# Sacrilege, I know :O



## Arne

But I'm going to ask it anyway 

I have an ADA 60P with the Aquasky 601 LED lights above it. This is one hell (or sun) of a lighting system, and I am reluctant to add a dimmer to it, because I can't find any info on how to safely do this.

The high levels of light, combined with my EI fert dosing has led to BBA, time after time. In the first 3 months I really struggled with staghorn as well, but thats gone now. When the BBA get really in my way I reduce fert dosing and it subsides, but plant growth is also reduced, so not optimal.

I've read somewhere that the Brighty fert series by ADA have very different nutrient levels from what the EI advises, probably because of the lights they put on their tanks.

Ok, so dealing with BBA: increasing CO2 and flow is the go-to method. Flow is definately not the issue, and CO2 levels should be fine. I have an UP inline atomizer hooked up on the intake of the filter to max the dissolution. I have a Dennerle Evolution Space regulator with built in solenoid, and it's almost turned up to the max. 
I know the obvious suggestion is MOAR CO2 !!! but the point of this topic is to put that aside and explore something else:

Is there a specific nutrient that could be reduced in order to prevent BB Spores from blooming ? 
(I did some searching and read http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/po4-levels.6371/#post-111069 )

I dose most the nutrients seperately with different solutions from dry salts, and I know when I reduce ferts to reduce BBA I get an increase in BGA due to nitrate shortage. Is there a way to reverse engineer this ?

I know I could just experiment myself, but since there is going to be a ... a .. eehhhh ... I don't know how to translate this but via my local aquarium "club" there will be a house visit by a senior inspector for the national inspection. This is in 3 weeks and I don't want my tank to have imploded by then


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## parotet

Subscribed! Sorry Arne, this question is beyond my knowledge but I have always been interested to know why the ADA way is so different compared to EI dosing. ADA ferts are just water with minimal amounts of salts. Yes, I've read many times that lights in ADA tanks are no that high as it seems but here we have a clear example of a complete ADA setup. We all agree that CO2 injections in ADA tanks must also be optimal (even that there is always very little information about it) and that both systems rely on good levels of both co2 and O2, good flow, filtering, etc. So why this huge difference regarding ferts?... And to be honest, we all know thousands of incredible planted tanks created using both approaches, thus both ways work. Maybe understanding all this your problems could be sorted out. 

Jordi


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## pepedopolous

Sorry! Are you absolutely sure that your flow/distribution is OK? I dose EI too. I also have a powerful LED light and I'm currently (fingers crossed) on top of BBA in my aquarium.

From my experience, BBA on plants was worse when I reduced the flow. How/why did I do this? I swapped a Koralia pump for an Eheim Skim 350. This got rid of surface scum but over a few months, BBA on the bottom of stem plants got worse and worse, even though I did some other things to increase flow like regularly cleaning the filter and removing 50% of the filter media and all the filter floss. The only way have managed to reduce BBA is to put the Koralia back instead of the skimmer. I had forgotten how much better the flow is with this pump!

My aquarium is 125 litres but the filter (Eheim 350T) has only 1050lph. The Eheim Skim 350 only added a few hundred lph and got blocked very quickly. Now with the Koralia back I have an extra 900 lph and it makes the output of the filter more or less irrelevant. If I add up all the flow, it's 1950lph which is well above the 10*aquarium volume guideline.

So what is your filter and how many lph does it put out?

Regarding the difference with the ADA approach, their soils have massive amounts of nutrients in them so this makes up for the EI water column dosing. The ADA ferts are just about replenishing things as they get used up from the soil...

P


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## parotet

pepedopolous said:


> Regarding the difference with the ADA approach, their soils have massive amounts of nutrients in them so this makes up for the EI water column dosing. The ADA ferts are just about replenishing things as they get used up from the soil...
> 
> P


Right, but lots of people following the EI approach do use enriched substrates and we still dose massive amounts of ferts as we know they do not cause algae. It looks like opposite strategies, one dosing unlimited nutrients and the other limiting them. We can see amazing tanks from people like Viktor Lantos and others working with massive amounts of light and limiting nutrients...assuming optimal flow and co2, tank husbandry, etc are necessary in both approaches why do both work? 

Jordi


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## Arne

pepedopolous said:


> Sorry! Are you absolutely sure that your flow/distribution is OK? I dose EI too. I also have a powerful LED light and I'm currently (fingers crossed) on top of BBA in my aquarium.
> 
> P



BBA is the worst in area's with the most flow 
Pump is 700 l/h for a 60 L aqurium, well maintained and any more flow would just press the fish into a corner.



parotet said:


> Right, but lots of people following the EI approach do use enriched substrates and we still dose massive amounts of ferts as we know they do not cause algae. It looks like opposite strategies, one dosing unlimited nutrients and the other limiting them. We can see amazing tanks from people like Viktor Lantos and others working with massive amounts of light and limiting nutrients...assuming optimal flow and co2, tank husbandry, etc are necessary in both approaches why do both work?
> 
> Jordi



Actually I forgot about that! Substrate is ADA Amazonia. Plenty rich in nutrients as well, half a year old.


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## parotet

I guess the answer you will have is too much light, but I have seen lots of ADA 60p with AquaSky light following the ADA fert path and they work... That's what I don't understand.

I'm sure this has been already discussed in ukaps, isn't it?


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## pepedopolous

Has anyone measured the PAR for an Aquasky?

P


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## parotet

pepedopolous said:


> Has anyone measured the PAR for an Aquasky?
> 
> P


I'm sure someone has done it... Anyone out there? 
I would love to know how much light it gives. Also for ADA Mini S and M which are frequently reported in some forum for having very bright lights for such a small volume

(Sorry Arne we are hijacking your thread...)

Jordi


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## Andy Thurston

parotet said:


> I'm sure someone has done it... Anyone out there?
> I would love to know how much light it gives. Also for ADA Mini S and M which are frequently reported in some forum for having very bright lights for such a small volume
> 
> (Sorry Arne we are hijacking your thread...)
> 
> Jordi



http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=298722


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## ceg4048

BBA is a CO2 deficiency and has nothing to do with nutrients. Either reduce the intensity or improve CO2/timing or improve flow/distribution or any combination of those.

Cheers,


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## parotet

By reading Big Clown's link it seems that ADA AquaSky delivers a high to very high PAR... AquaSky 602 seems unmanageable, and 601 needs some expertise to have no algae problems. But we all know people using the ADA method obviously achieve nice results with these tanks. So once again, low nutrient system (especially low N) and high lights? How?

Jordi


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## pepedopolous

http://prirodni-akvarium.cz/index.php?id=mereni

Very high PAR for the Aquasky lamps. I've never dared run such high light and still get algae anyway. I second Jordi's question. How on earth do Aquasky users not get algae?. Imagine if they were using those ADA 74g CO2 bottles! Can't last very long at all.

P


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## parotet

Viktor Lantos' last pics on Flickr are of incredible ADA setups using 601 and 602... Let's see if he can hear us 

Ardjuna's website (the one you include in your post) is absolutely fantastic, I am a great fan of this webpage, probably the most reliable one for planted tanks. In this site the ADA fert line salt contents are detailed... the only nutrient provided in high levels is K, but NO3 and PO4 are extremely limited even if you would dose the whole set or even you would dose the double amount.

Jordi


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## Iain Sutherland

Amazonia has very high Nitrates which a majority of plants are happy to use. Epiphytes such as bolbitus, anubias etc will obtain what they need from dosing as lower levels are needed from slower growth. 
I would also hazard a guess that most ADA nano users will 'tweak' the standard ADA dosing as needed with higher light as even very skilled scapers have said the lights are almost unmanageable.
That doesn't change the fact that BBA is un effected by nutrients, it is solely a co2 issue.  Any correlation to nutrients and BBA are likely misinterpreted results....


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## Marcel G

According to my level of knowledge I would say that for all kinds of algae the _*light*_ and _*nutrients *_are crucial (this is where I have to disagree with Clive alias ceg4048). But at the same time I believe that there are some _*factors *_which inhibit algae, like algivores (shrimps, oto's etc.), high O2 levels, high redox, low organics, good filters, regular maintenance, frequent & big water changes, and probably high CO2 levels also. I have read in one scientific paper that Audouinella (= BBA) likes quite low CO2 levels (around 5-10 mg/L if I remember well), so if you keep your CO2 above that, this kind of algae won't like it too much. Also lower pH may (or may not) work as one of the factors.

Still I think that the most important thing in having nice (and "algae-free") planted tank is good filtration, big numbers of plants, and well working microbes. If your microbes are doing good job, than they reduce organics into minerals quite quickly, which will lead to clean substrate and clean water. And to have well working microbes you need good filtration and big numbers of well growing plants, which will supply them with enough oxygen (to water, as well as into the substrate via their roots). Also I believe that if you want good levels of oxygen in the water and substrate, the easiest way is to use your plants. If you use high lights, your plants will photosynthetize well, and will produce enough oxygen to saturate the water with it. All this contributes to high redox (ORP). In my tank I have redox around +400 mV (the same redox has one friend of mine). We both have no algae issues, plants are in excellent condition, critters multiply well, water and substrate is extra clear. Right now I'm working on another article on redox which I will publish soon on my website (http://www.prirodni-akvarium.cz). I measured the redox for 7 days in each tank, so I have quite solid data. Still I want to measure it in few other tanks to have more data.

Marcel


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## parotet

Hi all

Excellent explanations of the elements that contribute to a healthy tank. Also, most of use in this thread understands that BBA is not nutrient related, but the question is still there:

Comparing two equal setups, both using aquasoil, with high-medium light levels (we’ve seen that not all the ADA setups use low lights) and all the above mentioned optimized settings (Co2 injection and diffusion, filtration, flow, tank husbandry, etc.,): why ADA strategy relies on very low level of nutrients and EI on unlimited amount?

(please don’t reply that ADA Aquasoil will provide nutrients: lots of EI users use indeed enriched soils and keep on dosing unlimited amounts; the amount of light is also out of question as mentioned before, there are low and high light ADA setups, like in any other method that might be followed; failures also exist in both sides I know but let's focus on experienced aquascapers that master all the settings). My guess is that everything would be exactly the same in both tanks except the dosing system. I'm sure you already have in mind several good examples of brilliant tanks using these two different approaches in this forum.

Sorry to be a pain, I am a convinced EI user but I also want to understand other approaches… or maybe understand that such differences does not exist. 

Jordi


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## Edvet

I would guess in both situations all the feeding requirements are met. EI by providing plenty and use waterchanges to combat excess and ADA by giving just enough to cover all bases, combined with the nutriënt rich soil, low light and daily tempering/maintenance. I do know Amano had algea troubles for years too, but if you have a handfull of minions cleaning and pruning the tanks every night you can hide a lot of troubles.


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## parotet

Edvet said:


> I would guess in both situations all the feeding requirements are met. EI by providing plenty and use waterchanges to combat excess and ADA by giving just enough to cover all bases, combined with the nutriënt rich soil, low light and daily tempering/maintenance. I do know Amano had algea troubles for years too, but if you have a handfull of minions cleaning and pruning the tanks every night you can hide a lot of troubles.


According to Marcel's calculations regarding ADA fert dosing (http://www.prirodni-akvarium.cz/en/index.php?id=en_compareFert the difference would be very high... Not even 1 ppm of nitrates dosed to the water column using the most enriched fertilizer versus 40 ppm for EI (weekly doses). That would mean 39 ppm of nitrates leached by the substrate (well, numbers here make no sense, let's say the 90%). If this is what is really happening why am I dosing that much having aquasoil in my tank? Why don't we simply rely on it and keep on dosing high amounts?
Unless plants can get used to a different dosing regime from the very beginning.... Does it happen?
Regarding the minions, I also use myself this as a joke, but we all know that if a tank has a serious algae bloom, even having minions, the tank would look horrible. 

Jordi

P.S. The substrate leaching hypothesis would be ok to me if we knew that ADA ferts system tanks once they are old have to be closed or dosed following the EI system (as the substrate cannot leach more nutrients thus have to be dosed in the water column). Anyone knows if this happens? We know EI planted tanks can last ages...


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## flygja

This is something that has been bugging me too. I have never had my 300L tank not have BBA. Even when I inject 7-8bps and get a yellow drop checker and the fish are just 1 bps from suffocating. My flow is plentiful (3400 lph in a 300L tank)but distribution is probably far from perfect. Even when I run 54W x2 and plants are starting to suffer a bit, BBA still comes back week after week. 

You can say Amano has an army of minions to clean his tanks on a daily basis but that doesn't explain his customers who have beautiful tanks on a full ADA system including Aquasky (I'm looking at you Viktor).


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## Marcel G

Recently I did an analysis of ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia (New) in the lab: http://prirodni-akvarium.cz/index.php?id=analyza. From the data you can easily compute how long will that amount of nutrients suffice to our plants. The only variable in this equation is the exact amount of nutrients which will be used by plants. This no one knows, and it seems to me that no one really cares! Tom Barr suggests that 30 mg/L NO3, 3 mg/L PO4, 20 mg/L K, and 0.5 mg/L Fe should be enough for the most demanding plants. But no one did verify this information. So it´s theoretically possible that our plants need a LOT less. Maybe that´s the reason why ADA ferts or Tropica ferts are as fine for our plants as EI ferts.

Also I don´t think that the fertilizer method is the only thing that differs (but that´s another story). Also you have to account for microbes doing it´s job to mineralize organics. So quite amount of nutrients in our tanks are produced by microbes without our help. Nutrients are being produced in our tank all the time. So this adds nutrients to ADA all the time.


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## ian_m

flygja said:


> Even when I run 54W x2 and plants are starting to suffer a bit, BBA still comes back week after week.


Try reducing light intensity and/or lighting period and adding more phosphate. Worked for me.


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## parotet

ardjuna said:


> Also I don´t think that the fertilizer method is the only thing that differs (but that´s another story).


Please...


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## Arne

Well that escalated quickly 



parotet said:


> I'm sure someone has done it... Anyone out there?
> I would love to know how much light it gives. Also for ADA Mini S and M which are frequently reported in some forum for having very bright lights for such a small volume
> 
> (Sorry Arne we are hijacking your thread...)
> 
> Jordi



No worries Jordi, I'm seeing a lot of usefull data and by the looks of it people were eager to discuss this.
Pretty fruitfull thread I'd say 

Especially the ADA soil and fert analasys, thanks!
(Also my main question has been answered with a simple "no" )


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## Marcel G

parotet said:


> Comparing two equal setups, both using aquasoil, with high-medium light levels ... and all the above mentioned optimized settings (Co2 injection and diffusion, filtration, flow, tank husbandry, etc.,): why ADA strategy relies on very low level of nutrients and EI on unlimited amount? ... My guess is that everything would be exactly the same in both tanks except the dosing system.



I think that there can be actually (in reality) no difference between ADA or EI tanks. The fact that ADA adds virtually no nutrients into their tanks vs. EI adds big amount of nutrients is insignificant. Why? Because that's not what makes these tanks flourish. The key to success IMO are not nutrients but something else. It's important to realize that plants don't need that much nutrients (the level that is recommended by EI is way higher that any tank will ever use up!). I know many tanks where there are no ferts added (just fish doing their job), and the plants grow well. So when we add fertilizer using EI method, often that's just not needed. If we used ADA ferts instead, our plants probably won't know the difference ... because they have enough nutrients even without EI method. Not always, but often (at least if you have some fish in there). Also (as already said) ADA substrates contain big amounts of nutrients, so this amount + "fish amount" = enough nutrients for our plants. If you add any more ferts (whether by ADA or EI), these ferts are probably not needed. Maybe micro's only + some small amount of potassium (or if you want your plants to grow like mad, just add a little bit of PO4). So that's the reason why ADA and EI have same results using seemingly different dosing systems.

Also according to my tests, it actually doesn't matter (to algae) if you use medium lights or strong lights. Actually the strong lights (100-150 µmol PAR at the substrate) seems to be better. Why? Because strong lights force plants to make more oxygen, which will more easily saturate the water. And this in turn helps bacteria to better and more rapidly mineralize the organics (not only in the substrate, but also in the water). So efficient filtration (efficient doesn't always mean bigger!) plus efficient microbes are keys to success. If microbes have enough oxygen and some amount of nutrients also, they will reduce organics to minerals (anorganic nutrients), so the conductivity of water will rise (that means that the microbes work hard). At the same time these minerals will nourish plants ... so again, the plants won't need extra nutrients (or just very small amounts). Also as organics are reduced by microbes, the TOC (http://www.prirodni-akvarium.cz/en/index.php?id=en_algaeTOC) is very low (as low as 0.5 to 1 ppm). So artificial ferts are not as important. If you grasp how to make good environment for microbes in your tank, then you'll have no problems with algae or plants. Microbes will get your tank into excellent condition (high redox).

That's how I understand it.


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## parotet

Very interesting point of view Marcel...


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## pepedopolous

Very interesting point though I'm not gonna turn my LEDs up just yet! Maybe I need to study about redox.

P


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## flygja

ian_m said:


> Try reducing light intensity and/or lighting period and adding more phosphate. Worked for me.


I have tried this before. BBA growth kept in check, but plants suffer. Rotala leaves very small, only about 1/3rd of their normal size. Stem plants lose all their lower leaves. H.tennellum and hairgrass start turning brown. Blyxa aubertii (I think) leaves start melting too. As as result of all this, I start getting diatoms.


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## pepedopolous

flygja said:


> I have tried this before. BBA growth kept in check, but plants suffer. Rotala leaves very small, only about 1/3rd of their normal size. Stem plants lose all their lower leaves. H.tennellum and hairgrass start turning brown. Blyxa aubertii (I think) leaves start melting too. As as result of all this, I start getting diatoms.



I'm pretty sure you can correlate stem plants losing their lower leaves with not enough CO2 and/or flow. It's one of the few things I'm sure about in this hobby!

P


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## parotet

Hi all

I had some good readings last night and I think I have been able to understand this:



ardjuna said:


> I think that there can be actually (in reality) no difference between ADA or EI tanks



Although I have to admit that all this understanding is based on this statement:



ardjuna said:


> (the level that is recommended by EI is way higher that any tank will ever use up!).


And thus other methods try to be closer to plant uptakes, but also gets you to a critical area in which plant needs are not met...


So, let me comment some issues to see if my conclusions are consistent:

EI, Amano’s or whatever medium-high light tank will be successful first of all if the CO2 demand (also in terms of diffusion and distribution) is met, which is probably the most limiting factor for plant growth. Ferts therefore would have a secondary importance compared to another aspect we should better focus on:



ardjuna said:


> Microbes will get your tank into excellent condition (high redox).



If I am not wrong, high redox is correlated to dissolved O2 on the water column and substrate (by the way our tanks are plenty of hungry aerobic critters), which can be achieved by:

- surface rippling, wet/dry filter, Amano’s recommended night aireation raising outflow…
- high plant biomass (feedback in terms of O2 production + microbes surface multiplied)
- tank husbandry (good WC, filter cleaning, etc. to renew O2 levels and to keep the system working aerobic and avoid organic building up)
- reasonable fish stocking (to avoid additional BOD due to the fish themselves and their waste)

... which will have a across-cutting benefit improving the biological filtering (and again optimum breakdown of organics, available nutrients for plants, good growing and more O2!). Now the sentence "focus on plants growing instead on fighting against algae", so many times stated in this forum, comes to my mind...

It’s amazing that during the last year I’ve been obsessed with CO2 injection in my tank and now that I managed to achieve something decent regarding Co2 injection, I am becoming obsessed with oxygen!

In summary, the answer to my question about differences between Amano’s fert programme and EI would be: we just need to provide enough… That’s the tricky point. Enough is difficult to be measured in a tank and although this “enough” is very different in both approaches we really don’t mind (I would add that from the economic point of view a “superexcess” in EI dosing is a lot cheaper that the “more adjusted fert Amano regime”. So just make sure there’s enough and focus on gases!

Mates… I love this forum.
(Thanks all for your patience and for letting me discover by myself what has been repeated thousands of times here... and sorry Arne for clearly hijacking your thread).

Jordi


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## flygja

pepedopolous said:


> I'm pretty sure you can correlate stem plants losing their lower leaves with not enough CO2 and/or flow. It's one of the few things I'm sure about in this hobby!
> 
> P


I don't know. I have two tanks with the same water, soil and EI fertilisation and its happening in both tanks. The rocks used are different, so my 60L tank has a higher KH. The 60L tank has a spraybar along the back of the tank connected to an Eheim 2217. CO2 is diffused at 2 bps through an Up-Aqua style inline diffuser. Yellow dropchecker with 4 dKH solution when lights are on.

You can see the tank over here - http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/60cm-the-edge.33151/


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## Alexander Belchenko

Jordi, excellent post. I think plenty of O2 is crucial point. To quote this forum (don't remember who said that): you need plenty of both CO2 and O2 in your planted tank. 

I remember I read about ADA system of nutrients. I can find it but it's in Russian, so you need google translate.
In short: ADA relies on big amount of nutrients in the substrate (Amazonia gives nitrate, Power Sand gives phoshate and organic, special additives increase O2 in substrate and redox, I think). So water column has very little nutrients and therefore algaes have very little to eat. And plants mostly use nutrients from substrate. AFAIR first 3 months ADA system uses only/mostly potassium supplements (Brighty K). Also, it's very important to use mostly RO water. I remember Viktor Lantos said they used RO-only in ADA tanks for water change. Substrate/rocks raise KH/GH I guess.


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## parotet

Hi Alexander



Alexander Belchenko said:


> So water column has very little nutrients and therefore algaes have very little to eat


As far as I have read here algae cannot be limited by being nutrient/light starved as they need very low amounts of them to thrive... you would first kill your plants that are the heart of your tank



Alexander Belchenko said:


> Also, it's very important to use mostly RO water. I remember Viktor Lantos said they used RO-only in ADA tanks for water change.


I am sure this is not a condition for planted tanks in general, but I wonder why this is so important in Amano's method... (it looks like KH/GH doesn't affect nutrient uptake that much, at least if we rely on enough nutrients. I've read something about RO water and better Redox but the source was not very reliable IMO)

Jordi


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## Dantrasy

I have an Aqua Sky 361. When I first got it I was terrified of its sun-like power, so I had it on for only 4hrs. Bad idea. The plants suffered and glosso grew vertically. hc melted. Gradually I increased the photo time to about 7hrs and things got better. I don't think I dose EI. I just use whatever liquid fertz I can get my hands on - Seachem, Easy Life, ADA, Borneo Wild, Dino, etc. I don't really measure exact amounts, just pour a little in the cap (say 0.5ml) and drop it in. My tanks are not algae free, but it's tolerable.  

361 PAR readings are here: http://prirodni-akvarium.cz/index.php?id=mereni


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## Marcel G

Let me put my two cents in it: First of all, I don't share the common believe here that nutrients don't affect algae mass. I discussed this topic with quite a few professors on different universities (e.g. Roger Bachmann). No one of them believes that nutrients play no role in algae blooms. On the contrary they are convinced that even in lakes where there is high plant biomass, the nutrients are important for algae to develop and prevail. Also more nutrients mean more algae biomass. So if we reduce the volume of nutrients we will have smaller algae biomass (that's a fact!). So although one algae cell needs 1000x less nutrients than multicellular plant, 100g of algae biomass will consume roughly the same amount of nutrients as 100g of plant biomass. So to say that 100g algae will use up 1000x less nutrients than 100g plants is just not true (it's false assumption)! ... although many people argue for it.

Also I would say that O2 by itself may not cause redox to rise. I would not focus just on one factor. It could be that although your plant pearl like crazy, your redox is very low, IF you have big mass of organics in your tank. Aerobic microbes can use up a lot of O2 when doing their job of reducing organics to minerals. So not only you need lot of O2, but also you need good filtration to keep your organics on some reasonable level. The microbes are not almighty. So I think you can have high redox if you have: 1) _*efficient filtration*_ (and good water change regime), 2) _*big plant biomass*_ (with big root system in the substrate), 3) _*strong enough lights*_ → your plants need to grow well (otherwise they will begin die and rot, and leach organics in high levels into water), 4) _*enough nutrients*_ to supply your plants with all they need (no need to use EI, but you can EI if you want).

When you'll have high redox and your microbes will do it's job well, then you can dose virtually whatever amount of nutrients without any fear of getting algae. The algae won't like this kind of environment. I tried it myself, and my friend practices it also. We both use 100-150 µmol PAR at the substrate, and we have NO visible ALGAE (algae will always be there, but they are no problem).

You can look at my tank on YouTube. There are some algae on the glass, but I would say that this is not problem (I did not clean the glass for 3 weeks).


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## dw1305

Hi all, 





ardjuna said:


> So if we reduce the volume of nutrients we will have smaller algae biomass (that's a fact!).......... So not only you need lot of O2, but also you need good filtration to keep your organics on some reasonable level. The microbes are not almighty. So I think you can have high redox if you have: 1) efficient filtration (and good water change regime), 2) big plant biomass (with big root system in the substrate), 3) strong lights → your plants need to grow well (otherwise they will begin die and rot, and leach organics in high levels into water), 4) enough nutrients


I think that probably is a fairly good summary of my personal "belief" as well. 

Because of the difficulties in measuring REDOX/ORP and/or dissolved oxygen, I developed the concept of "_reduction of BOD_" and the "_Duckweed Index_", as simple techniques to produce stable, resilient, low nutrient systems, which maintain high quality water using slow plant growth. 

Have a look at these older posts: <"Alfagrog for reducing nitrate">, <"Algae Outbreak"> & <"Duckweed Index"> & <"Wood for Tanks"> (at PC).

cheers Darrel


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## REDSTEVEO

Hi Guys,

Sorry to jump in on this thread, very interesting read by the way, I have a question. It is mentioned here that O2 has just an important part to play as Co2 in combating algae. If that is the case why aren't we injecting O2 in the same way that we inject Co2? Or are we? Is that possible? Can I buy an oxygen cylinder, connect it up to a regulator, put a diffuser inline or in the tank and away we go with O2 and Co2 at the same time.

Since I installed an internal UV filter which supposedly pumps 500 litres an hour round the tank, and turned on the oxygenating feature I have noticed a difference in the water, it appears to be cleaner, sort of crisper look to it, less crap floating round and the fish all seem to be breathing easier. I am sure this is the effect of the O2 and not the UV though. Oh and the KH has gone up from zero to KH 4 which surprised me.

You are also discussing flow and filtration, I have two filters, one supposedly pushing 650 litres an hour and the other 450 litres an hour, plus the internal of 500 litres an hour, so thats a combined flow of 1,600 litres per hour going round the tank. Just how much flow do we need, there is probably only about 350 litres of water in the tank. I can see how much flow I have and where it is going from watching the oxygen bubbles getting pushed around the tank.

From reading everything about combating algae I am beginning to get obsessed with flow rates. People use internal Powerheads to increase circulation / flow around the tank. I have got a Koralia Powerhead arriving tomorrow which according to the spec will push another 900 litres per hour round the tank. I have no idea which is the best position to install it because if the numbers add up I should have enough flow around the tank already.

Should the Koralia powerhead be placed low down in a corner, high up at the back, somewhere wher it crosses the path of the Co2 or O2?

Slightly confused, any advice appreciated.

Cheers,

Steve.


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## OllieNZ

O2 is much more difficult to dissolve in water than co2 (tom barr has used it in the past) also compressed or liquid O2 is incredibly dangerous and requires specialist training before use.


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## flygja

I've also been wondering about adding O2. But no way am I having a potential fire hazard in the form on an O2 tank! I was just thinking bog standard air pump connected to a cheap CO2 reactor. Diffuser won't work because the air pump won't have enough pressure. What do you guys think?


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## REDSTEVEO

Yeah you are probably right about the fire hazard with pressurised O2. Still at least if there was a fire you could use your DIY FE filled with Co2 to put it out

I am not even sure an air pump would have the oomph to push O2 through an acryllic diffuser, especially when they get a bit clogged, my old glass diffuser blew the Co2 pipe off the regulator when it got blocked, which is not a sound you want to hear at 11 o clock at night.

So where am I supposed to install this Koralia Powerhead then?

Steve


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## Mr. Teapot

flygja said:


> air pump connected to a cheap CO2 reactor


Sounds like an oxygen reactor the salty side use. I think Martin in China was using something similar during the night.

Agree with everyone else about avoiding anything to do with pressurised oxygen. Recipe for a tragedy.


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## parotet

IMO in densely planted tanks you don't have to be really worried for oxygen as the production of O2 should easily exceed the O2 demand. I think Darrel's approach regarding BOD balance of what you have in your tank helps quite a lot. Do you have plenty of plants? Then you have a good O2 production. Do you enhance O2 dissolution (for example by rippling the surface)? Then you are in a better situation. Do you overstock your tank? Then it increases the oxygen biological demand. Do you maintain your tanks? If you don't do it you will increase de oxygen demand. Do you have good microbes populations and you filter is working aerobically? Then your microbes will be working efficiently and getting rid of organics at a good rate...
I move my spraybar upwards when I'm home to break the surface and improve co2 degassing and aeration. Other folks raise their lily pipes. Others use a air stone at night (it seems the aeration in that case is not due to bubbling but to water surface disturbance). In my low tech tank I also try to ripple the surface and of course I try in all my tanks to renew large volumes of water weekly (2 40% WC weekly). I guess all this, along with some of the mentioned issues, is more than enough for having high oxygen levels in a planted tank. No need to add more complexity.

Jordi


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## Marcel G

Exactly as Jordi says. If you have densely planted tank, you probably have a good amount of oxygen in there. And if you reach 100% O2 saturation level, your plants will begin to pearl. So according to this you can have some idea of how much oxygen you have in your tank. For the most sensitive fish the level of O2 should not drop below 50-60% of O2 saturation level. Good O2 levels should serve quite well for aerobic bacteria also to break down organics in a better and fast way. If you use Twinstar then you "pump" O2 into your tank. Using compressed O2 set is quite expensive (much more then compressed CO2 set). Also I think that (molecular) O2 don't affect algae directly, but rather indirectly by boosting aerobic bacteria which work harder to decompose organics. And as to the flow, I would say that most planted tanks use 5-10x circulation per hour (no need to use any stronger ... you don't want to stress your plants and fish by centrifuge).


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## REDSTEVEO

Hi parotet, ardjuna,

Thanks for the information in the two posts above. I couldn't agree more with any of your comments about flow, water movement. surface agitation etc and pearling, photosynthesis in heavily planted tanks providing oxygen. My problem is that despite all that I still got the diatom alage, and even with the drop checkers on lime green almost yellow from cranking up the Co2, the plants would not pearl, probably because of the diatoms, hence not enough oxygen.

Bit of a catch 22 really.

Any way things are looking better slowly, just a shame I had to pull out all the Eleocharis Still I was warned about having fine carpeting plants in a discus tank so I have only myself to blame.

So where to install the Koralia powerhead then

Cheers,

Steve.


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## X3NiTH

It might be worth getting a small Cherry shrimp tank on the go to breed an army for helping to keep the plants free of debris in your main planted tank. Having the separate tank means you can add reinforcements to account for attrition by fish.


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## parotet

REDSTEVEO said:


> Hi parotet, ardjuna,
> 
> Thanks for the information in the two posts above. I couldn't agree more with any of your comments about flow, water movement. surface agitation etc and pearling, photosynthesis in heavily planted tanks providing oxygen. My problem is that despite all that I still got the diatom alage, and even with the drop checkers on lime green almost yellow from cranking up the Co2, the plants would not pearl, probably because of the diatoms.



Hi steve

Diatom algae IMO have nothing to do with co2. There is a recent thread in which plenty of potential causes are discussed but IME, at least in a mature low tech tank I own, it was related with the issues above mentioned: too much organics in the tanks due to a poor design internal filter always clogged with plant residues, too much biological demand, microbe population not able to deal with this... In my case a change of filter solved the problem. Blackout and light reduction (it was a low light tank) did not work. Massive and very frequent WC worked (due to adding massive amounts of new water, less debris and high oxygen) helped to reduce brown diatom population.

Another thing. Don't focus on pearling. If you want to see pearling... Well it is not that difficult, just increase your co2 and bomb your plants with massive amounts of light... But what for? Your plants will be covered of algae. I've had many times pearling and BBA algae at the same time, so pearling don't mean a thing. Now I keep medium light levels and my plants only pearl when there is a lot of biomass in the tank. I'm happy if my plants grow and they grow algae free, if plants pearl or not, well it's more beautiful if they do  

Jordi


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## Marcel G

Hi Jordi,

first of all I know that medium light means usually less problems with algae. But on the other hand, if you have stronger light, then your plants grow more quickly, which means that they produce more oxygen, and thus you are usually more lucky to see them pearling, as they more quickly saturate the water with oxygen. Thus it´s not always bad to use stronger light. If you do it you can still have an algae-free tank, but of course you are in greater risk with algae problems ... so you need big amount of plants, good filtration, good flow, few organics (which can mean few fish) ... good everything. More oxygen can help with organics break down also in your tank. So stronger light could mean more O2 in your tank, which can help in many things. So sometimes, using strong light can be useful and desirable to cure some problems. I myself am using quite strong light (around 100-120 umol PAR at the substrate).

Marcel


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## parotet

Unfortunately my "estimated +80 umol PAR + high ferts + high CO2 dosing" experiences have never been completely algae free (not a disaster, but slight problems on bottom and old leaves and difficult areas in the tank). I have only been successful with the following approaches:

- "estimated 40 umol PAR + non regular dosing + non CO2"... this is a classic low tech tank

and it looks I'm doing well with... (yes, this is also sacrilege ):

- "estimated 70-80 umol PAR + high CO2 + unlimited ferts except for phosphates that are being dosed around 1,5 ppm/day instead of the 3-5 ppm dosed until now"

Guys, I know it's not the PO4 to be blamed... but something tells me that I was unable to reach the very demanding CO2 levels I had with super high PO4 dosing and super growth rate

Jordi


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## REDSTEVEO

Spoke to someone today who suggested I buy a 'Silicates' testing kit, ditch my HMA Filter and buy an RO Unit instead.

The Silicates theme has been explored already on this forum and apparently completely debunked so I don't think there is much point in discussing it further, although I might explore the RO suggestion.

You guys sound like you know a lot about lighting and PAR readings, and umol whatever that is, I don't I am afraid so I am oblivious to what you are talking about, don't even know how to measure PAR. I do know PAR has also been explored and some on this forum would argue that we should take no notice of PAR readings, not mentioning any names

I have got two light units above my tank, each one with 2 x 54 Watt T5 tubes, 2 x Guisemann AquaFlora and 2 x Eheim PlantGro tubes inside the hood, both are supposed to be the best for plant growth. So far the plants have not been doing brilliantly but the diatomous algae is doing just fine.

I have just experimented with the reflectors and turned all four of them almost completely facing upwards away from the water. The effect is that the lighting looks less harsh, subdued, almost atmospheric in fact. God knows what this doing to the PAR ratings if I knew what they were, but some of the discus that never come out when all the lights are on, or even just one set of them, are now out and swimming around. Normally I only see one or two of them when the lights are on, and have to sit there with no tank lights on just watching them by the light in the dining room, which is not what its supposed to be about.

Today I also looked at the Eheim Plant LED lights which can be retro fitted using an adapter that fits into the T5 Tube sockets, they look good but very expensive. Nobody I spoke to knows much about them and would not comment, so I don't think I will bother.

Cheers,

Steve.


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## parotet

Hi Steve

PAR is the best indicator of the light you have in your tank because it is the light that plants can use for photosynthesis. As a PARmeter is not a device the majority of us own, we use other indicators to understand how intense our light is and which nutrient demand we expect. That is why most of the hobbyists use watts per gallon, watts per liter, lumens, etc. but these measures are not always reliable. Notice that "watt" is just the consumption of a lamp, nothing to do with the photons activating photosynthesis. A watt per gallon rule is useless for LED lights but works sometimes as a good rule of thumb for other lights.
In Ardjuna's website you can see a very good comparison of PAR readings so you can make yourself an idea of what you have:

http://www.prirodni-akvarium.cz/index.php?id=mereni

(use google translator, the English version is not so complete)

Jordi


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## REDSTEVEO

Cheers Jordi,

When you measure PAR at different levels or heights in the tank, I presume you do not do this in the water I may be able to borrow a PAR meter from my brother in law. If I have got 216 watts of light when both sets of lights are on 400 divided by 216 = 1.84 watts per litre, or 4.59 WPG, does that sound excessive?

Cheers,

Steve.


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## ian_m

REDSTEVEO said:


> When you measure PAR at different levels or heights in the tank, I presume you do not do this in the water I may be able to borrow a PAR meter from my brother in law. If I have got 216 watts of light when both sets of lights are on 400 divided by 216 = 1.84 watts per litre, or 4.59 WPG, does that sound excessive?


No you use a waterproof sensor head in the tank. WPG was based on US gallons, so your 400l is 90US Gal -> 216/90 -> 2.4W/gal which is not low light.


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## Marcel G

I use _*Apogee MQ-200 *_PAR meter for measuring PAR which sells for about $350 in the US. There is much cheaper alternative in the form of the _*Seneye Reef *_(see my article here) which sells for about €150 in the UK. Both are designed for underwater measuments.


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