What's wrong with my water?

[ConfusedAquascaper]

I've had my 20 gallon tall set up for over three years. 1 year ago I decided to make it a planted tank. with mostly simple hardy plants such as amazon sword, java fern, cryptocoryne wendii, Egeria, bacopa, and my dwarf hair grass. All of my plants are doing well. I run a DIY co2 System, flourite substrate, Flourish tabs, peat moss in my canister filter as well as a sponge and carbonite. I have the Jeabo dosing unit which I'm dosing Flourish and Excel Flourish. I'm dosing exactly what it calls out for. My light is the Finnex 24/7 plus running on the 24/7 mode. There is one large piece of drift wood which is getting algae on it. I have 6 tiger barbs, 2 gourami (which I plan on removing one), 1 dwarf frog, 2 corry cats, and 11 small top deweller which I don't know the name of. some type of yellow neon. Ive had all of theys fish for over one year. I do a 30% water change once a week to help keep up with my light but since ive gotten my light the algae is bad. My water turned green after adding the peat moss which I added to naturally soften my water. What should I do? please help. ill post photos if I can figure out how to add a lower resolution photo

 

[clk89]

I would guess something in the peat moss turned it green. Could also be some sort of algae bloom. What are you water parameters after putting in the peat moss?

What kind of light do you have? How long do you keep it on for?

A small tidbit I will leave you with is that you do need more cory cats of the same type at least six of them, since they like friends.

 

[ConfusedAquascaper]

which parameters do you want? I can provide ammonia, ph, kh gh, nitrate, and nitrite? the tempature is 76. I was wanting to move the tank to mostly neon tetras

I keep the lights on 24/7. Its called the Finnex 24/7 +

well my nitrate levels are 40-80 ppm my gh is 358, my ph is 7.6, my kh took 13 drops so I think that means its 232. my ammonia is .25ppm and my nitrate is 0ppm sooo?

 

[clk89]

Yup all of those were the parameters I was talking about. Your Nitrates are a bit on the high side, usually aI'm for 20PPm and below. Perhaps try a water change.

The lights being on 24/7 is also too long, shorten the time to maybe 6-8 hours. That is probably why you have algae badly.

May I ask why you were trying to lower your PH?

 

[ConfusedAquascaper]

I was told that Neon Tetras like a PH around 7.2 I leave the lights on because the way that the lights peak I thought it was ok. During its daytime cycle its around 60 par while at night its 2-3par. the light has many settings and the lights intensity changes according to the time of day. perhaps I should put the manual mode on a timer?

also I forgot to mention ive had 2 assassan snails for going on a year

 

[clk89]

I may let someone else with more experience with your particular lights weigh in on that. I didn't realize it went through a cycle of sorts.

As far as I can tell most fish will adapt to a higher ph and ph shouldn't really be messed with unless absolutely necessary. Either way I bet some water changes will help with the green color and get the nitrates down.

 

[ConfusedAquascaper]

Thanks bud. Ill do the water change. Maybe someone on here might be able to give me more help later. I was surprised to see how quickly you replied

 

[clk89]

Most are pretty quick to reply. I work at home as my own boss so I can take a break whenever I want too.

 

[Soocold]

I fought green water with a phosphate that was too low. Once I brought it up to near a 10:1 nitrate: phosphate level it's was just 3 days and my green water was gone and plants grew quite a bit.

Don't just rapidly increase the phosphates (and test them first please) I personally increased .2ppm every two days. In my tank I shoot for .5-1ppm phosphate and over the course of a week the plants pull the nitrates from 20ppm to

 

[Bluestreakfl]

You said you're running a CO2 system? If so you'd need a more powerful light to help the plants utilize all the nutrients and CO2. I have a Finnex 24/7 on my 20 gallon but it's a 20 long. I'd say stick with just excel, no CO2, and cut back your fertilizers especially since most of your plants don't need crazy amounts of fertilization.

The other option would be to add a second light, and more plants, this out competing the algae for nutrients.

As for Neon Tetras, they'll do fine with your ph. I keep mine in very hard water with a PH about 7.4-7.5. They only really need soft acidic water if you plan to breed them, and we're talking high 5s to low 6s for that purpose.

 

[Soocold]

I just caught it's a DIY co2. I've read (I don't have co2 experience of any kind yet) DIY is inconsistent and can cause outbreaks.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Fish Lore Aquarium Fish Forum mobile app

 

[ConfusedAquascaper]

Ok! Thank you guys for the information. Id rather not drop the co2 because of the DHG . I just don't know if the excel will be enough. Ive since added siamese algae eaters added long fin blue dianos and got rid of my gourami. Now I'm thinking thinking about getting rid of my frog and tiger barb and adding those tetras. I'm really wanting to add red cherry shrimp because I think they look cool and might help a small amount. The siamese algae eaters are doing an amazing job, but none are getting the green spot algae so I need a solution for that now. aside from that I took Soocolds advise and my green water did go away so thankyou dude! I'm going to download the app so I can reply more prompt. Thank you guys alot. Ive changed out some of the plants so ill show you guys an updated picture. Almost frogot I put my light on a timer and I'm running it in manual mode. I'm getting 60 par so someone please let me know if that's adequate.

 

[Soocold]

You can slowly build up to a double dose of excel. My lidwigia grows 3-4" a week with no co2

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Fish Lore Aquarium Fish Forum mobile app