Pepsi Dave
Member
- Joined
- 1 Apr 2013
- Messages
- 34
Hi guys, I'm having a real problem with hair algae, and I'm really struggling to keep it under control, and have been having issues with it for weeks, and it seems that no matter what I try, I'm not winning the battle.... tank details below, with further info beneath that of current remedial attempts and summary of tank "journey" so far. I've tried to give as much detail as possible, so apologies for post length.
Tank approx 36L (25cm D x 30cm H x 45cm L)
Twinstar 450SA
Pressurised CO2 Injection (Fire Extinguisher) via ceramic diffuser
EI Dosing + Excel
Eheim 2073 Canister Filter (Rated at 1050LPH) set to 50% output.
I have very soft tap water 0KH, PH varies between 6.6-6.8
I use Aquadur to increase KH to 4 and PH to approx 7.4-7.6
Timings
CO2 on @ 15:30
Edit - CO2 off at 22:00
Lighting ramps up from 0% to 60% between 17:30-18:00 and remains at 60% for 4.5 hours
Lighting Ramps down from 22:30-23:00
Tank was set up mid-May, and heavily planted with the following plants.
Eleocharis Acicularis Mini
Lilaeopsis Brasiliensis
Marselia Hirsuta
Hyrophila Pinnatifida
Rotala H'ra
Staurogyne Repens
Bolbitis Heteroclita Difformis
Anubias (Not sure of species)
Anubias Nana Petit
2 x Type of bucephalandra
Flame Moss on Wood
I also have some dragon stone in my tank.
Substrate is Tropica aquarium soil fine.
Tank ran fine for 3 weeks, I was doing daily water changes for week 1, and every other day for weeks 2 and 3.
Week 3, I felt all was stable, and I added 5 CRS and 1 Amano shrimp.
Week 4, and this is where I think I made my mistake, I increased lighting duration by half an hour (to current duration) with a view to increasing it to 6hrs over a number of weeks. I also stepped down water changes to once a week.
I felt this would be OK because my filter was already cycled before using with this tank. (Previous tank sprung a leak, so upgraded this little tank with a view to making a shrimp only tank.) In hindsight, I'd perhaps underestimated how much ammonia the soil leaches after set up.
End of week 4 I had severe melting to my S. Repens, Marselia Hirsuta, Anubias, Buces, and Bolbitis (I lost ALL of my bolbitis 🙁), with yellowing to my foreground grasses in the front left hand corner being present from end of week 2.
I noticed that this yellowing was occurring where there was the highest flow, thought that the flow was too high in that area, so adjusted outlet to change flow, this improved growth of the grasses.
At week 4 I noticed the first signs of algae. I had brown algae on anubis leaves, and on glass. This looks like diatoms, so I'm not overly worried, easy to remove, and seems to take a while to return.
I also noticed Hair Algae on my Bolbitis, Repens, Moss and Carpeting plants which, after reading about Hair Algae, I attributed this to either flow, Lighting or CO2 issues.
I reduced lighting intensity from 100% to 60% and ran for two weeks, with no improvement. I was still only doing a weekly 50% WC at this point!!!
Next I adjusted flow, and managed to increase filter output to 100% without it destroying my scape. I ran this for 2 weeks. This seemed to exacerbate the problem rather than fix it, so I eliminated flow as the problem. I was now also doing 2 x 50% WC per week (Sunday and Weds).
So with no improvement, I uprated CO2, from 3-4 BPS to maybe 6-7BPS. Drop checker was always showing green (ie wouldn't show a PH rise after lights out), but not quite lime green.
Now, another lesson learnt, that was too much, I went shopping and came back to dead CRS and Amano shrimp a few hours later 😕😳
My CO2 is now at 5BPS and my drop checker shows lime green-yellow - constantly.
2 weeks since then, I still have hair algae growing quicker than I can remove it!
I still have occasional melting leaves, but cannot detect any ammonia if I test for it, so am I right to rule out ammonia as the cause of melting? Equally, I know that I can only have algae in the presence of ammonia too, so I know must have *some* ammonia present.
The only thing I'm yet to alter is my EI recipe, because from what I've read about hair algae its more likely to be CO2 or flow related. Also, I'm not observing any obvious plant deficiencies that I know of. I also want to keep shrimp, so I'm conscious of Nitrate levels also, I've struggled with shrimp in the past due to high nitrates or so I'v been told.
Other observations that may be note-worthy.
In the past, I've used glass CO2 drop checkers, which have always changed colour during the day, with regularity. ie Blueish in the morning, before CO2, and green-yellow at the time of lights on.
I broke both of the drop checkers I had, trying to fix the suction cups to them. My LFS only had the JBL drop checkers (Like a plastic upside down pear shaped thing) but this just seems to constantly show the same colour, and I'm also not detecting any fluctuations in CO2 with my test kit either. Is this normal?
Final point, at the time of writing this as well, there is a small amount of what I presume to be GSA on my ceramic diffuser, but nothing visible on glass, and nothing obvious on hardscape, that wasn't already there from previous tank (where it was present on hardscape, I scrubbed as much off as I could before placing in this tank).
EI Recipe for Daily Doses (Used Rotala Butterfly and James Planted Tank calculators to tweak recipe).
The below is added to 500ml Water. I dose the below on Sunday (WC Day 1), Tuesday, and Thursday.
KNO3 - 1.5 Tsp
KH2PO4 - 0.25 Tsp
K2SO4 - 1 Tsp
MGSO4 - 5Tsp
I also dose 25ml Trace on Monday, Wednesday (WC Day 2) and Friday.
As well as EI ferts, I dose Excel and double the recommended dose to try and combat the algae.
This recipe should yield approx 25-30ppm Nitrates, 30ppm Potassium, 4ppm Phosphates, and 10ppm Magnesium. If I've got a problem with my recipe, I'm not sure how to identify this, and how therefore how to rectify it.
I hope the above is enough info, I'm at my wits end how to fix my algae issues!
Pics attached also to show tank, and current algae, I've just carried out an extra WC so I've done 2 WCs today and removed a blahblahblahblah load of algae, but as you can see there is still plenty of it still evident!
Thanks in advance for any pointers as to where I'm going wrong, or any advice! 🙂
Tank approx 36L (25cm D x 30cm H x 45cm L)
Twinstar 450SA
Pressurised CO2 Injection (Fire Extinguisher) via ceramic diffuser
EI Dosing + Excel
Eheim 2073 Canister Filter (Rated at 1050LPH) set to 50% output.
I have very soft tap water 0KH, PH varies between 6.6-6.8
I use Aquadur to increase KH to 4 and PH to approx 7.4-7.6
Timings
CO2 on @ 15:30
Edit - CO2 off at 22:00
Lighting ramps up from 0% to 60% between 17:30-18:00 and remains at 60% for 4.5 hours
Lighting Ramps down from 22:30-23:00
Tank was set up mid-May, and heavily planted with the following plants.
Eleocharis Acicularis Mini
Lilaeopsis Brasiliensis
Marselia Hirsuta
Hyrophila Pinnatifida
Rotala H'ra
Staurogyne Repens
Bolbitis Heteroclita Difformis
Anubias (Not sure of species)
Anubias Nana Petit
2 x Type of bucephalandra
Flame Moss on Wood
I also have some dragon stone in my tank.
Substrate is Tropica aquarium soil fine.
Tank ran fine for 3 weeks, I was doing daily water changes for week 1, and every other day for weeks 2 and 3.
Week 3, I felt all was stable, and I added 5 CRS and 1 Amano shrimp.
Week 4, and this is where I think I made my mistake, I increased lighting duration by half an hour (to current duration) with a view to increasing it to 6hrs over a number of weeks. I also stepped down water changes to once a week.
I felt this would be OK because my filter was already cycled before using with this tank. (Previous tank sprung a leak, so upgraded this little tank with a view to making a shrimp only tank.) In hindsight, I'd perhaps underestimated how much ammonia the soil leaches after set up.
End of week 4 I had severe melting to my S. Repens, Marselia Hirsuta, Anubias, Buces, and Bolbitis (I lost ALL of my bolbitis 🙁), with yellowing to my foreground grasses in the front left hand corner being present from end of week 2.
I noticed that this yellowing was occurring where there was the highest flow, thought that the flow was too high in that area, so adjusted outlet to change flow, this improved growth of the grasses.
At week 4 I noticed the first signs of algae. I had brown algae on anubis leaves, and on glass. This looks like diatoms, so I'm not overly worried, easy to remove, and seems to take a while to return.
I also noticed Hair Algae on my Bolbitis, Repens, Moss and Carpeting plants which, after reading about Hair Algae, I attributed this to either flow, Lighting or CO2 issues.
I reduced lighting intensity from 100% to 60% and ran for two weeks, with no improvement. I was still only doing a weekly 50% WC at this point!!!
Next I adjusted flow, and managed to increase filter output to 100% without it destroying my scape. I ran this for 2 weeks. This seemed to exacerbate the problem rather than fix it, so I eliminated flow as the problem. I was now also doing 2 x 50% WC per week (Sunday and Weds).
So with no improvement, I uprated CO2, from 3-4 BPS to maybe 6-7BPS. Drop checker was always showing green (ie wouldn't show a PH rise after lights out), but not quite lime green.
Now, another lesson learnt, that was too much, I went shopping and came back to dead CRS and Amano shrimp a few hours later 😕😳
My CO2 is now at 5BPS and my drop checker shows lime green-yellow - constantly.
2 weeks since then, I still have hair algae growing quicker than I can remove it!
I still have occasional melting leaves, but cannot detect any ammonia if I test for it, so am I right to rule out ammonia as the cause of melting? Equally, I know that I can only have algae in the presence of ammonia too, so I know must have *some* ammonia present.
The only thing I'm yet to alter is my EI recipe, because from what I've read about hair algae its more likely to be CO2 or flow related. Also, I'm not observing any obvious plant deficiencies that I know of. I also want to keep shrimp, so I'm conscious of Nitrate levels also, I've struggled with shrimp in the past due to high nitrates or so I'v been told.
Other observations that may be note-worthy.
In the past, I've used glass CO2 drop checkers, which have always changed colour during the day, with regularity. ie Blueish in the morning, before CO2, and green-yellow at the time of lights on.
I broke both of the drop checkers I had, trying to fix the suction cups to them. My LFS only had the JBL drop checkers (Like a plastic upside down pear shaped thing) but this just seems to constantly show the same colour, and I'm also not detecting any fluctuations in CO2 with my test kit either. Is this normal?
Final point, at the time of writing this as well, there is a small amount of what I presume to be GSA on my ceramic diffuser, but nothing visible on glass, and nothing obvious on hardscape, that wasn't already there from previous tank (where it was present on hardscape, I scrubbed as much off as I could before placing in this tank).
EI Recipe for Daily Doses (Used Rotala Butterfly and James Planted Tank calculators to tweak recipe).
The below is added to 500ml Water. I dose the below on Sunday (WC Day 1), Tuesday, and Thursday.
KNO3 - 1.5 Tsp
KH2PO4 - 0.25 Tsp
K2SO4 - 1 Tsp
MGSO4 - 5Tsp
I also dose 25ml Trace on Monday, Wednesday (WC Day 2) and Friday.
As well as EI ferts, I dose Excel and double the recommended dose to try and combat the algae.
This recipe should yield approx 25-30ppm Nitrates, 30ppm Potassium, 4ppm Phosphates, and 10ppm Magnesium. If I've got a problem with my recipe, I'm not sure how to identify this, and how therefore how to rectify it.
I hope the above is enough info, I'm at my wits end how to fix my algae issues!
Pics attached also to show tank, and current algae, I've just carried out an extra WC so I've done 2 WCs today and removed a blahblahblahblah load of algae, but as you can see there is still plenty of it still evident!
Thanks in advance for any pointers as to where I'm going wrong, or any advice! 🙂
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