# Help with my algae prob



## The Abbott (4 Oct 2010)

Hi all, I have a algae problem which seems to have appeared after I started using co2 and RO water..... can you tell me what it is and how to iradicate please..... Oh yeh I should add - 240l juwel with standard internal filter and fluval 305 plus a koralia powerhead, pressurised co2 and a weekly dose of provito


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## ceg4048 (5 Oct 2010)

Hi,
    This looks like some kind of filamentous algae but it appears white instead of green so I can't tell if that is just the photography or whether it really is white. It also looks as if there is some BBA there as well.

You'll have to chop all the infected leaves off, that's for sure.

It's also not really clear how you are applying the CO2 or what your distribution methods are, or what your lighting is. Also unclear is what dosing technique you are using. I mean, Profito what?? Profito makes several types of nutrient products. If your lighting is too high and/or distribution method weak a once a week dosing of of low concentration fertilizer won't cut the mustard.

Also, did you go through all the trouble of using RO water just for guppies? It's not really worth it to be honest.

Apologies for having more questions than answers at this point but we need to determine whether the algae is related to poor nutrients or poor CO2 or both.

Cheers,


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## The Abbott (5 Oct 2010)

Apologies for the poor info in my first post...... so here we go....... I have 2 54w T5's with reflectors on for around 7 hours, I am using a FE C02 system with diffusor coming on 1.5hours before lights on and off 1.5 before lights out. I'm using Easylife Profito - 25ml once a week straight after the 75 litre water change I do. Using RO because my tap water is rubbish tbh....  hope this is a bit more useful to you, cheers.


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## Anonymous (5 Oct 2010)

Can you share with us the GH/KH values for your tap and aquarium water?


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## The Abbott (5 Oct 2010)

my tap water is way too high at around 8, tank water is now 3


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## ceg4048 (5 Oct 2010)

The Abbott said:
			
		

> my tap water is way too high at around 8, tank water is now 3


I think you've been misinformed. From the perspective of plants, the only thing that makes water rubbish is if it's dirty or if it contains herbicides. As a matter of fact, plants consider RO water to be rubbish.

What should be very clear to you is that all that energy of producing RO water has not really prevented the plants from suffering terrible problems. The fact of the matter is that there are factors of plant growth that are thousands of times more important that what GH you have. Factor number 1 is CO2 application. Factor number 2 is nutrition.

When you add CO2 then the plants increase their hunger for nutrients by a factor of 5 to 10. The most important nutrients are Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium (NPK). Profito has very little of these and is basically a trace mix of which the plants consume very little of in comparison to NPK. So right away I can tell that you are headed for a major train wreck unless you start to pay attention to these important details. Ironically, it's possible that your tap water has at least some levels of NPK and that you'd have been in better shape to avoid disaster had you used it. RO water has zero NPK.

It is entirely possible that you have a poor distribution methods and this is a technical difficulty in which, in order to solve, we need to see how your filter output pipes are arranged. Also, are you using a dropchecker filled with 4dkh water to give you an indication of the CO2 levels?

You can dose or 2X overdose Excel/Easycarbo to kill the BBA but this will also increase the plants demand for NPK and if that demand is not met you will incur other algal forms, so you need to use CO2 and nutrients together wisely.

Tap water is rubbish? Folks need to wake up and get real. Here are some plants at a tap GH of over 25. They have no trouble growing under these "rubbish" conditions. Fix your real problems and stop worrying about KH/GH.





Cheers,


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## Anonymous (5 Oct 2010)

I've seen that picture many times @The Abbott and the reasons were in the matter of occurrence:

1. Ammonia spikes or high nitrite levels. Have you checked the values? Any fish death/issues lately?
2. Dosing too much trace.
3. Very high CO2 fluctuations.

Low NPK levels most of the time.

Ceg Easy Life Profito is only trace (no N P added) and as far as I remembrer 10ml/100l rises the iron level to 1ppm.

Do a PH test in the morning and in the evening, do an ammonia/nitrite test.
How do you clean your filter? How often?

Follow ceg's advice on fertilization.


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## ceg4048 (6 Oct 2010)

Mike, too much traces can not cause algae. In any case, probably a few hours after it raise the iron level to whatever value, the iron levels then drops due to precipitation. If anything, once a week trace dosing in a high light tank is under-dosing traces as well, especially considering that this is RO water, so there's no margin for error at all.

Cheers,


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## Anonymous (6 Oct 2010)

Thanks for clarifying that Ceg. I haven't had issues with trace dosing but some of my friends did dose too much some times and I assumed that this could trigger nasty things.

Anyway I do have a question because this is a "plant health" related topic and I don't want to open another topic (I will if it's necessary):

I have very hard water in my tank but when I've dosed Easy Life products, Profito/Ferro/Nitro I've noticed calcium (I think) deficiency - distorted, twisted growth on ludwigia (arcuata & brevipes) nessae pedincelata and some others stopped growing.

Can to much K trigger this?

I had N - 60ppm (that means around 40 ppm K from Nitro alone, not counting from the other fertilizers).

Now I've stopped dosing nutrients (I dose only JBL Ferropol daily drops) and things are getting back to normal.

Thanks in advance,
Mike


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## ceg4048 (6 Oct 2010)

Hi Mike,
           No these are not calcium deficient or excessive K issues. Leaf distortion is another CO2 issue. The more CO2 we add the more nutrients we need and the more nutrients we add the more CO2 we need. An easy way to look at it is that all the cell structures are made up of a Carbon skeleton to which the elements of the nutrients are attached, kind of like a Christmas tree fettered with ornaments. Nitrogen assimilation is extremely difficult without availability of carbohydrates. If the tank is CO2 limited then carbohydrate production is stifled.

The interactions between the elements are really complicated. For example, simply adding more PO4 alone has the effect of increasing the Nitrogen uptake. So it's conceivable that you are low on NO3 and if you continue increase PO4, you can actually incur an N shortfall. It would then be easy to draw a conclusion that adding PO4 causes some problem, but the problem wasn't in the adding of PO4. The addition of large quantities of PO4 exposes the fact that you were marginal on Nitrogen.

I suggest that you resume your experiment of increasing your Easy Life products and to increase the CO2 injection rate (or Liquid carbon) at the same time and see if there's a difference this time.

This interdependence happens a lot and is the cause of many of the myths surrounding plant growth and nutrients. This is exactly what the OP is experiencing. He adds CO2 and incurs CO2 and possibly nutrient related algae. So to the uninitiated it might be a no-brainer to conclude that CO2 is the cause of the problems but this is an incomplete analysis. The old adage applies here:"If you're going to do something then do it right." Adding CO2 without adding proper levels of NPK will cause problems. Similarly, as in your Profito experiment, adding more NPK without then increasing the CO2 can cause problems. Now, of course this doesn't happen instantly and there is really a large range of combinations that we can apply without ever seeing problems. It's only when we operate at the edge of the envelop that some action then takes us over the top.

When your friend dosed a lot of traces it's important to know what else he/she did, or what the initial conditions were. It's also entirely possible that their symptoms were entirely coincidental. You can do something to the tank today then observe some phenomenon tomorrow and all too easily connect the two, while the phenomenon might have been caused by something that you did a week ago. It's not clear exactly what problems they had but if you tell me the algae type was incurred I can have a pretty good idea what the real problem was. Beyond a shadow of a doubt it was not due to too much trace but not enough of something else.

Untangling cause and effect is a very difficult task without proper information and without the discipline of adhering to the known correlations. When you see BBA you must have the discipline to search for a misapplication of CO2, because we know absolutely that poor CO2 = BBA. The "how" and "why" we got to poor CO2 may sometimes be surprising, but we must start from that foundation.

Cheers,


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## Anonymous (6 Oct 2010)

I know that plants decaying triggers all nasty algae and this issue can became a real pain if there's not enough flow in the tank. After I had issues with plants decaying, I've trimmed all of them and replanted the healthy tops and cleaned the substrate of fallen leaves. I've found that not cleaning the filter's tubing for a long time decreased the flow and that was, IMHO the biggest issue so I've cleaned them and now I have good flow all over the tank. Having some pearling here and there gives me the idea that things are getting back to normal.

I don't know CO2 level in my aquarium, I don't have a drop checker sold them all a long long time ago . 
I'm injecting 2 bps 24h and when I'll have money for a valve I'll rise it to .. let's say to 3-5 bps.

So the twisted growth is related to CO2 level in a high tech plant.. could be if I think better what I did:
Lots of light + high nutrients level (N - 40-60ppm, P > 2ppm, Fe > 0.5), low injection rate -> poor CO2 levels due to fast growth -> plants decay, right or wrong? 

Cheers,


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## ceg4048 (6 Oct 2010)

Yeah, more or less this is the case. The problem with CO2 is that depending on the severity of the deficiency and depending on other environmental conditions (and even depending on the plants response mechanisms) it can be expressed in the plant in so many different ways. Sudden, acute shortages can bring the onset of hair or staghorn. Fluctuating levels trigger BBA. Chronic severe shortages can cause melting. In some plants chronic, medium severity shortages causes hole to appear or browning on edges, while the same shortage condition, say on a fern, causes translucent tips and black spots. I normally only see the distortion effect with minor shortages under very high light, and I only see it in certain plants like Ludwigia, Nesaea and Ammania, but that doesn't mean three aren't other combinations. Plants use both Carbon and Calcium to build structure, but most focus on the Calcium when they see the distortion and forget that under fast growth conditions Carbon shortages will affect the ability to develop clean perfect leaf shapes.

Cheers,


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## The Abbott (7 Oct 2010)

going back to my algae problem ceg  , are you basically saying that I need to have a good look at what ferts I am dosing ? if so what can/should I be using? what is this EI method?   My C02 drop checker is always a light green colour so I'm assuming that I don't have an issue with fluctuation.... 
I'm finding running a planted tank quite a frustration, changing one or two things can create a whole lot of new problems - one step forward and 2 back lol

cheers


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## ceg4048 (7 Oct 2010)

The Abbott said:
			
		

> going back to my algae problem ceg


Oops, sorry, yes of course. That was clonitza's fault. He's so distracting.  



			
				The Abbott said:
			
		

> are you basically saying that I need to have a good look at what ferts I am dosing ? if so what can/should I be using?


What I'm saying is that you have to look at everything that you do because everything that you do has an effect. I'm saying to never assume that anything is OK unless the the plants themselves confirm your assumption. For example: 
1.  You assume that just because you have tap water GH of 8 then that automatically makes your tap water rubbish. I'm basically saying that this is a false assumption and that if you use tap water, your problems might easily be less severe because tap water typically has some nutrients in it, which is good for plants, whereas RO water has nothing, which is bad for plants. You should only use RO if you have special reasons. Those special reasons include having sensitive fish/inverts - none of which you have from looking at the photo you provided.

2. You assume that just because your dropchecker is green then that means your CO2 is OK. I'm basically saying that the dropchecker is just another test kit and that the dropchecker is not the boss of you. It is only a guide. A very primitive guide. It takes about 2 hours for a dropchecker to react to a change in the CO2 content. A lot can happen in two hours that will never be revealed in the little vial. I can just make out in the photo that you have BBA on some of the fern leaves. This automatically means that you are suffering some fluctuations in CO2 level. The white filamentous algae that seems to dominate the photo is also related to poor CO2 as well as poor nutrition. A green dropchecker means absolutely nothing if the lighting is too high or if your flow/distribution is inadequate. By the way, are you using 4dkh water inside the checker, or are you using tank water or RO water?



			
				The Abbott said:
			
		

> what is this EI method?


 Abbott, I can't believe you've been reading this website and have no idea about EI. Some people here are so disgusted with hearing about Estimative Index so often  that they get dry heaves upon just hearing the letters. Have you been locked away communing at Canterbury Cathedral or something? Check this link for JamesC's webpage==> JamesC EI Page
The long interpretation can be found in the Tutorials section of the forum==> EI DOSING USING DRY SALTS



			
				The Abbott said:
			
		

> ...I'm finding running a planted tank quite a frustration, changing one or two things can create a whole lot of new problems - one step forward and 2 back lol


Well, this happens when we don't have access to proper information and when we believe in myths. Here's how to recover:
1. Immediately reduce your lighting intensity by about 50% if possible and reduce the photoperiod to no more than 8-9 hours.
2. Remove all the infected leaves and scrub any infected hardscape.
3. Do 50% water changes 2X or 3X per week for the next few weeks.
4. Stop using RO water until you have a better understanding of it's advantages/disadvantages.
5. If you can afford it, buy some Excel or EasyCarbo or Aquaessentials liquid carbon and dose per bottle instructions.
6. Study the articles in the links provided above and obtain the dry powders. Use of these powders is not mandatory. Any NPK product can be used if you feel more comfortable with the commercial products but you need to use something and you need to use it more frequently than once a week.

Cheers,


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## The Abbott (8 Oct 2010)

so running a planted tank with my head buried in the sand is not gonna work then???  

1. Yes I am using 4dkh in the DC
2. Are you saying dose easycarbo along side my co2? 
3. Can you come over and sort my tank please...  

CEG you are a fountain of knowledge, many thanks for this so far  

Off now to read up on this EI...........


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## ceg4048 (9 Oct 2010)

The Abbott said:
			
		

> so running a planted tank with my head buried in the sand is not gonna work then???


Exactly mate. Farmers must interact with their crops, otherwise yields will suffer.  



			
				The Abbott said:
			
		

> Are you saying dose easycarbo along side my co2?


Yep, CO2 gas and liquid carbon products are not mutually exclusive. They help each other and using the liquid allows greater total CO2 availability without increasing the gas concentration in the water column. This is a benefit to fish. Treat the EasyCarbo with respect though as it is a toxic substance.



			
				The Abbott said:
			
		

> Can you come over and sort my tank please...


Sure, you pay the airfare (and feed me)   



			
				The Abbott said:
			
		

> many thanks for this so far
> 
> Off now to read up on this EI...........


No worries mate. There is a lot of data to swallow, I realize that. Take deep breaths and read it as many times as necessary. If you just want to cut to the chase then James' article offers a better "quick start guide".

Cheers,


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