# Woah green algae!



## Morgan Freeman (5 May 2011)

Came home today to find an absolute tonne of the stuff in the bottom of the tank. It's halfway through cycling, could this be the cause? It's completely swamped the tank.

6 gallon. Two Arcadia 11W clip on lights. co2 via nano pressurised. Eco complete and 50% planted. Dosing 2.5% Profito a day until my dry ferts are delivered.

Not sure what to do, keep cycling and deal with it once it's done or make water changes to get rid.


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## mdhardy01 (5 May 2011)

What type of algae?
Have a look on James planted tank website to id and find out cause
Matt


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## Morgan Freeman (5 May 2011)

Green water and  bit of GDA.


If the cause is ammonia my cycling would explain it, which is why I'm unsure what to do.


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## mdhardy01 (5 May 2011)

Personally I would drop one of the lights for the moment
Do 50% water change daily for a week then twice a week for a couple of weeks to give the filter time to mature
I think green water is caused by ammonia but with alot of light it's just bloomed by cutting the light and water canges you'll reduce the algae and ammonia at the same time 
You need to keep lighting low in the first couple of weeks to help stop algae blooms and perform large regular water changes once the tank has cycled you can decrees water changes and slowly increase light to allow the plants time to adjust 
Start with a 5-6!hour photo period 
Hope that helps 
Matt


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## Morgan Freeman (5 May 2011)

Works for me. Thanks for you help.


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## Morgan Freeman (6 May 2011)

2 changes in and a massive difference already. Here's hoping.

Unfortunately I smashed my diffuser so I'm out of co2 for a while. Bah! It never ends


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## CeeJay (6 May 2011)

Hi all


			
				Morgan Freeman said:
			
		

> Unfortunately I smashed my diffuser so I'm out of co2 for a while.


Then don't forget to leave the lights off, or you'll have more headaches than you already have


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## Morgan Freeman (7 May 2011)

Aye. Gone down to 5 hours a day.


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## Johno2090 (12 May 2011)

Morgan Freeman said:
			
		

> Aye. Gone down to 5 hours a day.



I do believe he means Off completely or your in for some major issues!


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## Morgan Freeman (12 May 2011)

Oh, well it would be over a week and my plants would surely suffer?

5 days and completely algae free though.....*fingers crossed*

My diffusor left Hong Kong on the 7th, so here's hoping I'm not co2 less for much longer. I've been dosing EasyCarbo for now.


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## CeeJay (12 May 2011)

Hiall


			
				Johno2090 said:
			
		

> I do believe he means Off completely or your in for some major issues!


I did.


			
				Morgan Freeman said:
			
		

> Oh, well it would be over a week and my plants would surely suffer?


My lights have just been off for 6 days due to me awaiting spares from Aquamedic, for my reactor. Plants got by on ambient light. No ill effects whatsoever. I also had no algae when I turned them back on   
One of the golden rules I've learnt round here and now had experience of, is........... "No CO2 = Lights out".


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## Morgan Freeman (18 May 2011)

Ah ok. Will keep that in mind for the future.

FE co2 is now up and running... .Woohoo! Algae issue seem to be largely under control, towards the last few days before the return of my co2 they started to creep back again but I'll get back to the water changes and hopefully I'll be 100% algae free soon.

Started to get that white surface scum I've seen mentioned on here but cleared up within an hour of putting the co2 back on.


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## Johno2090 (18 May 2011)

Good news mate  Keep on top of it.

I get that film all the time, drives me mad but nothing i try changes it.


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## Morgan Freeman (18 May 2011)

It's horrible stuff, especially if you have an open top tank.


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## Morgan Freeman (22 May 2011)

And the white scum is back!


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## bigmatt (22 May 2011)

ah - that's more info! If you're dosing liquid carbon i'd go back to a 5hr photoperiod to stop the lc building up to dangerous levels. Anyone else have thoughts on this? If your diffuser still not here? I'd think about opening a case with ebay - you can always close it again if it arrives but if you leave it too long you can't start one. Matt


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## Morgan Freeman (22 May 2011)

The diffusor is up and running fine. Plants seem to be finally growing but along with this the surface scum has returned. Flow and distribution are good, all plants are gently swaying. Had a read of all the surface scum threads but can't work out what my issue is.

Maybe I'm not dosing enough and the plants are suffering? I'm using the planted tanks uk fert mix. 5ml day which is their recommendation for 40l tanks. Mine is 23l.


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## Morgan Freeman (22 May 2011)

Ok I think I've worked it out. According to Ceg in the other surface scum threads increased co2 results in increased nutrient demand, otherwise the plants suffer and spit out loads of crap (paraphrased). My co2 is at 2bps which I think is high for a 23l tank and thus my plants aren't getting enough nutrients = surface scum.

Sound right or am I way off? I'm pretty sure it's not a flow/distribution issue.


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## ceg4048 (22 May 2011)

Hi Morgan,
                 Yes, it's normally attributable to some combination of excessive lighting, poor flow/distribution, poor CO2 injection rate and poor nutrition. Please remember though that just because you are injecting at a high rate, it does not automatically mean that it is being diffused efficiently. Attention must also be paid to the timing of the CO2. Is the dropchecker green at lights on? Check your CO2 dissolution by measuring the pH of the tank water at an arbitrary interval throughout the photoperiod, say once an hour. This gives you an idea of the concentration levels as a function of time.

I do not know your nutrient mix so can't comment on whether they are sufficient or not. I can only interpret known milligrams of powder to known liters of water.

I also do not know your lighting so cannot determine if this is a significant factor.

If you are certain enough for all other things such as distribution, dissolution, flow, and lighting, then the only other factor left is nutrient load.

Cheers,


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## Morgan Freeman (22 May 2011)

I have two 11 watt Arcadia arc pods.

The drop checker is green at lights on yes, I have co2 running 24/7 aswell.

Ferts http://www.plantedtanks.co.uk/tff-ferti ... 1675-p.asp which annoyingly doesn't give the amount of each ingredient. Bah.

I'll be switching to individual dry salts soon.

I'm pretty sure it's not flow or distribution.


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## Morgan Freeman (22 May 2011)

Oh and thanks for the help.


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## ceg4048 (23 May 2011)

Yeah, 22 watts of T5 is a LOT of light for a 5 gallon tank at startup. I would shut down one light for now until you get better plant health. It might easily be that your injection rate is insufficient. I'm afraid I cannot say with certainty regarding the dosage. It appears to be a variant  of JamesC's all-in-one, but no quantities are visible on that page.

Cheers.


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## Morgan Freeman (27 May 2011)

Small update. co2 rate kept the same but light levels halved. Dosing increased. Had a play around with the flow a bit aswell.

Plants are growing, apart from the crypts but well, they're crypts so not too concerned. Rotala Rotifunda is growing like mad and has reached the surface again, leaves are also looking ever so slightly healthier, but still too early to be confident I have things correct. I haven't had any plant die off nor any more algae problems.

Fingers crossed I'm at least on the right path.


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## ceg4048 (28 May 2011)

Yes grasshopper, I can assure you that this is the right path. As you can see, halving the light did nothing to stifle your Rotala growth. This should be proof positive that you do not need megawatts of light. Whenever the photonic energy input to the tank exceeds the ability of the plants to assimilate that energy, then problems arise immediately. The damage caused by the photon bombardment of light is called photoinhibition.

Photoinhibition occurs all the time, regardless of light intensity, because it is a function of the number of photon hits the chloroplast absorbs. The photosynthetic reaction centres of the chloroplasts have the capability to repair the damage, but when the light intensity is too high, then essentially, the rate of damage to the photosystems exceeds the rate of repair. This leads inevitably to a reduction in food production via an inability to use the CO2 that you are injecting because of this damage rate.

When you tank is immature it means that the plants have not yet developed a strategy for dealing with the billions of photon collisions. The photosystems therefore get damaged easily and the plant loses weight rapidly.

People are never taught to think about this stuff. Instead they are taught to think only in terms of maximal photon torpedo bombardment as if they were some kind of arms dealer in a war between The Klingons and The Romulans.

Give your plants a break by keeping the lighting low. This will reduce the photosystem damage, will allow the damaged chloroplast proteins to recycle/repair and will lower the super-oxide and free radical damage that occurs when the photosystem food production line falls off the rails. Within a few months the system will have enough muscles to cope with increased lighting.

Cheers,


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## Morgan Freeman (28 May 2011)

Awesome explanation. Thankyou!

I think my problem was I wasn't aware just how much light I was blasting my tank with!


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## bigmatt (28 May 2011)

*Re: Woah green algae*

I made exactly the same mistake.  The best analogy i can think of is a car accelerator - you don't want to put your foot to the floor unless the whole system is balanced, as you tend to end up with a greasy unpleasant mess!  
M


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## Morgan Freeman (28 May 2011)

Live and learn!

I'd rather make mistakes and learn from them than just striking lucky with my first tank without knowing what why. Made my first trim of the Rotala tonight and cut and replanted some "I forget the name". I would take pics but 1) tank isn't up to scratch yet 2) I'm still learning with the new camera.


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## CeeJay (31 May 2011)

Hi all


			
				Morgan Freeman said:
			
		

> Live and learn!
> 
> I'd rather make mistakes and learn from them than just striking lucky with my first tank without knowing what why.


Absolutely the right philosophy IMHO


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