# Dark Green Algae?



## Lawrence Ferguson (10 May 2013)

Hi,

I started a planted tank about 3 weeks ago. It has dwarf grass and vallis in it only.

The dwarf grass has started to spread which is great and the vallis is looking nice and green and initially melting and going transparent when I first started it (I misread Flourish Excel and was putting a weekly dose in daily!)

My set up is simple, I have 32 watts in a 64 litre tank (I can't do any better becuase I have a stupid interpet hood and I can't afford to upgrade just yet and until I'm confident in planted aquariums!)

I have a Tetra filter that does 10x flow per hour and I use a flora Tetra substrate with coral sand on top.

I dose 0.5ml of flourish excel every week (Sunday)

It has no fish.

My issue is I've started to notice very small (1 to 2mm) of very dark green what I assume is algae coming off two patches of dwarf grass. Not a problem yet but I thought I would ask so I can nip it in the bud now.

I don't have CO2, I'm hoping the flourish is enough for such a small set up with just two plants species.

I work 8 hours a day, so I was thinking perhaps they're getting to much light per day at the moment?

Maybe I could in a shrimp or something? Maybe as the plants grow they will beat the aglae to the light?

any advise would be greatly appriciated, i don't plan on having fish for a good 6-8 weeks yet.

Thanks,

Lawrence


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## Alastair (10 May 2013)

How long are you running lights for, maybe try lowering the period to 6 hours and I didn't see any mention of what or if yout using fertilisers??? 
Id remove the affected hair grass by trimming it. 

One other thing too are you planning on keeping veru hard water species with the use of coral sand?


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## Lawrence Ferguson (10 May 2013)

Hi,

they probably run 8.5 hours a day as I turn them on just before work and off as soon as I get in. 6 hours on a saturday and sunday. I will buy a mechanical timer plug socket tonight.

The only fertilizers amd using is Flourish Excel, along with the Flora Tetra substrate if that counts.

To be honest, I hadn't even thought about fish types yet. Will the sand effect the hardness (Ill need to double check but i might be confused it might be carabean sand.), I will test tonight. I did want tetra's but that sounds like a no no from just reading up on it. Can I control water hardness?

Thanks.


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## Alastair (10 May 2013)

8 and a half hours on a newly set up tank is quite long lighting wise id definitely stick to 6 hours for a while.  

Do you not get to view the tank then if your knocking the lights off when your home? 

Fertiliser wise your definitely lacking as the tetra complete substrate if that's what your using doesn't contain essential macro nutrients. Maybe look at getting an all in one fertilisers from one of the sponsors. The flourish excel is your carbon source which is fine to use. Just make sure you do water change weekly

If the sand is infact coral sand then it will constantly buffer the ph keeping it quite high and making your water hard and youll really struggle to make any difference regarding softening the water with it in. Its used in cichlid and marine tanks. Even with ro water it will still have this effect.


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## Lawrence Ferguson (10 May 2013)

Hi thanks for all this info.

I've taken the following action this lunch time:

bought a timer socket and will limit tank to six hours a day - would i be ok to set this so it recieved the light in the evening, so I can actually see the thing?!

secondly, I bought easylife profito fert and will start dosing this

I will also trim the grass and remove the tiny bits of algae that I can see.

once I get home I will investigate the sand I bought and will do a water test and check the ph and hardness. can you advise what good numbers would be for someone who likes tetras?

If the water is too hard, then tonight i guess i will be researching hard water fishes!


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## Alastair (10 May 2013)

The easy life profito unfortunately doesnt contain the essential nutrients nitrate and phosphate which is what your tank is lacking and with not having any fish in either there is no waste being produced from them to help either. 
I hope you can return the profito. 
Try either of these 

TNC Complete - Aquarium Plant Food - 1000ml - £12.45 : FluidsensorOnline.com, The Nutrient Solution

APF Liquid Plant Nutrition - Fertilisers



The lighting and time is fine as its what most of us do anyway. We like to view our tanks when we are home. I dont see the point in having a tank if its all off when I get in 

Your best bet regarding suitable fish is to google really. 
And your water parameters if hard your ph will probably be 7 plus or higher, and general hardness and carbonate hardnesswwill probably be higher than the ph but not sure as have never used coral sand . Maybe one of the other members who also has a marine tank could help on the effects of coral sand


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## Lawrence Ferguson (10 May 2013)

thankfully i ordered on amazon so i just cancelled it and ordered TNC Complete. Should arrive Tuesday. I'm sure it'll be fine till then! As for water, off top of my head its 7.2 but I'll test.

Thanks for all the advise thus far!


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## Iain Sutherland (10 May 2013)

Plenty of good advise from alastair there lawrence , all i would add


Lawrence Ferguson said:


> I dose 0.5ml of flourish excel every week


this should be dosed daily, in a 64lt tank you should be fine with 0.5ml a day, this will also help any algae issues by way of increasing plant health and with the added bonus it works brilliantly as an algaecide.


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## Ady34 (10 May 2013)

Hi Lawrence.
As Iain said, you need to dose any carbon source consistently and daily for it to be beneficial, if you dont it could infact be detrimental and induce algae. In a tank this size you could safely dose 1ml per day flourish excel.....the only issue being vallisinera species are sensitive to liquid carbon products and will most likely melt with the necessary daily addition  on the plus side they would most likely do ok without carbon enrichment if your sand is coral sand as that will increase your carbonate hardness of which vallisinera is particularly good at converting to a carbon source 
Unfortunately though I think with 32w of lighting close to the water surface in a 64ltank you will need to supplement with liquid carbon and a comprehensive macro and micro fertiliser otherwise algae will take over.
If you are going to continue with liquid carbon dosing you could maybe look at the taller eleocharis ecicularis hairgrass as an alternative to vallisinera, maybe even cyperus halferi.
If your not going to continue with carbon supplements then you may need to look at reducing your lighting intensity somehow.
Cheerio,
Ady.


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## Lawrence Ferguson (12 May 2013)

Ok, all set up the forum on android now so I can reply much easier. Thanks again for all support.

I did a water test yesterday, followed by a 50% water change. 

Two numbers concerned me (for when it comes to fish) first that General Hardness was 16 degree D and KH  looked about 10 degree D but could be more as the shades are very similar. Also high pH, I shall upload a photo.

Apologies, I'm hijacking my own thread from algae to water... :-\ 






Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD


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## Alastair (12 May 2013)

Woah looks like that coral sand needs to come out mate


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## Lawrence Ferguson (12 May 2013)

The thing is, I just ran a test on my fiance tank (temperate) and her readings are exactly the same. She's just using generic sand from pets at home (with some rosy barbs in)

The pH is actually about 7.6 or 7.8, its not as red as my camera suggests.

I also just put a strip in glass of tap water and the GH and km are the same though the pH was 7.2 to 7.4.

I don't think its my sand I think I just receive awful water...





Here is my sand!

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD


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## Alastair (12 May 2013)

Maybe your tap water is just really really hard then but the coral sand will definitely be buffering up your ph. 

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk 2


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## Andy Thurston (13 May 2013)

I dont trust those test strips, they gave me a reading of ph 6.8 and when i tested with calibrated ph pen got 7.5 
They also gave several different readings on all the others, i even tested the same sample several times and still got readings all over the place.
These are worth a look and imho are lot more trustworthy than hobby grade test strips
Their cheaper in the long run too

 TDS & Temperature Meter Pen & PH Meter Pen Kit Cw Calibration Tools & Cases | eBay


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