# Help !! Unsightly Brown / Black Algae



## kellyboy47 (1 Jul 2016)

I was hoping someone could give more suggestions on combating the algae I have present in my tank (pics attached)
The tank is a Juwel Vision 180 and uses twin 35w T5 tropical lamps which are on 7.5 hours a day from 2-10 pm.
I then have a Blue LED strip which provides a moonlight effect and is on 3 hours from 10pm to 1am
I change 40 litres of water weekly and use Easycarbo every day plus Macro / Micro Ferts alternately
I have spent quite a bit on Bucephalandra and they were in pristine condition when first introduced and now look as awful as the Amazon Swords, Anubias  & Crinum









I have tried so hard to create a tank that is pleasing to the eye but I am now losing patience and feel like the effort I put in is not worth the hassle ...Here's hoping for some help

Trev


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## Julian (1 Jul 2016)

Does the tank get hit by any other light? Is it next to a window?


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## kellyboy47 (1 Jul 2016)

It's in the corner of my lounge and the main window is approx. 2ft to the right of it


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## kellyboy47 (4 Jul 2016)

OK following the rules of the sticky thread on this subject here is the following information:

Tank specifications - 180 litres.
Lighting - T5 - 7.5 hours
CO2 - Liquid Carbon (Easycarbo) daily
Filtration - External - JBL CrystalProfi E1501 - 1400 LPH
Filtration - Internal Juwel  - 1000 LPH
Fertilisation routine - Aquarium Plant Food Dry Ferts / Macro / Micro alternate days


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## stu_ (4 Jul 2016)

Hi
My tank starts to look like this if I ease off with maintenance / water changes.
40L a week may not be enough and is leading to a build up of organics. 
Other opinions are available...


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## tim (4 Jul 2016)

Think maybe the lighting is too bright for the plants you have, if you can raise the unit higher it'll lower the intensity, also cut the duration to 5 or 6 hours whilst you carry out some large 50-60% water changes every few days to remove as much of the algae as possible, as stu alluded to 40 liters is probably not a big enough water change to remove the organic/waste build up from the tank.


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## ian_m (4 Jul 2016)

I have a  Vision 180 as well. The supplied Juwel T5 lights are classified as high light, possibly verging on very high light if you have reflectors, thus you will need to control light, CO2, ferts and frequent water changes or else you will kill the plants, producing algae.

All the pictures show algae growth, due to plants dying, due to too much light for carbon and fertiliser availability.

This was mine, 2xT5, but CO2 gas before I doubled the lights...to 4 x 35W 





Try putting some foil rings around the tubes to reduce the light level to say 50% (remove reflectors), reduce the light on time to say 4-5hours and perform 50% water changes once a week (at least).

As your tank is high tech, as you are using liquid carbon (and light is high), you need to ensure your fertilisation scheme is spot on and are performing enough water changes.

As for getting rid of the algae you have:
- Scrub if off the glass and rocks using tooth brush and I use a piece of filter floss on the glass. Do a 50% water changed to remove dirty water.
- Using a diluted solution of liquid carbon (50% ?) dip the affected plants (and rocks ?) in it and soak for a while (couple of mins). Be careful as too strong and too long will kill the plants.
- Trim as many algae covered leaves as you can, hopefully plants will recover.
- I've used bleach before to clean pipes and fittings before. Sometimes just kills the BBA to a greenish hair which when back in the tank is quickly scoffed by the fish.
- Try a 3-4 day blackout. Wrap tank in blankets and leave, with lights off, no ferts, carbon or food for 3-4 days, with no peeking. Then clean as first item with large water change. 

The run for say a month with lower light and shorter time to allow plants to settle in, before increasing light level and light time.


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## kellyboy47 (4 Jul 2016)

Thanks guys for your input...must admit I've never done more than 40 litres at a time so will try a 50% water change..
I will remove the reflectors and lessen the photo period as suggested
Instead of using liquid carbon (which is obviously expensive) could I use thin household bleach (diluted) on the plants to get rid of the algae instead and would you suggest a dip method or could they be soaked for 5 mins or so ?
The thing is trimming the leaves of the Buce will probably leave me with nothing 
I can't raise the light unit higher as its a Juwel light unit
I will clean the substrate also
I have kept all the lights off since Friday and not fed since then however I have been adding nutrients which I suppose was not a good idea


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## ian_m (4 Jul 2016)

Bleach (quite strong) is only suitable for hardscape etc, not suitable for plants.

Diluted liquid carbon is best for algae on plants. Just 50% mix some in bottom of container and dip, slosh, brush the solution on the plants. I use a 2llitre round bottomed jug. Plonk plants back in tank, do 50% water change.


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## herezor (12 Jul 2016)

Ottocinclus (6-7 for a 180L, or more if you wish). This can be used to remove the diatoms you have now, but...

I think your problem is water change. You are changing only around 20 % which contributes to an increasing level of organics every week, a nice and tasty soup for algae.

You need to decide what you want. High tech or low tech. If you go high tech, you need to change more water and add CO2 gas or EasyCarbo consistently + Macros and Micros. If you go for low tech, do not change any water at all (maybe every 6 months or so) but you need to reduce your light level (rising the lamps for example or removing one of them) and stop adding liquid carbon and reduce the macros and micros.

Your problem is that you are mixing both methods, or better, not doing any of them... and that leads to trouble always


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## dw1305 (12 Jul 2016)

Hi all,





herezor said:


> If you go for low tech, do not change any water at all (maybe every 6 months or so) but you need to reduce your light level (rising the lamps for example or removing one of them) and stop adding liquid carbon and reduce the macros and micros.


If you go low tech. you can carry on doing some water changes. I change about 10 - 20% a day, but that is probably overkill and I don't have any tanks bigger than 60 litres.

We've had a few threads on "water changes or not" for low tech., and the general finding has been that some <"water changes definitely benefit low tech. tanks">.

cheers Darrel


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## kellyboy47 (12 Jul 2016)

herezor said:


> Ottocinclus (6-7 for a 180L, or more if you wish). This can be used to remove the diatoms you have now, but...


...With regards to these I don't think they would survive very long in my community tank unfortunately as I have a couple of larger fish and think they would get eaten. I also have some large SAE who do their best with keeping the algae at bay

Thanks for your advice. I did a water change of 80 litres (approx. 45%) on Thursday and also cleaned the gravel thoroughly and am giving the fish less food. However tonight 2 of my beautiful Clown Loaches have died and it looks like 'ich' and they had been fine until I cleaned the gravel and disturbed all the detritus so am not at all happy at the moment


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## kellyboy47 (12 Jul 2016)

herezor said:


> If you go for low tech, do not change any water at all (maybe every 6 months or so)



I had the tank running as a low tech tank before using t8's and no ferts or liquid carbon but I don't think my fish would survive very long having a water change every 6 months ?


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## herezor (13 Jul 2016)

kellyboy47 said:


> ...With regards to these I don't think they would survive very long in my community tank unfortunately as I have a couple of larger fish and think they would get eaten. I also have some large SAE who do their best with keeping the algae at bay
> 
> Thanks for your advice. I did a water change of 80 litres (approx. 45%) on Thursday and also cleaned the gravel thoroughly and am giving the fish less food. However tonight 2 of my beautiful Clown Loaches have died and it looks like 'ich' and they had been fine until I cleaned the gravel and disturbed all the detritus so am not at all happy at the moment



SAEs won´t be eating a lot of diatoms. If you cannot have Ottos, then it is elbow grease what you need .
Sorry about your loaches, but when disturbing gravel etc, it is better to move fish to another container to avoid intoxication. If it looks like "ich", then it is not a problem of the gravel disturbance or water change. Ich needs time as it is a parasite that infects the fish and needs time to develop symptoms. It is unlikely that they developed ich all of a sudden. It is more likely that the disturbance of the gravel released an ammonia spike so high that some already weakened fishes could not stand it. Besides, if your fishes are used to a 20 % water change, doing a 45-50% change suddenly could have also affected them.



dw1305 said:


> We've had a few threads on "water changes or not" for low tech., and the general finding has been that some <"water changes definitely benefit low tech. tanks">.
> 
> cheers Darrel



Well, it all depends on the CO2 content of the tap water. If CO2 content is low, then yes, low volume water changes could be a good idea. But if the CO2 content is high... in theory, plants would be a little confused in terms of how much RuBisCo they would need, unless surface movement is high to allow for the CO2 degassing before lights are on. My tap water has a lot of CO2. Degassed tap water (I prefer to say at equilibrium) has a pH of 8.3 and right from the tap pH is 7.9. That is 0.4 pH units, which is 4X higher compared to degassed. If we agree that degassed water, or better said,  at equilibrium is around 3 ppms, then having 12 ppms is a significant amount of CO2. Just my opinion.

Cheers

Pedro


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## dw1305 (13 Jul 2016)

Hi all,





herezor said:


> My tap water has a lot of CO2. Degassed tap water (I prefer to say at equilibrium) has a pH of 8.3 and right from the tap pH is 7.9. That is 0.4 pH units, which is 4X higher compared to degassed. If we agree that degassed water, or better said, at equilibrium is around 3 ppms, then having 12 ppms is a significant amount of CO2. Just my opinion.


 Point taken, I can see that a tap supply could be both colder and CO2 rich (having been under pressure), causing a spike in tank CO2 levels. I'm not a tap water user, so I don't have any practical experience. 

I don't see the "high CO2 in the tap supply" as a reason for not carrying out water changes. In these circumstances I would just suggest storing the water in a container before use, until it had reached equilibrium with atmospheric CO2 levels. 

If you wanted to speed up the process of degassing up you could add a power-head or air-stone. 

If you had a really large tank that you had to re-fill via the tap supply, either a very slow trickle (or via a shower-head?) might be an option. 

There is a more complete discussion of  this topic in <"Low Energy, Water Change.....">.

cheers Darrel


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## kellyboy47 (13 Jul 2016)

dw1305 said:


> I don't see the "high CO2 in the tap supply" as a reason for not carrying out water changes. In these circumstances I would just suggest storing the water in a container before use, until it had reached equilibrium with atmospheric CO2 levels.
> 
> If you wanted to speed up the process of degassing up you could add a power-head or air-stone.
> 
> If you had a really large tank that you had to re-fill via the tap supply, either a very slow trickle (or via a shower-head?) might be an option.



I must admit the idea of letting the water stabilise makes good sense. I tend to fill up a 10litre bucket add Aquasafe and add to the tank with a jug so perhaps the 80litre change doing it this way caused a problem. I do have a 1400lph external filter which gives a good flow rate which I thought was good enough ?


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## herezor (13 Jul 2016)

dw1305 said:


> ... I would just suggest storing the water in a container before use, until it had reached equilibrium with atmospheric CO2 levels.



Yep, that is what I also said. 


herezor said:


> ..., unless surface movement is high to allow for the CO2 degassing before lights are on.


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## herezor (13 Jul 2016)

The problem you have is light if you are not adding CO2 as gas. It is too much. You are not going to solve your problems as long as you keep "burning" your plants. Ian gave you the key here:



ian_m said:


> ...The supplied Juwel T5 lights are classified as high light, possibly verging on very high light if you have reflectors, thus you will need to control light, CO2, ferts and frequent water changes or else you will kill the plants, producing algae....



You need to change that, the light. If you cannot, then you will have to move to high tech increasing EasyCarbo or using CO2 gas and upping your NPK and micros accordingly and doing higher water changes weekly. You are, more or less, OK in terms of flow.

Otherwise, your problems with algae will never go away. I did suffer them for a long time and not now because I always think I have too much light and that leads me to increase the rest; CO2 and nutrients as much as I can afford it


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## kellyboy47 (13 Jul 2016)

herezor said:


> You need to change that, the light. If you cannot, then you will have to move to high tech increasing EasyCarbo or using CO2 gas and upping your NPK and micros accordingly and doing higher water changes weekly. You are, more or less, OK in terms of flow.
> 
> Otherwise, your problems with algae will never go away. I did suffer them for a long time and not now because I always think I have too much light and that leads me to increase the rest; CO2 and nutrients as much as I can afford it



The Juwel light unit I have uses T5 High Light tubes but I cannot go back to a T8 ballast / light unit because they have now been discontinued. I do have 2 x Growbeam Ultras that I have never used on this tank as it would mean me having a suspended 'open topped' tank which the missus isn't too keen on as its in the living room. I was led to believe that increasing Easycarbo by more than double the recommended dosage is extremely harmful to fish...Is that not so ?

With regard to my fish...I lost another Clown Loach tonight so only have 1 left which I hope survives. I can't help thinking that the 80 litre water change / gravel cleaning has caused their deaths as they were very healthy before this. My main purpose of having an aquarium was because I was fascinated by the different species, behaviour, origins and the spectrum of their colour. Live plants I can live without...Fish I cannot...so if deaths continue after such drastic water changes I will go down the artificial plant route


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## herezor (13 Jul 2016)

If you want to keep fish, do not waste your time with plants. Keep your fish and go for other artificial decor.

Each aquarist must have clear in his/her mind what he/she wants and do not ovethink this hobby. Keep it simple...

Cheers

Pedro


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## PARAGUAY (13 Jul 2016)

With regard to lighting I would reduce the photoperiod to 5 hours max for now ,one tube if possible, your plants clean or dispose the worst leaves as said and why not do as Darrel daily smaller water changes.You dont need vigorous water changes at gravel level,gently siphon above gravel.Why not fill it with fast growing stem plants at the back,help to shade your slow growers and compete the algae.Some floaters would also help.Make sure suitable for enclosed top though not all are.Sorry about the Clown Loach they can be unhappy solitary


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## dw1305 (14 Jul 2016)

Hi all,





herezor said:


> If you want to keep fish, do not waste your time with plants. Keep your fish and go for other artificial decor.


Get away with you, actively growing plants are the single most important factor in successful fish keeping, they aren't incompatible, they are complementary.





PARAGUAY said:


> Why not fill it with fast growing stem plants at the back, help to shade your slow growers and compete the algae.Some floaters would also help.


I agree with "Paraguay".

At the moment all the plants you have are relatively slower growers, and it is going to take some time to build up a sufficient biomass to limit algal growth.

If you add some floating plants they have access to aerial CO2 and this means that they can more fully utilise the available light, as long as nutrients aren't severely limiting. 

Another option is a sub-surface floater, these are CO2 limited, but levels of CO2 will be higher nearer to the waters surface. _Ceratophyllum _works well unless you water is really soft.

cheers Darrel


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## kellyboy47 (14 Jul 2016)

dw1305 said:


> At the moment all the plants you have are relatively slower growers, and it is going to take some time to build up a sufficient biomass to limit algal growth.



Hi Darrel,

I have personally bought these plants because the fauna I have do like eating the plants. I have Kribs, Midas Cichlid, Rosy Barbs etc and have tried plants like Valis, Elodensa but they do not last very long



dw1305 said:


> If you add some floating plants they have access to aerial CO2 and this means that they can more fully utilise the available light, as long as nutrients aren't severely limiting.
> 
> Another option is a sub-surface floater, these are CO2 limited, but levels of CO2 will be higher nearer to the waters surface. _Ceratophyllum _works well unless you water is really soft.



I live in a hard water area so is there a particular Ceratophyllum species that I should be looking at ? So will the floaters minimise the amount of algae on the Buce, Anubias etc ?

Thanks
Trev


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## herezor (14 Jul 2016)

dw1305 said:


> Get away with you, actively growing plants are the single most important factor in successful fish keeping, they aren't incompatible, they are complementary.



I never said they were incompatible. Ever. I just said that if the OP is having trouble with algae and plants and his/her goal is to keep fishes and he/she is not into plant keeping, he/she should not go the planted aquarium route. There is the aquarium route. Perfectly acceptable and, although not hassle free, much less complicated. One can have an aquarium, only fish, or a planted aquarium, plants and fish. Both are perfectly fine.

I know people that keep fish only aquariums doing a water change once a month and cleaning the filter every three months. Super-clear water and super-healthy fish. And how about african ciclid biotope tanks or white cloud mountain minnows biotope tanks?. Not a single plant in there and they may look astonishing...


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## dw1305 (14 Jul 2016)

Hi all,





kellyboy47 said:


> I live in a hard water area so is there a particular Ceratophyllum species that I should be looking at ?


Either species will do (_Ceratophyllum demersum_ or C. _submersum_). Tropica sell _<"C. demersum_ "Foxtail">. I have industrial quantities of _Ceratophyllum_ you can have, but I'm away until Monday now. 





kellyboy47 said:


> So will the floaters minimise the amount of algae on the Buce, Anubias etc ?


They should do. 





herezor said:


> I know people that keep fish only aquariums doing a water change once a month and cleaning the filter every three months. Super-clear water and super-healthy fish. And how about african ciclid biotope tanks or white cloud mountain minnows biotope tanks?. Not a single plant in there and they may look astonishing...


 I'm not saying you can't successfully keep non-planted tanks, many successful fish keepers and breeders do.

I'm happy to admit I'm a pretty shoddy fish keeper and need all the help I can get. Same applies to the plants, I don't grow a huge range of plants in perfect condition, I have a limited range of easy plants that mainly look after themselves.

It isn't a very exciting way of looking at the hobby, but I like a risk management approach where you look at the probability and severity of an event occurring.  If you don't have plants, and are reliant on your filter for biological filtration, you instantly have a single point of failure where a loss of power, or blockage, in the filter leads to pretty rapid fish death.

cheers Darrel


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## herezor (14 Jul 2016)

dw1305 said:


> I'm not saying you can't successfully keep non-planted tanks, many successful fish keepers and breeders do.
> 
> I'm happy to admit I'm a pretty shoddy fish keeper and need all the help I can get. Same applies to the plants, I don't grow a huge range of plants in perfect condition, I have a limited range of easy plants that mainly look after themselves.
> 
> ...



Yes, I agree with you completely. Actually I would´t recommend people trying and willing to keep a planted aquarium with plants and fish and having a problem with plants to remove them. That is not a way to help that particular person. But the OP showed in one of his posts that he is not that interested in plants and wants to keep fish. I just tried to make him see that this hobby is what you want to make of it. It can be really complicated or really simple. But the most important thing is to make up your mind and decide what you want.

Regarding the filter backup, of course, I agree with you. Plants make a wonderful filtering system. Sometimes even better than the bacteria colony. But if he does not want to keep plants for whatever reason, he can also buy a second filter and plug it somewhere else and buy an external power supply like those used for desktop computers and servers.

I think you and I and many other people here see having plants in the aquarium as a plus. I encourage the OP to have them because they are beneficial in every single way. They give also a better look to the tank (for my taste, at least). But I think we must offer him advice and options and then he must decide whatever he likes better.

Cheers

Pedro


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