# Too much lighting vs wrong plants vs new tank?



## Animallover (13 Apr 2021)

Hi guys, 
I am new to the hobby and have started my first tank last Monday so on day 8 today. 

The tank is 318 litres in capacity.

I am running 2 Fluval LED plant spectrum which are 59 watts each. I have them on full power for 6 hours a day since I started and CO2 comes on 2 hours before light comes on and turns off 1 hour before lights turn off. 

Dimensions 122cm x 61cm x 46cm

Filters: Oase 850 and Fluvial FX6.

When I calculated lighting I thought this would be enough for this tank but I have some slow growing algae on the hardscape and so was thinking whether I am using too much light or not? My flow is good and stable, my co2 is stable and my light every day is stable. 

I would like to say my plant is heavily planted but they are all still babies the plants (most are 1-2 grow pots). Lots of stem plants on left and left back. 

Should I adjust the lighting in any way? Or make any other changes? Or is it just new tank algae that will leave in a couple weeks? 

I have attached some pictures. 

Any help would be appreciated.


----------



## ceg4048 (14 Apr 2021)

Animalover said:


> When I calculated lighting I thought this would be enough for this tank but I have some slow growing algae on the hardscape and so was thinking whether I am using too much light or not?


Yes. Algae on hardscape is the first indication of excessive lighting.

Cheers,


----------



## Emil. (14 Apr 2021)

It looks like a lot of the plants on the right side are melting. I'd replace them with fast growers. Fast growers are great "fast" indicators of what is going on. I'd also move the drop checker to the bottom and I'd make sure that none of the rhizomes are buried.


----------



## Animallover (14 Apr 2021)

ceg4048 said:


> Yes. Algae on hardscape is the first indication of excessive lighting.
> 
> Cheers,/


Thanks! I was wondering if it could also be the fungus that you get on new driftwood at the start of a new tank? I tried googling images but it's more fuzzy. The white patches I have are fuzzy but also in blobs so not sure.


----------



## Wookii (14 Apr 2021)

Animalover said:


> Thanks! I was wondering if it could also be the fungus that you get on new driftwood at the start of a new tank? I tried googling images but it's more fuzzy. The white patches I have are fuzzy but also in blobs so not sure.



It’s definitely fungus on the spider wood.

Also the anubias at the front needs its rhizome to be out of the soil otherwise it will rot and die.

It looks like you are suffering quite a bit of melt on your plants, what is your current water change regime?


----------



## Animallover (14 Apr 2021)

Emil. said:


> It looks like a lot of the plants on the right side are melting. I'd replace them with fast growers. Fast growers are great "fast" indicators of what is going on. I'd also move the drop checker to the bottom and I'd make sure that none of the rhizomes are buried.


Thanks! Yes all my pogostemon helferi have melted and some are reappearing bright green so I thought maybe its just part of the normal process and that it will melt and then replace itself. Are fast growers like stem plants? I have them on this tank set up on the left of the tank and shorter planters on the right and front. Yes I was OCD and definitely moved the checker to about 10 different locations (2 new locations per day) and the colour of the drop checker has always been okay. Thanks for letting me know about the rhizomes didn't even think of that so will definitely get them out. I have Java fern on the left front portion that has rhizomes too right? Not sure how i'm going to attach the java fern on the left side without burying. Any tips? Don't really fancy adding more hardscape.


----------



## Animallover (14 Apr 2021)

Wookii said:


> It’s definitely fungus on the spider wood.
> 
> Also the anubias at the front needs its rhizome to be out of the soil otherwise it will rot and die.
> 
> It looks like you are suffering quite a bit of melt on your plants, what is your current water change regime?


Thanks! Yes I need to get the anubias and java fern rhizomes out on my next water change- still wondering regarding how to do that with the java fern. Yes its all the P. helferi- it was actually like that from day 1 from the 1 2 grow pots when I planted them I thought it was normal and now there are some green coloured leaves coming out. I'm doing water changes every 3 or 4 days only at the moment  50%-80% at a time. Is that too infrequent? I just thought huge water changes meant I could do them a bit less frequent.


----------



## Wookii (14 Apr 2021)

Animalover said:


> Thanks! Yes I need to get the anubias and java fern rhizomes out on my next water change- still wondering regarding how to do that with the java fern. Yes its all the P. helferi- it was actually like that from day 1 from the 1 2 grow pots when I planted them I thought it was normal and now there are some green coloured leaves coming out. I'm doing water changes every 3 or 4 days only at the moment  50%-80% at a time. Is that too infrequent? I just thought huge water changes meant I could do them a bit less frequent.



I would remove the dead plants, they’ll just foul your water.

Aquasaoils generally release a lot of ammonia in the first couple of weeks, so a 75%+ per day water change is ideal, for at least the first week, and preferably the second.

Anubias are an epiphyte plant, which means they typically grow out of soil, on rocks and wood. You can use some superglue - only on their roots, not the rhizome - to attach them to your stones or wood next water change.

As mentioned by @Emil. you need a lot more plant mass really otherwise you may start running into some issues.


----------



## Animallover (14 Apr 2021)

Wookii said:


> I would remove the dead plants, they’ll just foul your water.
> 
> Aquasaoils generally release a lot of ammonia in the first couple of weeks, so a 75%+ per day water change is ideal, for at least the first week, and preferably the second.
> 
> ...


Ok thanks! Will definitely implement those ideas and see how it goes


----------



## Emil. (15 Apr 2021)

Animalover said:


> Yes I need to get the anubias and java fern rhizomes out on my next water change- still wondering regarding how to do that with the java fern.


You don't need big rocks to keep them down, you only need few small ones that can hide inside of the root "bush". You can also buy plant weights which are just lead strips. They're not the best looking however.


----------



## Animallover (21 Apr 2021)

Emil. said:


> You don't need big rocks to keep them down, you only need few small ones that can hide inside of the root "bush". You can also buy plant weights which are just lead strips. They're not the best looking however.



Thanks that's a good idea. I might get some small pebble sized stones and glue the java fern roots onto that and place the pebble and roots in substrate while keeping the rhimzone and plant above the substrate. Hopefully that will work!

I was also wondering how other people manage to add algae eaters to the tank so early on? Im on day 16 now and haven't got any signs of algae but would be nice having a few algae eaters just in case there's something that I can't see. Just not sure if my tank is safe after such a short period especially as I was not using dechlorinator for the first few days so definitely wasn't helping the BB.


----------



## Emil. (23 Apr 2021)

You can use bottled bacteria starters or filter media from previous tanks. Or just stay on top of water changes. Don't worry about algae, algae isn't bad. And if you're plants are thriving, it won't grow on them.


----------



## Animallover (3 May 2021)

Hi guys,

I’m on day 28 today. I haven’t changed anything really since my last post except water changes.
There has been some growth in all of my plants and not so much growth on the plants that melted on the right but I would say 1/6 of them have reappeared and super healthy.
I was just wondering when I can safely increase my light? It’s only on for 6 hours a day. Haven’t really increased it as when I was doing the initial reading online most people said 6 hours is enough for the early parts. Just wondering if I can just jump to 8 hours? I was going to increase to 7 hours a day for the next month and see how it goes and adjust the CO2 of course?
I also have some fertiliser but have not used a drop yet just wondering if I randomly start using it now?
Thanks!


----------



## Karmicnull (3 May 2021)

Definitely start using ferts!


----------



## sparkyweasel (3 May 2021)

But not randomly.


----------



## Animallover (7 May 2021)

I’ve started using ferts now just 1 pump a day of tropica SN (starting slow and will build up). From the first day I used the following day I got this new green algae that can be seen on a few of the pictures. Any idea if this is normal? Hasn’t grown since coming up.
Also my reinicki has started melting with holes in it? I’m guessing the lack of fertiliser is the issue from earlier on?
Also my crypts are browning now. Any help with what I can do to fix all these issues?
The rotala are all growing fast and very healthy from what I can see.

thanks!


----------



## Animallover (11 May 2021)

Just another update. Since last Monday where I added the fertiliser there hasn’t been any change except 2 days ago I added some Monte Carlo and drawf hair grass. Today I noticed the Monte Carlo now has some kind of hairy stringy algae on its surface? All of my other plants haven’t changed that much since last Monday except for one leaf of my Crypt also having the hair algae and the colouring of my plants seem to have picked up since adding the fertiliser. 

I’ve just passed 5 weeks from starting up this tank. Not really sure what can be the cause of the algae as I haven’t changed any of my parameters except for adding the little amount of the 2 new plants. Should I cut down/ increase the fertiliser or just wait a bit longer to see if it’s just diatoms? I’m currently only doing once a week 50-75% water changes. Should I increase this? I’m just wondering if I made a mistake by adding more plants randomly while the tank is cycling. 


Any other help would be appreciated!


----------



## Wookii (11 May 2021)

Just to clarify what ferts are you adding each day?


----------



## Animallover (11 May 2021)

I just put a pump of Tropica SN daily after my photo period. My tank is 318L. I haven’t got an extensive regimen. I just remember watching the Green Aqua YouTube videos on fertilisers and the guy said for newcomers just follow the instructions on the back of the fertiliser and it’ll be fine so been hoping for the best haha.


----------



## Wookii (11 May 2021)

The dosage for a 318L tank would be a minimum of two pumps a day, and that’s still a pretty lean dose. I’d recommend doubling that for starters.


----------



## Animallover (11 May 2021)

That does sound reasonable. I was going to increase to fertiliser slowly (was planning for 1 pump daily for 2 weeks unless new issue) as I didn’t want extra nutrients causing algae. Do you think this hairy algae is because of lack of nutrients?
Thanks!


----------



## Wookii (11 May 2021)

Nutrients don’t cause algae. A lack of nutrients, that result in inhibited plant growth, cause algae.

The hairy algae is likely diatoms, which are common as a tank is maturing.


----------



## Animallover (11 May 2021)

Thank you! I’ll just increase my fertiliser dosage then and see how it goes.


----------



## dw1305 (11 May 2021)

Hi all,


Animallover said:


> From the first day I used the following day I got this new green algae that can be seen on a few of the pictures


That is because you've added a nutrient that was <"limiting plant growth"> before the fertiliser addition. Algae can show a <"rapid response to nutrients">, because the ions will diffuse into each cell through the cell wall.

cheers Darrel


----------



## Animallover (11 May 2021)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> That is because you've added a nutrient that was <"limiting plant growth"> before the fertiliser addition. Algae can show a <"rapid response to nutrients">, because the ions will diffuse into each cell through the cell wall.
> 
> cheers Darrel


Ah that makes sense. So now that I have increased the dose of fertiliser should I expect a jump in algae initially but then it will plateau and hopefully eventually die off?


----------



## hypnogogia (12 May 2021)

Wookii said:


> The dosage for a 318L tank would be a minimum of two pumps a day, and that’s still a pretty lean dose. I’d recommend doubling that for starters.


I’d also add the dose before your photo period, not afterwards.  Your drop checker in the first set of photos appeared to be green. It ought to be yellow at lights on.


----------



## dw1305 (12 May 2021)

Hi all,


Animallover said:


> Ah that makes sense. So now that I have increased the dose of fertiliser should I expect a jump in algae initially but then it will plateau and hopefully eventually die off?


Yes, keep on adding the fertiliser, let the tank grow-in and manually remove any algae that bothers you.

The first thing to say is that we don't actually know <"what triggers, or sustains, algal growth">.   I only keep low tech. tanks, and there definitely seems to be a relationship between high plant mass and less algae, but I don't know what comes first the _chicken_ or the _egg_. 

I also have snails and ~<"shrimps"> in all the tanks to perform <"janitorial duties"> and I'm pretty sure they are an important factor as well.

The main issue with the "Green Algae" is that they are in the same taxonomic grouping (<"Clade">) as all the higher plants and have the <"same basic physiology and photosystems">.





If you like they are all "plants" and conditions that favour one, also favour the others.

cheers Darrel


----------



## Wookii (12 May 2021)

Animallover said:


> Thank you! I’ll just increase my fertiliser dosage then and see how it goes.



This table (courtesy of @Zeus. ) shows you the comparative contents of TSN vs full EI dosing.





You can see that the standard dose is less than 1/6th of the EI dose for most of the nutrients (less than 1/20th for Mg and K), so even doubling the standard Tropica dose doesn't really get you close to EI dosing for most of the nutrients. It really is just expensive slightly salted water. Even to get the NO3 to EI levels you'd have to do a 4x dose (9 pumps per day), and even then you'd still be under dosing the other elements at less than half EI dosing.

Long and short, its not really surprising that your plants might be struggling at half the recommended Tropica dose.

You are really best advised going for a dry salt starter pack on a tank your size, for best value longer term:






						Ei Starter 1 Kit with Bottles - Starter Kits - Dry Chemicals - Fertilisers
					

If you're wanting to start Ei dosing or PMDD and not sure where to start, this is the right package for you. You get all you need, all you need to do, is pop them in the bottle and mix, whatever mixture you are creating, you will get plenty of dry salts




					www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk


----------



## Animallover (12 May 2021)

hypnogogia said:


> I’d also add the dose before your photo period, not afterwards.  Your drop checker in the first set of photos appeared to be green. It ought to be yellow at lights on.



Ok thanks i'll change my dosing time to before the photoperiod. Yellow drop checker says its too much CO2 on the chart that came with the drop checker should it be a less dark green then and closer to yellow greenish? 



dw1305 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Yes, keep on adding the fertiliser, let the tank grow-in and manually remove any algae that bothers you.
> 
> ...


Okay thanks i'm going to manually remove the algae now as it looks likes it's slightly worse than yesterday. i would say all of my soil is covered in plants now. Unfortunately my P helferi or the majority of them did not make it hence why there is a bit of empty space on the right of the aquascape. It just all melted when I put it in the tank and only 1/6 of the planted area came back strong and healthy.

I have been meaning on adding some clean up crew but my nitrogen cycle is not ready yet. I tested yesterday ammonia 0, nitrite 0.5 (improvement from last week where it was off the charts high). Nitrate is now around 40 from 5 last week. So i'm hoping next week can add some algae eaters. 

Ah that makes sense regarding the tree diagram! Just need to outcompete the algae but tricky as they use same food as plants.


Wookii said:


> This table (courtesy of @Zeus. ) shows you the comparative contents of TSN vs full EI dosing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks I did read the EI dosing information initially when I was looking at fertilisers but it looked so complicated hence why I went to the TSN for simplicity. It definitely does make sense though as if I am severely under dosing and I need to be giving much more fertilisers than I currently am so will be so expensive long term which isn't what i'm looking for. It still does look complicated lol but I guess I will just look into it slowly as I can just increase the TSN dosing for now. 

Thanks for that link will definitely look into the dry dosing. Have you ever done it and is it really time consuming?


----------



## Wookii (12 May 2021)

Animalover said:


> Thanks I did read the EI dosing information initially when I was looking at fertilisers but it looked so complicated hence why I went to the TSN for simplicity. It definitely does make sense though as if I am severely under dosing and I need to be giving much more fertilisers than I currently am so will be so expensive long term which isn't what i'm looking for. It still does look complicated lol but I guess I will just look into it slowly as I can just increase the TSN dosing for now.
> 
> Thanks for that link will definitely look into the dry dosing. Have you ever done it and is it really time consuming?



If you get that starter kit I linked to, its very easy and prescriptive. They send you the dosing bottles too, so you literally just spoon in the required teaspoons of salt from the provided bags, add some DI water, give it a shake, and you're literally done! It takes about 5 minutes. The bottles are dosing bottles too, so you only need to take the cap off, squeeze the bottle until the dosing section fills with the required dose volume, and pour it in the tank.


----------



## Karmicnull (13 May 2021)

A second vote here for dry dosing.  As a complete noob I started with it based on advice from this forum and it was super-easy. The thing I like about it is that I know _exactly_'what I'm putting in my tank. There's no mystery.  And 9 months in with a lot more experience and learning it has been easy for me to tweak the ferts to account for my particular tap water and tank environment.


----------



## Animallover (17 Jun 2021)

Wookii said:


> If you get that starter kit I linked to, its very easy and prescriptive. They send you the dosing bottles too, so you literally just spoon in the required teaspoons of salt from the provided bags, add some DI water, give it a shake, and you're literally done! It takes about 5 minutes. The bottles are dosing bottles too, so you only need to take the cap off, squeeze the bottle until the dosing section fills with the required dose volume, and pour it in the tank.


Thanks! I have seen the link but has been out of stock the last few times I checked. All in all does look very easy and so much cheaper!
Just an update on the tank. I added fish a few week ago and got carried away. I introduced them close to the planting of the Monte Carlo and hair grass and because of the fish and those new plants had not settled they kind of got pulled out haha so maybe another time.
I have finally increased the lighting to 7 hours but then CO2 was all over the place hence the black algae although my blue dwarf gouramis eat all the black algae when I make them fast for a day so maybe need to do that again to clear it all off the carpet on the right.
I also did trim the stems on the left and they haven’t really grown back fully yet but I had some other stems behind the red plant which are flourishing now which is nice.
Now on 3 squirts of Tropica SN and don’t see any more holes in leaves which is great or discolouration. Will definitely but the EI dosing though when it’s out.


----------



## Animallover (22 Jul 2021)

Hi again guys,

I am running out of my Tropica Specialised Nutrition so bought myself the EI dry dosing kit linked on the previous posts. I was just wondering as the dose of the EI method is always an excess of nutrients my current photoperiod is 7 hours so can I just increase it to 8 or 10 hours or should I do this week by week slowly by increasing by 30 mins or so in case something goes wrong? 

Thanks!


----------



## Animallover (22 Jul 2021)

Also, I calculated I need to add around 60ml of fert a day with the EI dosing method. As i'm using boiled tap water that turns out to be quite a bit of tap water that isn't dechlorinated. Can I add a dechlorinator like prime to the EI dosing bottles of macros and micro nutrients for storage? Or do I need to dechlorinate the whole tank after each EI dose?


----------



## erwin123 (22 Jul 2021)

I wonder if the Tropica bottle label is simply telling you how long the bottle will last if you pump 5 pumps a week rather than a dosing recommendation, because the recommendation on the Tropica website is different from the bottle?






						Tropica Specialised fertiliser - liquid fertiliser for planted tanks - Tropica Aquarium Plants
					

Tropica Specialised fertiliser - liquid fertiliser for heavily planted tanks.




					tropica.com
				






> Specialised Nutrition is added each week when the water is changed. The pump bottle dispenses 2 mL per push.
> We recommend *6 mL (3 pumps) per 50 L *water weekly.



And for those who actually measure such things, my tropica pump dispenses about 2.3ml per push if I push it fully down


----------



## Animallover (22 Jul 2021)

erwin123 said:


> I wonder if the Tropica bottle label is simply telling you how long the bottle will last if you pump 5 pumps a week rather than a dosing recommendation, because the recommendation on the Tropica website is different from the bottle?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hi, to be honest that’s the reason why I’m switching the EI dosing because it’s so much cheaper than tropica SN in the long run.


----------



## MichaelJ (22 Jul 2021)

Animallover said:


> Hi, to be honest that’s the reason why I’m switching the EI dosing because it’s so much cheaper than tropica SN in the long run.


For trace I recently switched over to this. For roughly similar trace contents dosing vs. Tropica I can literally make my own 300 ml bottles at 20 cents/bottle. (0.15 GBP).  Of course, I am adding NPK, Ca/Mg separately (DIY and cheap as well).


----------



## sparkyweasel (22 Jul 2021)

Animalover said:


> As i'm using boiled tap water that turns out to be quite a bit of tap water that isn't dechlorinated.


Boiling will drive the chlorine out.  
But not chloramine or heavy metals, so if your tapwater has other 'nasties' besides chlorine, especially anything that accumulates in the tank rather than dissipating, you might want to use a water conditioner, or use distilled or RO water.
But if chlorine is the only concern in your tapwater boiling it will be enough.


----------



## Animallover (23 Jul 2021)

sparkyweasel said:


> Boiling will drive the chlorine out.
> But not chloramine or heavy metals, so if your tapwater has other 'nasties' besides chlorine, especially anything that accumulates in the tank rather than dissipating, you might want to use a water conditioner, or use distilled or RO water.
> But if chlorine is the only concern in your tapwater boiling it will be enough.



Thanks! So I can just add the seachem prime straight into the fertiliser bottles that I make?


----------



## MichaelJ (23 Jul 2021)

Animallover said:


> Thanks! So I can just add the seachem prime straight into the fertiliser bottles that I make?


Not sure if this was already suggested, but distilled water is the easiest approach (and cheap) and you don't have to add any conditioner (prime) to it... around where I live you can buy distilled water at every grocery or drug store.


----------



## Animallover (23 Jul 2021)

Thanks for the response. I have already made a 500ml bottle of macro and micro ferts so I will buy distilled water the next time these run out but for the time being I was just wondering if I could add some seachem prime to the bottles of fert already made with boiled and cooled water for peace of mind?


----------



## MichaelJ (23 Jul 2021)

@Animallover If you already boiled the water you should have removed most, if not all, of the chlorine and chloramine, so no reason to add any Prime - you are going to dose such a minuscule amount relative to you body of water that any residual chlorine/chloramine will hardly make a difference.  Also, if you mixed this with a "dry dosing kit" I assume it included an acidifier and preservatives (such as potassium sorbate so it wont mold)? I would be more worried about that part.

What water are you using for your general water changes if I may ask?

Cheers,
Michael


----------



## Animallover (23 Jul 2021)

Perfect thank you! I’ll just use these bottles of ferts up and use distilled water next time. 
I use tap water for my water changes and I just add prime after for the whole body of water.


----------

