# Persistent Diatoms in Mature Tanks & GDA



## JohnC (29 Feb 2020)

Hi Folks,

It's taken me a while to come query this online as i've been trying to get to the bottom of it myself for the last year.

This post is to tap into anyone's experience of similar or opinions on base causes.

As you may notice from my sig and possibly remember me i'm somewhat of an old hand at scaping (i think this would be my 15 year). I also have run a tank maintenance business and went "DEEP" into scaping over the last decade.

This has extended to moving north and building a scaping room in the garden to house all my scapes. With the whole thing fed from spring water from the hill. Which basically has no hardness and nothing in it. Effectively RO.

Alas stuff has never really gone that well in my home tanks. Client tanks are fine.

Various issues i've chased around in my tank room are running the whole room too hot (too much insulation) without heaters on any of the tanks. Fixed now. But 28 degrees to 30 was taking the mickey. 

I've also accidentally overdone the Mg element of my fert regime while still adding in GH booster which added it anyway. I basically took my eye off the ball while being busy. Which meant I was dosing sky high amounts of GH/Mg. But at the same time had overlooked the KH which was bottoming out in some tanks.

All of which are issues i've corrected now as I'm remineralising out to approx 5dGH 3dKH.

In this time i've seen declining growth on many/all of the tanks (all running some variant of EI, declining amounts of ferts in lower energy set ups). As well as a outbreak of GDA that gradually infested ALL the tanks (all fert & all light regimes).

Coupled to this i've had an issue with constant, persistent diatoms appearing on older leaves of many plants. Causing poor growth. Despite having the relevant clear up crews in.

Current thinking is that my GDA was an outbreak first triggered in the warmest of the summer months (hot tank syndrome) as this relates to when i've had it before on client tanks and ties up with Denis Wong other peoples experience nicely. It happened first in my high energy setups but has gradually seeding around the room as i've done my weekly water changes.

Now the base heat is reduced in the room i'm addressing it in all the tanks left at the same time. Currently the first one is showing no signs of it reoccurring.

The Diatoms are another issue. Still present in most tanks on older growth. Prehaps a touch better on tanks where i've added extra Oxygen at night (that's a recent thing). I do have a lot of older aquasoil in a few of these tanks and have been taking a lot of time "deep cleaning it" of late. So was potentially thinking that was a link. 

I am aware of the disconnect between silicates -> diatoms outbreaks. But i did also test my tap water for silicate levels previously. Pretty low for freshwater tbh.

Which leaves me pondering mini cycles causing diatoms to reoccur due to my KH bottoming out. But it still doesn't feel like an adequate answer. 

Thoughts on anyone else's experiences with persistent diatoms pls? 

-----------

I've actually become pretty worn out by the experience to be honest. But it might also be me coming to the end of the road of my time with high energy planted tanks as well. Life has taken me onto other projects of late so my time is becoming ever more precious. 

I'm also a little bit jaded by the type of scapes i've done in the past and would like to try some different things in fish keeping (my god i'm getting bored of fish jumping out that i'd have love to have kept) and try to develop a different style that more suits my life, my location in scotland and my ethos.

I would however like to get to the bottom of these issues i'm having at home to put things to rest in a better way then just stopping on a sour note.

Any help/experiences welcome.

Best Regards,
John


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## GHNelson (29 Feb 2020)

Hi John
Don't think the overdosing of Mg would be a problem.
Diatoms are usually associated with ammonia and immature set-ups!
How old are your substrates!
Dirty filters could be one of the causes of diatoms.
What're the parameters of your tap water?
hoggie


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## JohnC (29 Feb 2020)

Hi man,

Long time no speak. 

Don't think the overdosing of Mg would be a problem. 
I'd agree that it hadn't caused an issue as such as Mg isn't going to hurt the plants/fish etc but I ended up with readings of dGH of 10+ in cases with dKH 0/1.... I did plenty of reading around and chatted to Denis and Tom B about it as well and nothing really points at such imbalances in hardness/alkalinity causing an issue, or even imbalances in the ratios associated with it causing theses issues.....but...... i keep coming across people having similar problems and also having similar water re-mineralsation fails, so thought id mention it.

Diatoms are usually associated with ammonia and immature set-ups!
Yup. Which is why I possibly honed in on the KH/PH dropping out and the filter bacterial colonies failing and re-establishing. I read some stuff surrounding lower kh readings and the effect on nitrification bacteria in the past.

How old are your substrates!
Depends on the tank, some have aquasoil that is 2 years old. Others have older soil that i've re-used, capped with newer soil. Others are pea gravel and sand. With a smaller section of new aquasoil in a tub. All suffering from diatoms in some degree when they "shouldn't" be.

Dirty filters could be one of the causes of diatoms.
Yup, been cleaning them like a trooper. Also have added active carbon to the purigen pads in them recently trying to see if it would help. Nope.

What're the parameters of your tap water?
Zero everything  
TDS is about 40 tbh.
Ph comes out the tap about 6.5 and highly oxygenated.
It eats the copper pipes at the house. recently I went chasing down the route of "are my plants getting heavy metal poisoning" due to elevated metal readings at the hall next door. I bought a copper test kit for the house and fish room in the garden but other then the first 10 seconds of water clearing the tap and copper pipe in there the readings quickly drop to zero. The readings from water coming from the header tanks into the fish tanks in the room show zero copper/trace. The shrimp are fine. So it's not heavy metal poisoning. :/


Best Regards,
John


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## GHNelson (29 Feb 2020)

Hi John
Not sure what the answer is!

I would try and increase the kh to about 8.
It is a bit of a mystery that your getting diatoms in mature set-ups!
Employing vigorous gravel penetrating...could upset the aquarium balance.

Its a tad strange that your clients don't have problems!
hoggie


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## JohnC (29 Feb 2020)

The gravel vaccing was increased as a response to the diatoms tbh. I instigated some deeper cleans of the older aquasoils too. Which were recommended tbh by experts and i've done with sucess in the past too.

Because it's effecting all the tanks to some degree I was trying to cover all room variable.

Room Temp - too hot - sorted
Room Temp - Getting too low and varying too much - installed heaters on tanks
Water Quality - Tested my spring water to hell and back - nothing obvious
Water Quality - Added in active carbon - no help
Light Levels - Could be too low - but its happening on high and low energy tanks

Since it's only happening on older leaves/slower growth leaves I might surmise its a trace issue but i'm using APF trace to varying degrees depending on how much energy is going in. I was using up some older TNC Dry trace before i remember these issues happening. Again thou i'm not thinking this is really the issue. The diatoms also occured when I was doing TNC Complete for a period instead of DIY EI mixes.

I switched from standard EI mixes to Denis Wongs leaner recipes in a couple of tanks (including Mg into the mix) for a bit mid hassles. But moved back to straight EI type mixes when I clocked I was going well overboard with the Mg.

All very frustrating really. Especially as I consider myself an old hat at these things. I really want to get to the bottom of it all.

Best Regards,
John


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## GHNelson (29 Feb 2020)

Hi John
Could you have dead spots, where the flow isn't great!


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## JohnC (29 Feb 2020)

Possibly, but i've also addressed the flow in the lower flow tanks with additional powerheads and pumps. Still diatoms. 

In one tank they started off on the Bolbitis which was directly in the flow from a 1800 lph filter in a 150L tank!

Another thing i'd been chasing around recently is that I might have too low Oxygen levels, thus poor nitrogen cycle... a stretch in a fully planted tank but maybe because the GH was so high there wasn't much pearling visible etc.... I run skimmers on everything and had relied on that for extra gas exchange rather then what I used to do in the house, move outlets up and down. The twinstar clones i used to run had all packed in too.

So hooked up an airpump and stones onto two of the tanks to see if it improved things (running at night for 6 hours or so), that was a couple of weeks back. It may have had some effect on growth but i can still see diatoms on some of the leaves. These are the last two tanks that i'm treating for the GDA outbreak however so i'm not going to comment on overall health in those tanks until that is nailed. 

If I go down from the 7 scapes to a lesser amount i'll probably keep these final two as planted until I've worked out what the hell is going on.  I'm slowly binning scapes and selling off kit currently.


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## GHNelson (29 Feb 2020)

Hi John
Test for elevated phosphate!​If the diatoms are on the glass clean off with a paper towel.
Test one tank, do a blackout for a couple of days on it!


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## JohnC (29 Feb 2020)

generally i've turned most of the kessils down and mounted them high. I've got a PAR meter and the worst tanks are split both high and low end. 35 - 80ish mols. Admittedly there are lots of lights in the same room and there was some differences in the timers on the different wall runs. Amended now.

i've not tried a black out on any of the tanks. Do they work for diatom removal? I've only used them for cyno in the past.


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## GHNelson (29 Feb 2020)

I'm not sure if a blackout will tell you a lot....but if the diatoms disappear it could be a light issue!
It's worth a try


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## GHNelson (29 Feb 2020)

Diatoms are photosynthesising algae...


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## Witcher (29 Feb 2020)

JohnC said:


> With the whole thing fed from spring water from the hill.





> TDS is about 40 tbh.



Can this be a silicate in that water? It's usually seen as a reason for long term diatom outbreak. I'd personally fill one of the tanks with the water coming from completely different source (RO for example, with TDS = 0 initially and then re-mineralised by you to desired level) and wait couple of weeks to see the effect.


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## JohnC (29 Feb 2020)

silicate test for freshwater comes out at low levels

i tried using water from my dehumidifier in a tank for a while to see if it would help.... alas no.


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## alto (1 Mar 2020)

This isn’t going to be very helpful but I’d put it down to just general “imbalance” ... which isn’t an easy state to get out of

As you’re feeling the stress and not really having the time, I’d clear out 5 tanks (to gorgeous sparkling glass etc so they’re full of potential, drain the filters and rinse the media to remove all debris, then reset them as if going to run them all tomorrow - but just fill a few cm’s of water into the filter bottom - I have Eheim with baskets so I just add enough water to partially emerse the lowest (mechanical) basket), and leave the tapes open for air movement 

I’ve had filters in this state for well over a year, set up a new impulse tank (Tropica soil, plants etc) and added the impulse purchased chocolate gouramis (I’d been looking for over 2 years) the next day, added an Ammonia Alert, pH Alert ... everything went splendidly and tank seemed fully cycled 5-6 days later 

Now you’ve time for daily water changes and physical maintenance on the 2 remaining tanks (and hopefully feeling more energy, some excitement)

When you’ve the energy, clean up the removed Aquarium Soils from the other tanks and dry and store
(Filipe Oliveira always has buckets of cleaned, dried aquarium soils that he reuses in the AquaFlora show tanks - I wish he’d do a short video on the process )

Don’t sell off anything for at least 6 months - returned value on most used fishkeeping equipment is just not there, better to be certain you don’t want to use it again before dumping ... and you may get better value by re-using in new client setups 

If you’re wanting to do some fish only setups, it’s easy to add glass tops etc to rimless aquariums 

Aquarium Design Group do a lot of hardscape + fish aquariums that look amazing 
(I assume very low light to minimize algae, but carefully chosen for suitable spectrum)

My tap water is 0-1KH, 1-1+GH, pH 6-6.5
I’ve seen tanks with enduring diatoms (and other algaes) - easiest/quickest is just a complete reset with mostly new plants (as existing plants only have damaged leafs, and poor/no energy stores) 
I don’t think that you will ever be able to point to a single change that “solved” the present issues, rather it will be a cumulative effect

Obviously you can go the route that George Farmer took with his 1200 scape (that developed quite extraordinary algae)

If you want to recover your existing plants, why not set up some emerse growth tanks (some plant sp will transition easily, some won’t)

As I’m the impatient sort, I’d pull everything even from the 2 tanks I plant to keep, deep clean the substrate Filipe Oliveira style (and recharge the nutrients in the soil so that you can follow lean water column dosing)
VLOG step by step Rescape of the 60L

Clean the hardscape
Clean the plants (and remove all damaged, poor condition leafs even if you end up just replanting bare rhizomes)
Rescape - I’d add some new, fast growing stems to increase plant density 
You could also try a dry start method - unsure how well this would work, as it’s usually done with nursery grown plants that are already emerse state and have good energy reserves, while your plants will need to transition from submerse culture
You could also run a reduced water column height (higher light levels, increased surface area to volume ratio so oxygenation should also be optimized), run a load of CO2, daily water changes with cooler water (possibly add shrimp, snails, some Otocinclus as algae crew - these will be fine with 21-22C but may limit CO2 used)
Consider Amano method where he adds increased aeration for all hours outside the photoperiod BUT if there is significant ambient light in your “scaping room”, I recommend running some CO2 throughout the daylight hours, then increase CO2 for actual photoperiod, run airstone etc overnight

For remineralizing, I’d only go KH 4-5, GH 2-5 - and use a proprietary mix where attention has been paid to the purity of the ingredients and accompanying salts (though you may be confident (and motivated) to do this yourself, I’d just buy into Green Aqua’s blend, then transition over once plant’s are established )


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## alto (1 Mar 2020)

Of course the best option would be to do
Tank 1 my way 
Tank 2 the slow persistent recovery method


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## PARAGUAY (1 Mar 2020)

hogan53 said:


> Hi John
> Test for elevated phosphate!​If the diatoms are on the glass clean off with a paper towel.
> Test one tank, do a blackout for a couple of days on it!



Just my input I had my 55g metre long tank with just Java ferns and two fluval U2 filters TNC light fertiliser no CO2 everything looking good  .Lighting 2 t5 tropical tubes. Bored a bit I changed everything around raised substate tropica soil and sand areas plenty of bogwood and azalea Looked fine started CO2 using EI changed lights to 2 12watt LED and 2000 ex filter. Planted some stems couple of Amazon swords. Gradually got brown algae then improved on its own but then came back in abundance. Put this down to excess phosphates without a test. Put product Clearwater in filter with (do I need it?)and purigen bag. Things are improving new growth less algae and a couple of big WCs. No activated carbon used


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## Dolly Sprint 16v (1 Mar 2020)

hogan53 said:


> It is a bit of a mystery that your getting diatoms in mature set-ups!



Same issue for years with my tank, but I sorted it by changing my CFL tube from 6500K to 4000K no diatoms now.

Cheers
Paul


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## Siege (1 Mar 2020)

Have you got any pictures of a tank as an example?

can you give a breakdown of the lighting, co2, filtration etc?


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## GHNelson (1 Mar 2020)

Hi
John has a scaping room, multiple tanks they all have levels of diatoms and GDA....could be light and heat generated issue!
A sure way to find out if it is the above, ........is to rip down an aquarium and move into an area of the house....deep clean it re-scape, and monitor its progress.
hoggie


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## JohnC (1 Mar 2020)

Thanks replies so far guys, alas i'm not sure any "golden bullet" answers so far. I have kind of gone through everything i can think of in the last year trying to nail this.

I'm a little rushed just now for more specific answers but here is a photo of the room last March. Before I filled a couple of extra tanks.

The setups are using Kessil 160's that are dialed down (i have a par meter) in most cases. I also run x10 filtration or more in most tanks. Ferts are a mix of levels of EI depending on tank energy levels.


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## JohnC (1 Mar 2020)

Alas it looked it's best back then and plant health has been declining for the reasons above since that time. In various tanks at certain times.


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## GHNelson (1 Mar 2020)

Lovely Aquascaping room John


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## JohnC (1 Mar 2020)

hogan53 said:


> Lovely Aquascaping room John



Thanks man,

Alas it now makes me somewhat sad going in there. Hopefully soon i'll perk up a bit. I'm going to shift to emersed growth and riparium set ups for a change. Hopefully the lower energy/plant mass in the water and associated water column dosing will not recreate the same diatom and GDA issues. 

I need a break from high tech hassles. :/


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## alto (2 Mar 2020)

JohnC said:


> The setups are using Kessil 160's that are dialed down


I use these lights on my 53cm tall tanks, and always run full on, with no visible algae

Don’t forget that when you decrease the intensity on these lights (while the driver tech maintains spectra) the “cone” of lightfall diminishes significantly 

Scaperoom is astounding


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## Bryce (2 Mar 2020)

Beautiful studio!! My hunch is lighting.. your tanks appear to be sparse in plants, heavy on the hard scape and that’s your style. I would back way back off the lights some, Crank up co2, or add more plants. This style is a tough one to balance. My 2 cents


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## JohnC (2 Mar 2020)

alto said:


> I use these lights on my 53cm tall tanks, and always run full on, with no visible algae
> 
> Don’t forget that when you decrease the intensity on these lights (while the driver tech maintains spectra) the “cone” of lightfall diminishes significantly
> 
> Scaperoom is astounding



Indeed. They are mounted deliberately higher and then dialled down. With the PAR meter used to check for dark spots.




Bryce said:


> Beautiful studio!! My hunch is lighting.. your tanks appear to be sparse in plants, heavy on the hard scape and that’s your style. I would back way back off the lights some, Crank up co2, or add more plants. This style is a tough one to balance. My 2 cents



Thanks man,
It is actually only that single tank that is hardscape heavy which also runs pretty low light and lean ferts.

The rest of 90 - 100% planted. 

I've leaned away from doing iwagumi as i have too much to maintain tbh.


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## GHNelson (2 Mar 2020)

Hi John
Out of interest what is the Ph of the spring water?
hoggie


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## JohnC (2 Mar 2020)

about 6.4 but no natural hardness. 

i reminerlize with TNC GH booster and seachem alkaline buffer for KH. Aiming for 5 dGH and about 3 dKH currently. Although that was all over the place a few months back.


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## GHNelson (2 Mar 2020)

Have a look at the below link...interesting!
https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/23-algae/374505-green-dust-algae-i-think-i-found-cure.html
hoggie


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## JohnC (2 Mar 2020)

hogan53 said:


> Have a look at the below link...interesting!
> https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/23-algae/374505-green-dust-algae-i-think-i-found-cure.html
> hoggie



I think i've skim read this one and chatted to Tom B about it before. 

This does ring true -

". i also discovered low PH water is Prone to GDA when using EI dosing, why? because when using KNO3, Bacteria have to convert NO3 back to NH4 for the plants, plants are normally covered with Bacteria who convert this, but in low PH water Bacteria aren't very active. this might explain why some people have problem when dosing EI and using very low PH. now on the other side EI worked very well in high PH water, keep in mind high PH water is beneficial for Bacteria and they are most active under these conditions."

And partly why i've been drilling down into the kH and ph stability of the tanks. Before i addressed the kH issue I was getting a fair amount of random crypt melting in a couple of tanks which has now stopped. I was trying to drill down into the kH buffering capacities of the aquasoils as things did decline a fair bit once the soils aged. But that could be co-incidence, but also could indicate the plants were taking NH4 from the soils and when that declined the NO3 issue described by Happi above kicked in more.

I'll keep reading (page 3).


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## JohnC (2 Mar 2020)

Certainly the amount of GDA that occurs is almost directly proportional to the level of fert dosing (ie NO3) but obviously in my case this is also somewhat dictated by the energy and fert needs of each tank.


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## JohnC (2 Mar 2020)

Alas i do enjoy Happi's posts but this must have been early on in his scaping.... by page 4 he's recounted (been corrected on APF) the idea that NO3 is converted to NH4 by bacteria that are not present enough in low ph tanks. Thought that sounded a little bit too elegant.

Certainly think my low kH and ph is/was causing issues. Still having said issues now i've resolved that thou.

edit - how having read through it all it's not the post i'd like it to be..... i've done so much reading on this issue now and nothing really strikes home.

i wish Happi's test 3 with urea he'd actually kept the rest of the variables the same rather then adding in extra Ca Mg too.....

there is a reason after all my reading i drilled down into the lower ph and kH issues to fix. i'm hopefully going to break my GDA outbreak chains with my current treatments. I'd love the diatoms to be nailed too.....

Similarly thou, lack of bacteria due to lower ph and ammonia/cycling happening on a weekly basis could be a thing.


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## alto (2 Mar 2020)

There’s a lot of meandering on forums where conclusions (cause/effect) are drawn regarding various parameters

I run my tanks at my tap water parameters, KH, GH very low (it’s basically rain water/snow melt that collects in a ground reservoir (and can get a bit peat stained during storms)) pH 6ish, 22-26C, adding Tropica fertilizers - except when I don’t - and using Tropica soils the last while
(nutrient enriched base layers such as Sera Flore Depot beneath fine gravels previously)

I tend to keep fish from very soft water areas so I don’t add KH and GH, I add low to moderate CO2 (again depending upon fish comfort)
I often have significant ambient light and even direct (morning) sunlight on tanks - fish are meant for sunlight viewing

Tanks run with minimal algae, occasional diatoms during startup (I’m surprised when it happens, despite fluctuating CO2 (especially when I run out and don’t replace for a few days ), rather erratic care (my intentions are good) ...
Recently I’ve let my kitchen nano run wild: CO2 ran out early December, no fertilizers, water’s only been topped up since, some plants have receded and disappeared (the Eriocaulan ‘polaris’), others have become a jungle, photoperiod has not changed as that is programmed into the light - it’s been an interesting experiment in neglect - and still, no visible algae 
(Note there’s a few snails and odd shrimp I still occasionally see)




JohnC said:


> Similarly thou, lack of bacteria due to lower ph and ammonia/cycling happening on a weekly basis could be a thing.


While possible, this seems unlikely - does your pH drop to 4?
The science of aquarium nitrogen cycle has changed significantly in recent years, Darrel has provided some decent links (just the first post in that thread is pretty convincing )


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## JohnC (2 Mar 2020)

alto said:


> There’s a lot of meandering on forums where conclusions (cause/effect) are drawn regarding various parameters
> 
> I run my tanks at my tap water parameters, KH, GH very low (it’s basically rain water/snow melt that collects in a ground reservoir (and can get a bit peat stained during storms)) pH 6ish, 22-26C, adding Tropica fertilizers - except when I don’t - and using Tropica soils the last while
> (nutrient enriched base layers such as Sera Flore Depot beneath fine gravels previously)
> ...



The ph of 4 ish was recorded on a blackwater breeding project I did for Rocket Panchanx last year. I don't recall any test strip tests showing that low ph in the main room however. I do admit that i wasn't obsessively testing stuff until the last 6 months while trying to get to the bottom of stuff. mostly it came out 6ish. 

I also prefer to keep things lower kh and gh generally and i think i'm going to head the way of the "duckweed index" and shrimp/odd ball keeping and emmersed/riparium growth i think i'll try and keep as much of the nutrients in the substrate as possible.

i always thought when i moved here that the spring water was going to be superb for fishkeeping but really i've never had great growth here compared to Edinburgh.


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## alto (3 Mar 2020)

It’s possible there are some trace nutrients in your spring water which aren’t “trace”, this can cause problems in very soft acidic water (where it may be less significant in harder or more alkaline water, re bioavailability and chemical availability is often affected by these parameters)

Obviously something is amiss in your tanks, and it would be nice to be able to pinpoint something but even if you had substrates and water extensively tested (analytical labs), there might still only be suggestions and nothing conclusive 

I’d consider having the spring water analyzed (get a list of exactly what’s going to be tested and costs before going ahead) but also look at your delivery or storage system 

Consider any tank additives (fertilizers, GH/KH etc), also any possible aerosols in the room (though this seems unlikely as I’d expect livestock to be affected before plants)

I experience minimal algae in my tanks, but I also realize that growth could be faster if I adjusted GH/KH, added more fertilizers etc (I prefer Filipe Oliveira and Jurijs mit JS style of plant growth, where I can trim monthly rather than weekly)
There are also some “easy” plants that do poorly under my tank conditions, while some “difficult” plants thrive even with minimal care (I used to put in rather more effort ) 
I set up a 60P last February, and the Elatine hydropiper invaded the hair grass and MC ... until temperatures went up (sudden early summer heat and tank was in a upper level room that was very warm by 10am)


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## JohnC (3 Mar 2020)

I've actually got some analysis done for the water due to the potential of lead and copper in the supply in the community hall near by. We are on the same bit of the supply.

The lab tests there were pretty scary but at the same time really only represented the addition of metals from the internal pipes in that hall and their run from the plastic at the stop cock. Once you run it for a bit it runs clear. Similarly we have some older pipes here but it runs clear faster and we have had our internal house stuff done.

The sheds supply feeds off before the internal house stop cock so i did chase around the idea with Tom Barr and Denis that the plants might be suffering from Copper, lead or zinc toxcity from accumulated buildup (the initial hall readings from the lab tests were off the chart). But when i actually went out and bought a aquarium copper testing kit for my tanks I discovered that my house supply was ok'ish. Less than 1ppm when first run in the morning, quickly declining to almost zero. The shed was the same, some copper on the first run of the tap but decling to zero once it ran for a bit.

Additionally the water is stored in two header tanks in the fish room office so a copper test on the feeds from that also showed zero/almost zero. Plus the shrimp are all fine.

So...... not that.....

As i say i've been chasing this one around for a long while.

I did spend a bit of time changing the water in one tank with water from my dehumidifer and I have to say things were the same if not worse in that tank for that period.


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## JohnC (3 Mar 2020)

From the hall.




 

Now i can actually get my supply tested for free as part of a scottish government scheme to improve private supplies to aim to get a grant to fit an acid neutraliser.

But really i don't expect ours to be anywhere as high in copper/lead/zinc as the halls next door in the woods. Since our property was upgraded from a train station to a private house in the 70's and has had extensive plumbing work done in the last 40 years.


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## alto (3 Mar 2020)

JohnC said:


> I did spend a bit of time changing the water in one tank with water from my dehumidifer and I have to say things were the same if not worse in that tank for that period.


Most dehumidifier water does not test well - I don’t know where/how this methodology developed
(Sorry I rarely bookmark links, and this is stuff I looked up ages ago when I first read of people using dehumidifier water in their aquariums)

There are other possibilities than copper, but I’m somewhat sceptical that this is really the track worth pursuing

If you’re up for it,
1) remove and save plants from any given tank, ditch the substrate, rinse the filter media thoroughly (discarding any sponges or sand (should you happen to have a sand filter )), rescape with new aquarium soil (whatever brand you prefer), replant and see what happens
2) as above, but just deep clean the substrate (Filipe Oliveira style), rescape, replant etc
3) as above (2) but now include Filipe Oliveira style Seachem Flourish Tabs (I believe FO also uses AquaRio plant tabs in another scape, includes details etc)
4) remove plants, superficially clean substrate, filter media etc, replant with newly purchased plants (just choose something that usually does well for you and lower cost)

On all tanks, follow usual new setup protocols, frequent water changes, lean water column dosing (want to see what’s happening in the substrate) etc


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## alto (3 Mar 2020)

Re plant health, you might find this interesting

https://iwaponline.com/wqrj/article/7/1/59/39948/Cadmium-and-Zinc-Toxicity-and-Synergism-to

(an older article but open access )

https://www.academia.edu/2008284/Metal_toxicity_and_tolerance_in_plants
not aquatic plants, but symptoms of toxicity may be of interest (obviously sensitive may vary across plants species, not just across aquatic vs non-aquatic species)

https://www.researchgate.net/public..._an_Aquatic_Macrophyte_Ipomoea_Aquatica_Forsk
newer but also quite high levels of zinc (but also short term study)

This is from a quick (5 min) search so likely rather more pertinent studies can be found


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## JohnC (3 Mar 2020)

yeah i went through the stuff on metal toxicity while narrowing down that as an option but as i mentioned the testing of the water for the room actually didn't show the same silly readings from the hall. 

i've done 2 and 4 of your list


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## alto (3 Mar 2020)

JohnC said:


> water for the room actually didn't show the same silly readings from the hall.


 my confusion - I thought you had run the tanks for some time with this water


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## Ady34 (4 Mar 2020)

Hi John, sounds like a nightmare for you and I can understand how demoralising it must be, especially given your past history in planted tanks and the exquisite scaping room you now own.
Have you always had the issues, as you stated in your opening post that plant health has declined over time? I’m just trying to see if you have had success utilising your spring water or if there has always been an issue? Basically is the water the cause or another factor?
On the face of it, with your experience, it does seem to be something in the water if client tanks not fed from the spring have had no such issues. 
Have you always used the same brands of remineralisers also?
Ady.


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## JohnC (4 Mar 2020)

Ady34 said:


> Hi John, sounds like a nightmare for you and I can understand how demoralising it must be, especially given your past history in planted tanks and the exquisite scaping room you now own.
> Have you always had the issues, as you stated in your opening post that plant health has declined over time? I’m just trying to see if you have had success utilising your spring water or if there has always been an issue? Basically is the water the cause or another factor?
> On the face of it, with your experience, it does seem to be something in the water if client tanks not fed from the spring have had no such issues.
> Have you always used the same brands of remineralisers also?
> Ady.



I've been in this property for 6 years now and did a good few scapes in the house while finishing the room outside.




 



 
(note the mini landscaping rock in this may have buffered my kh for me)


Happy growth...

Even the first 6 months in the room were probably ok.... some interesting growth in a couple of tanks but I put it down to learning the new lights and other variables.

This is the issue really. I'm dealing with a lot of variables when talking about the entire room. Thing I know that i did do wrong which might have led to the initial outbreak and infestation of GDA (although this in itself is a epic reading fest to dig down into). 

The room got too warm during summer before i installed extraction fans. 28-32 degrees at times. 
The kH was never actively buffered in any of the tanks so may have been bottoming out the ph
I messed up with my gH boosting and ended up with exceedingly high gH, tiny kH.
I ended up dosing almost all my gH in MgSO4 with lack of calcium.

All sorted now.

Other things that I suspected. I was happily using TNC trace for years until they stopped doing dry salts. My switch to other trace suppliers happened approx the same time. I was getting chlorosis on some leaves while dosing EI and got suspicious (hence the Magnesium) but also cast a suspicious eye on my new dry ferts. 

I'm a sucker for reusing aquasoils and do spend a lot of time deep cleaning and carefully capping them in newer tanks. I had a lovely second plant holding tank going well with high light but the plastic outlet bend popped off when i was out of the room and "washing machined" the substrate and boom GDA was activated and present until the tank had to be taken down. The GDA was probably cross contaminated from other tanks in the room with it. As it has slowly appeared in every tank, from which i'm now systematically removing it again.

The diatoms are another thing. They initially appeared on an area of bolbitis on one tank that otherwise was very happy. They only really seem to sweep through the rest of the tanks once GDA started showing up. Especially the plant holding tanks which never showed any sign of any algae until the GDA, then now the diatoms are present and unrelenting on the older leaves. I did have to deep clean the aquasoils in all off the GDA infested tanks as there was so much associated sediment build up in them from the GDA and leaf loss I had to get it out. 

All the tanks have minimal fish stocking, plant holding tanks are practically uninhabited.


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## JohnC (4 Mar 2020)

alto said:


> my confusion - I thought you had run the tanks for some time with this water



We do have the same "tank on the hill" it's just the run from our shared stop cocks to the hall and my house is different pipes, and their internal pipework is older than mine and not used often.

Hence the elevated copper, lead and zinc readings. All due to the corrosion of pipework from the lower ph/highly oxygenated water supply.

Remove that element from that test reading and you probably have the common water readings. I have the bacterial analysis somewhere too.....


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## Ady34 (4 Mar 2020)

JohnC said:


> I've been in this property for 6 years now and did a good few scapes in the house while finishing the room outside.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Seems in fathomable really, like a plague. The early successes confuse the situation further. I can appreciate your despair and the want to find the cause as I’m sure it will be just one factor but the continuation of the same issue suggests a common denominator......
It seems such a shame for this to have demoralised you away from what was clearly a very pleasurable hobby and living but I can completely understand. 
I hope somebody can shed some light but aside from carrying out several test tanks and or spending money on equipment that you may not need like a hma filter then you may not get to the bottom of it. 
It would be interesting to see the results of utilising water from a different source without altering anything else, and in another tank utilising all new substrate, plants etc to see if that changes anything. I guess though ultimately you have tried all sorts of avenues which have lead you to this point, I hope it isn’t the end as the results in the images above are fantastic. 
Ady.


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## JohnC (4 Mar 2020)

Ady34 said:


> Seems in fathomable really, like a plague. The early successes confuse the situation further. I can appreciate your despair and the want to find the cause as I’m sure it will be just one factor but the continuation of the same issue suggests a common denominator......
> It seems such a shame for this to have demoralised you away from what was clearly a very pleasurable hobby and living but I can completely understand.
> I hope somebody can shed some light but aside from carrying out several test tanks and or spending money on equipment that you may not need like a hma filter then you may not get to the bottom of it.
> It would be interesting to see the results of utilising water from a different source without altering anything else, and in another tank utilising all new substrate, plants etc to see if that changes anything. I guess though ultimately you have tried all sorts of avenues which have lead you to this point, I hope it isn’t the end as the results in the images above are fantastic.
> Ady.



It is trying.... with a single tank you would just restart and hope it goes away but the slog of having it in all the tanks, different ages, does just kick it out of you.

Todays water changes on the remaining 5.

The two at the end (oldest of the scapes) have run a course of GDA treatment and look like it's gone. I'd also stuck on a airstone on each in the last few weeks. As well as upping the dKH on all the tanks. This has had a good effect on plant growth, especially moss. Algae gone for now only a touch of bba on one. The diatoms that could be see as present in the older moss or slower growers and no longer present. Lower nitrate DIY ferts but EI variant.

Middle tank with minimal planting shows no bad algae but weak as hell plant growth. Diatoms on older hydrocotyle Japan leaf edges showing. Purple bamboo no longer verdant, rapid growth.  Currently lower nitrate DIY ferts EI variant.

Small shrimp tank - no CO2, full planted, showing signs of diatoms for some reason. But generally so low maintenance i'd probably put it to neglect.

Plant holding tank - still exceptionally poor growth. GDA stayed away for two weeks after treatment but is back in a small amount now. Substrate keeps getting dirty for some reason, old aquasoils which i've "deep cleaned" to try and stabilise with appropriate water changes. Diatoms forming over all slow growth older leaves on lower plants. Stems ok. This is after i've systematically removed and bleach dipped (light solution) to try and remove them all in the last couple of weeks. This tank had a heater fitted in the last month to try and see if that was the issue (temp variations dipping too low during the night in the unheated room 21 deg). No Joy. Will probably try a black out on this tank next to see if i can save some of the rare plants before taking the tank down too. Full EI, higher energy

Another week, another mixed bag.


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## alto (4 Mar 2020)

JohnC said:


> I'm a sucker for reusing aquasoils


Are you drying them between?

I don’t know that it matters except this should help remove crushed materials (though again, how relevant is this - Filipe Oliveira method should also remove 90% of fines if done thoroughly ... except he also uses the soil drying method quite a lot) and make rescaping, especially hardscape placement, a cleaner process

If ADA Soil, this is a softer soil

If you recall Mark Evans had issues with a batch of used ADA, as I recall he mentions not just algae but also poor plant growth 
Green Aqua recommends against its reuse, again mentioning greater algae considerations, less predictable growth - obviously the shop tanks need to look good most of the time


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## JohnC (4 Mar 2020)

alto said:


> Are you drying them between?
> 
> I don’t know that it matters except this should help remove crushed materials (though again, how relevant is this - Filipe Oliveira method should also remove 90% of fines if done thoroughly ... except he also uses the soil drying method quite a lot) and make rescaping, especially hardscape placement, a cleaner process
> 
> ...



I've not seen the specific filipe method.

these have been dried and stored. then before reuse the "fines" extensively rinsed. Then capped with newer soils.


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## alto (5 Mar 2020)

thought I’d linked it here (but must be another thread)

Filipe Oliveira 

VLOG Step by Step Rescape of a 60L

He adds extra (slow release type) nutrient tabs to the AquaFlore display scapes (it’s often 1-2 months between his visits; water changes, limited water column fertilizers are done by other staff), especially when re-using soils


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## JohnC (12 Mar 2020)

alto said:


> thought I’d linked it here (but must be another thread)
> 
> Filipe Oliveira
> 
> ...



Other then the extra tabs (which i do occasionally add) i have been doing the "oliverira" method for years without knowing it. 

That is exactly how i would prep the soil between scapes. Although it in this case had been dried and stored in the dark before cleaning and reuse. 

This weeks update.

The two tanks that have the best planting and had the added airstone are looking great. Minimal algae, no diatoms or GDA. Moss looking great and growing well for the first time in ages. Has the raising of the kH and oxygen done the job? One has heater and keeping it at 24 other is bouncing from 21 to 23 currently. Lower nitrate DIY ferts but EI variant.

Middle tank lighting was off for a few days and actually helped loads with the light diatoms on the older hydrocotyle leaves. Might consider sticking a heater on this one and raising O2 levels.  Currently lower nitrate DIY ferts EI variant.

Plant holding tank is back to bad GDA and diatoms. Substrate is looking v dirty again but that might be leaf debris and/or diatomic bits. Diatoms on all the older leaves in thick amounts. heater is in this one. minimal live stock. I've added a twinstar clone to improve O2. Upping kH to 4 ish to try and keep boosting the filter. Full EI, higher energy

------------------------


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## Aeropars (13 Mar 2020)

Hi john,

Interesting read as I've also had a similar problem with, what I assume is diatoms, for all my aquarium owning time. Its particularly strong on hard scape however I'm having a bit of success at the moment where plants are seemingly growing better than ever. I also get it a little on slow growers. 

What is your diatoms like? Mine is quite hard and I almost have to get a wire brush on it to get it off easily. when re-scaping the tanks previously I've ended up pressure washing it to get the stuff off.

Be good to see a picture or two of it as well to see if its similar. my water parameters are very hard really so the opposite of yours.


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