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Algae bloom in fishless cycling tank

Phil63

Phil63

Member
Joined
10 Apr 2017
Messages
38
Location
Uk
Hi guys, I need help!! I have recently set up a new tank and I thought all was going well. I planted it all how I wanted it, added my co2 and everything looked great. Then I found out that was the easy part. After around a week of leaving it to cycle, have had an infestation of green algae on the plants and mainly the glass. My plants seem to be ok but as a whole it looks awful and I'm not sure what to do. Is this just part of the cycle?
I have not done any water changes yet as I thought this would slow things down.

My tank is 150 litre tall tank ( around 70 cm tall)

I have 2 x fluval 32 watt fresh and plant led lights ( on from 1030 - 2030)
Co2 from a fire extinguisher dropping approx 1bubble per sec.
Ehiem 130 external canister filter
Caribsea substrate x 3

Ph 6.4
Amonia 0.5
Nitrite and nitrate 0

And as I mentioned, no fish or shrimp.

Can a time please advise as I'm worried I may have to start again.

Thanks in advance,

PhilIMG_20170513_192854.jpg IMG_20170513_192854.jpg
 
Think I would do some daily WC and reduce them later ,looking at your plants they don't require increased light ,give the glass a good cleaning.Is it in the position of daylight catching it?It might be worth reading some members journals or the experts tutorials,a step by step by approach ,your nitrate reading looks a bit odd ,with no WC.s
 
As Paraguay mentions, daily water changes are definitely needed. Change at least 50%, more if you can. It also looks like your light intensity is too high. I'd also consider floating some fast growing stems in there to until the plants establish and the tank becomes biologically stable.
 
Phil63 said:
I have not done any water changes yet as I thought this would slow things down.
Click to expand...
It is advised to do something like 50% water changes daily on week 1-2, every other day on week 2-3, twice a week on week 3-4, and then weekly from then on.
No fertz on the first week, then start with half dose and increase slowly when needed.

Also, some floating plants would help.
 
Thanks guys! So the advice is to give it a good scrub and set a daily water change routine. I will also reduce the light intensity, maybe turn 1 off for a while and see what happens?
Floating some stem plants? Could you recommend some?

Well it sounds like all is not lost then so that's a relief!!
Thanks again!
 
In addition to reducing the intensity, a photoperiod of just 6 hours is recommended at least until the tank matures.
Stems, Hygrophila, Elodea, Ludwigia, Limnophila, Rotala.
 
Reduce light intensity and time.

Put foil strips across half your light to halve the intensity and run with say only 4 hours until it has settled in and cycled, say 8 weeks ?

You are vaporising the plants with such high light, whilst they are settling in, and as they die they are releasing organics into the water, which is feeding the algae. Remove the organic waste by frequent water changes.
 
Ok we'll all of what you guys have said seems to make sense. I've turned 1 light off and reduced it to a 4 hour exposure per day. I'll now do daily water changes untill all this levels out. I guess I should also be dosing flourish excel or is it too early to be adding ferts?

Thanks a lot chaps.
 
What is your Caribsea substrate? If it's Eco-complete, that's an inert substrate in my book. You need to dose ferts right away. Liquid carbon is more like an anti-algae agent and supplies some CO2, there is no other nutrients for plants. If the substrate is soil based, there are nutrients in it and can buy you sometime before needing to dose ferts.
 
Well I used 20l of eco complete and 20l of tropica aquarium soil. I didn't intend to mix them but I had a bit of bad planning, I was told it should be fine. So it looks like I need to add something like pro fito at this early stage to?
 
OK, that should be fine for now then. You don't "need" to add ferts at this stage. But you "can" add some.

The ferts you will need will be NPK and trace elements. The Profito contains only K and trace elements.
 
Just a quick update...I have lowered the lights and performed daily 50% water changes, each time adding flourish excel and provito. The algae has pretty much gone and it looks like a new tank again (at least for now). I'm going to do some more research on ferts as it looks like I haven't got that nailed yet.
Is there a set time I should wait until I can turn up the lighting? I'm currently running half my lights for 4 hours a day, it's just not fun
 
Would not deviate from 4 hour light period for six to eight week's.
Have you sourced some floating plant's yet to help shield the newish plant's from too much light for too long?
With no fishes or shrimp,You could increase the CO2 bpm/bps.
Have you a plan yet for fertilization to ensure plant's are receiving all nutrient's they might need?
I would look into these before I considered increasing light intensity/duration.
Would increase lighting period /intensity only then, and maybe slowly by one hour increment's over a few week's. IMHO
Could very well be that you never need full capability of the lighting (ie) number of bulb's.
Would want lighting period to coincide with the hour's I could receive the most pleasure.
If it only took uber lighting to grow the weed's,everybody would be blasting away with it, more so than many are already doing.
Just sayin.😉
 
Thanks for the feedback Roadmaster. I didn't go for any floating plants as I am only running 32watts of light now approx 1watt per. Gallon. I do have adopted.ming function but all seems well at the moment. Co2 I still haven't got my head around. I'm working with 1bps and the drop checker spears the right colour, but off I double the bubble count it doesn't seem to change anyway.
Fertilization ... I have a dry ferts kit in the post so I'll be dosing that in a couple of weeks once I have reduced my water changes to 1 per week.
Yeah I knew all these things needed to be balanced, I just didn't realise that the lighting needed to be gradually increased over such a long time. Seems obvious now . The learning is all part of the fun though
 
PAR values from the two? Fluval Fresh and Plant 2.0 are significant for the plant's in photo,many other's which do not require much.
I use the 48'' inch model.after researching PAR values which is all plants really know/care about, me thinks.
When you say the tank has been fishless cycling, do you mean by adding ammonia/ or silent cycling with plant's sans (no) fauna?
Ammonia plus more than low to moderate light, or too long of lighting period,is said to encourage algae.
My own experience's tend to lend some credence to the theory.
My Fluval fresh and plant 2.0,same as your 's but longer, put's about 60 PAR at 18 " or close to that.
 
I recently did put an aquarium in the garden, used organic lily soil as base caped with gravel, so it has quite some load. Planted it and as usual same story, as long as the plants are yet do not fully started their metabolizing engine, algae are in favor and having a party. In my case it is outdoor, i do not have the possiblity to do something about the light. It actualy only encreases in periode and intensity everyday towars the summer with sunlight.

Doing 2 water changes a day while manualy cleaning off the algae and syphon it out.. It's frustrating, but you need to persevere, till you see the plants grow, from that point on you'll notice you're at the winning hand. I notice i am winning it, plants are growing now and algae is decreasing in numbers.

Perseverance is the key, if it is possible under the sun it shouldn't in comparison be a problem under a flimsy LED or Tube lights.

Personaly i do not advocate reducing light periode, because it doesn't make sense to me, its illogical. Depriving them from what they need to most. But it seems to work for many or else it wasn't adviced, simple as that. So with all respect, maybe it's still a remnant from days where dimming lights wasn't as easy as is today.

Plants need light to grow as long as they grow they get more mass and only stronger and more efficient battling algae. Reducing the intensity makes them already grow slower and reducing the periode on top of that also makes them grow slower and shorter. So in my logical humble opinion, make them grow slower for a longer periode can only have a more possitive effect in the long run.

But these are things you have to experience with a dimming option.. Go with what feels best for you. Keep cleaning and make your plants grow and you'll eventualy will win.. :thumbup:
 
PAR values??? Oh dear, looks like I need to do some more reading!! I looked into lighting and saw that it was recommended that I just needed 2watts per gallon and so that's why I ended up with my current light set up. It was quite expensive and as I have already said, I'm now just running just the one light for now. I'll do some reading tonight and get up to scratch with PAR.
As for fishless cycling , I've been adding fish food but I'm not having much luck. Amonia levels are low with no nitrate or nitrites coming up to 3 weeks. I'm going to go and but some tetra safe start tomorrow and do it that way.......unless this is ill-advised!?
Zozo I understand what you are saying and it did cross my mind to simply lower the light intensity and keep the period longer. What made me chose not to do this was that I had read that insufficient light intensity can cause plants to stretch as they reach for the light and I presumed this wouldn't happen if I kept the light short but intense. I'm keeping the water changes going at once every 2 days now but there has been algae growth in that time. I would say more brown algae and I have noticed yellowing on some of the leaves. I'm hoping the next two weeks will enable me to get on top of it.
 
Phil63 said:
Zozo I understand what you are saying and it did cross my mind to simply lower the light intensity and keep the period longer. What made me chose not to do this was that I had read that insufficient light intensity can cause plants to stretch as they reach for the light and I presumed this wouldn't happen if I kept the light short but intense.
Click to expand...

Yes you are correct, this leggy growth occurs on stemplants in need of high light.. Not saying it doesn't work, it just aint the stratigy i would follow for a startup. Battling algae at startup has all to do with plantgrowth which is not realy happening or just at a minimum. Especialy for the non aquatic nursed plants in emersed form. For a start to get over the hill, is to get the plants growing as fast as possible, lower intensity makes stemplants even grow faster towards the light. So personaly i wouldn't care for a bit leggy growth to begin with it always can be grown back as dense as you want after the battle is won. With going back in periode and up in intensity after all is transitioned to submersed, trimming and replanting submersed forms. Imho getting plants to this transition easier and sooner is giving them a longer light periode in lower intensity. 🙂

But what ever strategy you follow algae at startup is something rather inevitable, something you have to wait out and work with. Specialy the brown diatoms.. Can take weeks and can take months for them to decrease in numbers. It took me 6 months in my last low tech low light setup for all filamentous diatoms to dissappear, with cleaning and water changing everyday. Pulled some hairs out off my head, but won the batlle eventualy.. :thumbup:
 
ceg4048 said:
Hi,
Sorry, this is not true. Leggy growth has nothing to do with plants seeking more light. What this indicates is that flow/distribution is a problem.
More details in the post https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/old-skool-returnee-london-tap-water.24040/#post-246834

Cheers,
Click to expand...
Interesting! 🙂 Thank you. Some things to think about and try in the future. A lot makes sense it also explaines how those fairytales spread, gas exchange. 🙄
Leggy growth and low ligh was one of the things i (seemingly erroneously) learned very long time ago with experimenting growing terrestrial plants under artificial lights.
By this i maen to say, experiencing leggy growth, ask a farmer and get the answer "More light". Obviously after installing more experience possitive effects, why else would one believe it otherwise. I remember it also happens with seedlings, leggy weak long stem growth and falling over. There is an English botanical term for this syndrome, i learned from @Guest but i forgot what it was. The word used in my native language wouldn't make sense to you. But ok, planting seedlings to early in the year on the window sil and experience weak leggy growth, your statement about shade and wavelenght and the red spectrum makes sense. We humans even can get a sun tan in the shade..

Tho what about artificial light? The same happens if it aint strong enough.
 
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