quarantined for a day. Had a lot of pennywort and muck gathered in it so I'm glad I did the QT.

Added to the main tank as I turned the lights back to normal and the algae and diatoms came back within a day. Let's hope the algae I just cleaned off doesn't return and the diatoms die down, good luck hornwort!

On a side note, the gouramis love the hornwort and haven't left the area where it has bunched at the top, might see a bubble nest soon enough

 

Cool deal. Just know it may start to drop some needles as it adjusts to your water parameters but after that should take off pretty well(in my experience)

 

Hornwort has arrived and been quarantined for a day. Had a lot of pennywort and muck gathered in it so I'm glad I did the QT.

Added to the main tank as I turned the lights back to normal and the algae and diatoms came back within a day. Let's hope the algae I just cleaned off doesn't return and the diatoms die down, good luck hornwort!

On a side note, the gouramis love the hornwort and haven't left the area where it has bunched at the top, might see a bubble nest soon enough

As long as you get some new growth who cares about the old stuff . The new growth is where its at

 

bump for you

 

Hey guys. I have a well establish aquarium that I used to be able to keep plants in effortlessly. With great formation and coloration too. In the last few months my tank has fallen victI'm to what I believe is a diatom infestation but I may be wrong. I say this because it comes off leaves fairly easy with my fingers and it is brown in color with the occasion green dot pieces. Anyways, I have started to take action to get my plants better then ever. I have started dosing daily and comprehensively. I also finally hooked up my pressurized c02.

It has been one week and I have noticed a ton of new growth already. New leaves, new shoots etc.

I was hoping with the new growth it would eventually start out competent algae and allow the plant to become healthy all around again, but I have noticed some new growth is also starting to be consumed by the algae.

Here is what the plants used to look like




And here they are now




This is also after a ton of pruning and me trying to clean off as many leaves as I had time to.


I have took almost all the decor out of the tank so I can monitor all my plants more closely. I want to get them all healthy and booming again so I can start a new tank.

Any advice is appreciated.
Here’s some tank info

Nitrate 10
Phosphate stays around 1 give or take .5
Temp 75.6
Ph 6.4 while c02 is running
Light cycle 12 hours a day

 

You fertilize them any? And is there anything that eats the algae in the tank?

 

Starting dosing one week ago. Flourish comprehensive for trace elements, leaf zone for potassium, flourish iron and flourish excel. I had some black beard algae that the flourish excel killed within two days. I break up the weekly dosage to daily dosages. Lots of new growth although I noticed on a baby leaf that shot up three days ago the it developed a hole right at the tip. Not sure why


I have two bristle nose plecos that don’t touch algae. Think of getting nirate snails

 

Nerite snails are a great idea for glass cleaning and plants with bigger leaves, but they can’t help with my diatom covered Rotala

 

Not sure if this will be too helpful, but it might help point you in the right direction.

 

If you ever find something that does help with the rotala let me know!

Appreciate the direction j.ho, I have actually watched that video and did gain some knowledge from him. Admittedly I learned the same knowledge much fast from reading for 2 minutes then that whole 10 minute video though haha

 

I see you are dosing CO2. Is it natural or do have liquid compressed CO2?
If you are using CO2 from a high pressure container, then the problem may be caused by you having a high level of CO2 in your water. Try monitoring your CO2 levels when the CO2 switches on and off. The swing shouldn't be big and nominally for around a KH of 6 you should not exceed 30 ppm CO2.

 

I use both gas c02 from a pressurized set up and liquid “c02”

I don’t have a c02 tester yet as I just got serious about my c02 game 8 days ago. I run in at 2bps straight into my filter for 10 hours a day.

I’ve had the algae well before I started using the c02 so I was actually hoping it would help kill it off, nope!

 

how long do you have lights on?

 

12 hours of light. In hopes of new growth out competing the algae and I also heard increasing your light can be effective against some algae such as diatoms

 

12 hours of light. In hopes of new growth out competing the algae and I also heard increasing your light can be effective against some algae such as diatoms

I'm new to planted tank as well but experience the same thing when I added my c02.
at the beginning I have my lights set to 8 Hours and C02 to 8hours. Then all my SeryuI stones got covered with algae and my Anubias roots/rhizomes was covered with brown algae. then I reduced it to 6hours for the light, and my c02 turns on 1 hour ahead and turns off the same time as the light so around 7 hours, and noticed a reduction on algae, not completely gone but definitely reduced.