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350L low tech tank algae problems

Hi all,
I'm very tempted to perform a large water change at the weekend. Can anyone give me another option?
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I'd definitely go for the water change. I regularly change some water in all my tanks (all low tech.), and I'm pretty sure that it helps with fish health. As soon as I think I have any tank health problems my first move would be a series of water changes, ideally at least 25% a day until all the water is changed. I'd also use these water changes to have a good look for any dead fish etc. that may have been missed.

Because your pH seems very low (it may be the test kit) I'd definitely buffer the water back up to at least 4dKH, you can use the recipe at "James' Planted Tank" <http://www.jsctech.co.uk/theplantedtank/RO.htm>. Diana Walstad says that the "no water change" method was to be used with highly buffered water. The wood would only have caused the pH to drop if there was little buffering in the water.

Very soft water is more difficult to manage than more highly buffered more mineral rich water, and it is only really necessary for a small number of fish, none of which are kept very commonly (because of these constraints).

cheers Darrel
 
Hi Darrel,

I was going on the basis that water changes were bad for the plants, unless I let it stand to disperse any CO2 in it. Hence why I have done minimal changes.

I don't understand buffering at the moment, however I shall try and do some reading. If you have any good material to read please let me know. Should I be looking to remove the wood if it's lowering my pH? Or is it a problem with the water? The test kit I have is an API master test kit, I believe this is one of the better ones although appreciate they're not wonderfully accurate anyway.

I live in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. A quick search and look at this page http://www.yorkshirewater.com/your-wate ... dness.aspx suggests that I will have quite soft tap water. What action would you suggest based on this?

Thanks a lot for the continued advice. I really want to have a well balanced tank for both fish and plants.

Dan
 
This is indeed a good read. I have a rena 350 as well and just started it up last weekend and is now scaped.
However I have no fish in the tank as I am planning to house around 50 rummynoses in the tank.

Thank you a good read and I will follow your journal and learn from the issues faced with low tech.

I have upgraded in size from a 180l tank to a 350l tank, but downgraded in the aspect of high tech to a low tech because I was fed up of having to continously perform water changes and dose. I have discus and therefore had to perform 1 extra wc each week besides the bigger wc expected.

The only other difference is that I dont have soft water in London and it is alot harder, therefore I am planning to get an RO system as its more beneficiall, but will still cut the ro with tap water to give it a buffer.

Rik
 
Hi all,
I'd definitely recommend buffering the waters KH (and probably GH as well) up. I'd use the mix from "James' Planted Tank", or you could add some coral sand or Oyster shell (in a bag in the filter, or near to it). If you "RO right" or another commercial mix they are an extremely expensive way of buying sodium bi-carbonate. With apologies for the cross-post but there are some details here: http://www.plecoplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2484.

I'd ignore everything else until your fish/tank are healthy and stable again, you just need to concentrate on that. Personally I'd keep changing some water every week, you may find that eventually that something like 25% a week is fine.
I was going on the basis that water changes were bad for the plants, unless I let it stand to disperse any CO2 in it
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I remain very sceptical about this, CO2 levels will fluctuate naturally in the tank during the lights on/off cycle, so I don't think it is a valid reason. If you are worried you can de-gas the water via a shower head when you top the tank up. I'd leave the wood in, once you have some more carbonate buffering it won't change the pH. I have got a good explanation for buffering, I'll need to find it but this will do for now:
All a pH buffer is a compound that is soluble at one pH range, but insoluble in others. They consist of a mixture of a weak acid and its base. It has the property that the pH of the solution changes very little when a small amount of strong acid or base is added to it, so it "buffers" changes in pH.

This is also how the buffering of KH by calcium carbonate CaCO3 works (in this case the acid and conjugated base base are carbonic acid and bicarbonate).

CaCO3, or calcium carbonate is insoluble and is the main constituent of limestone. H2CO3, or carbonic acid is what you get when you dissolve CO2 in water by the following formula:

CO2 + H2O <--> H2CO3 but when you add some KH Ca(HCO3)2 <--> CaCO3 + H2CO3

Ca(HCO3)2, actually Ca++ and HCO3- ions, is soluble and is what you measure as the carbonate hardness (KH) of your aquarium water.

Both of these reactions are at equilibrium and reversible. If you add components to one side of the reaction, you drive it in the other direction. if you add CO2 to an aquarium that has calcium carbonate decorations (e.g. dolomite or coral), you will dissolve some of the CaCO3 to make Ca(HCO3)2 and thereby increase the hardness of water. On the other hand, if you have fairly hard water and the CO2 content is decreased, CaCO3 will precipitate out (limescale) and H2CO3 is released into the water until an equilibrium is eached. In this way, Ca(HCO3)2 acts as a buffer in aquarium water. This is also why hard water resists pH changes much better than soft water, it has a much larger reserve of buffer which we call its carbonate hardness KH.
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There is a calculator here:
http://www.cactus2000.de/uk/unit/masswas.shtml

cheers Darrel
 
Hi Darrel,

Cheers for the reply. I hope to be doing the water change this week - I've ordered an attachment for the hose pipe to hopefully make this much easier.

I think I have a basic grasp of buffering the water, it seems that it's just making the water harder. I'll have to source some of the chemicals that James' article suggests to be able to try and buffer the water.

Dan
 
Hi all,
I think I have a basic grasp of buffering the water, it seems that it's just making the water harder.
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In this case it does but you can buffer a solution to a large range of pH values. The important thing is the "reservoir" of hardness.

Any pH buffer works because it is soluble at one pH, but insoluble at another. Have a look here:
A buffer solution is an aqueous solution consisting of a mixture of a weak acid and its conjugate base or a weak base and its conjugate acid. It has the property that the pH of the solution changes very little when a small amount of strong acid or base is added to it
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_solution>.

cheers Darrel
 
Did a 50% water change last night including a good substrate and glass clean in under two hours. My new hose adapter for the kitchen tap works a treat 🙂 I still need to clean the filter out, might get a chance tonight.

Something that crossed my mind was what you said about pH swings causing algae. With the water change I imagine that the tank pH will increase which is another pH swing. Should I expect another load of algae straight away?

Thanks for the further info about buffering solutions. It sounds like I need to adapt the solution based on the target pH I want - is this correct? I still need to buy the chemicals so there's time to get it right yet!

Cheers,

Dan
 
I really don't think that ph swings are causing algae.
Usually most of the problems we face are due to the fact we don't provide constant and consistent levels of CO2 during the photoperiod thus not matching the CO2 level to the plant demands (we feed them in the morning with accumulated co2 during the night or from the water change then let them starve the rest of the day by having too low or poorly distributed CO2 addition).

Cheers,
Mike
 
Hi all,
I'd agree with Mike, I'm not convinced that pH variation causes many of the effects people attribute to it.
With the buffering people usually buffer to 4dKH because this provides an excess reserve of carbonate ions to counteract the CO2 they are adding <http://www.chem.usu.edu/~sbialkow/Classes/3600/overheads/Carbonate/CO2.html>. Buffering the KH/GH up definitely won't cause any problems, and would be my suggestion. As it is a planted tank I'd use James' recipe from "James' Planted Tank" <http://www.jsctech.co.uk/theplantedtank/RO.htm>.

If you want to make your own mix you can use these values (again thanks to James):

Adding 3.0g Sodium Bicarbonate (NaHCO3) to 100 litres of water will raise the alkalinity (KH) by 1
Adding 3.6g Potassium Bicarbonate (KHCO3) to 100 litres of water will raise the alkalinity (KH) by 1

Adding 3.1g of Calcium Sulphate dihydrate (CaSO4.2H2O) to 100 litres of water will raise the GH by 1
Adding 4.4g of Magnesium Sulphate heptahydrate (MgSO4.7H2O) to 100 litres of water will raise the GH by 1

cheers Darrel
 
How can I check the current KH/GH levels now? I'm thinking I don't want to increase it too much - presumably it's possible to go too far with this.

After the water change, the fish seem much happier which is good news 🙂
 
Hi all,
With a test kit ("API Liquid GH & KH Test Kit" sort of thing) or if you have access to a TDS meter it will give you a very rough approximation. If your tap water is soft (via your water companies web site) and you haven't added any carbonates or magnesium or calcium your water will have low KH/GH. This is due to "bio-acidification" - <http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/water/bioacid.shtml> and I think this is why Diana Walstad advised starting with a high KH/GH.

cheers Darrel
 
Been a bit busy, just had another baby!

I've ordered the API test kit you mention so will post back with the results. Things seem to be going better anyway, my angel fish pair have spawned. Have some new BBA growth on plants and wood though and a couple of fish deaths - probably due to the size of the water change I did and the subsequent change in tank pH.

Cheers
 
I've tested the water now, finally, and the results are:

GH: 5 dKH
KH: 1 dKH

So it definitely looks like I need to raise the KH. Will do a bit more research and order some supplies.
 
Actually, I suspect that the KH is below 1dKH. Looking at James' mix, that is only intended to achieve 1dKH - from what you've said Darrel I should aim for higher than this? The skepticalaquarist.com site is down for me a the moment so that may say something else.

My GH seems to be in line with what James suggests.

Any more advice on what mix I should use?

Thanks,

Dan
 
Hi all,
It might be worth adding some "Epsom Salts" (magnesium sulphate MgSO4.7H2O), as the GH is probably mainly calcium. To raise the KH you can add potassium bi-carbonate (KHCO3) or use Oyster shell grit etc. "James Planted Tank" has details, or if you PM I can send you an Excel sheet with the calculations on it.

I'd probably add enough magnesium sulphate to raise your GH by 2dGH and enough potassium b-carbonate to get to 4dKH.

cheers Darrel
 
Hi all,

It's been an age since I updated this thread, apologies about that.

I think I've got the water fairly stable, as far as the fish health goes anyway. I've removed the redmoor root which seems to have helped. I did lose a couple of fish down to dropsy at the time of removing this, so it seems it was altering the water parameters.

I think there is still room for improvement, specifically I haven't done anything about increasing the water hardness. Is there perhaps a solution to this where I can place something in the tank/filter which will increase the hardness - I'm sure I've seen some reference to crushed oyster shell before.

Aside from this, I am still having algae issues. Below are some photos from today, this is a week after cleaning the tank. The tank seems to be suffering from various forms of algae including BBA, green spot and dust algae. The BBA seems to affect the glass at the back of the tank which is in the flow of a 900l/hr powerhead and the amazon sword leaves - it is really stubborn, even with a scourer! Green spot and dust algae seems to be on the glass everywhere. There has also been lots of hair algae, as you can see on the filter inlet for example, and this doesn't seem to be attached to anything in particular just floating around the tank.

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg


I have to admit I have stopped dosing the TPN+. I have a few less fish now due to the losses. These are the only changes really.

Please can anyone help me conquer these alage issues?

Thanks,

Dan
 
Deep fine sand is not really suitable for plant growth 'cause it goes anaerobic in time and plant growth is affected but this is a side issue. Room and tank light combined is causing your plants to use the little available CO2 really fast, if there's any as you have really high flow and surface movement. I'd stop using the powerheads and turn off the tank's light, the surrounding light is more then enough for your plants. Try and limit your surface movement also. Regarding TPN+ use the recommended dosage weekly.

When your algae issues are solved and you want to use the lights again think about pressurized CO2 or liquid carbon.

Mike
 
Hi all,
I think you need a lot more plants, PM if you want some floaters, I've still got plenty spare.If you don't feel confident with chemicals, oyster shell grit will raise your dGH/dKH (it is the aragonite form of calcium carbonate), you would only need a little tied in a mesh bag in the filter and you can buy it as "chick grit" (for keeping chickens) from Mole Valley Farmers etc.

cheers Darrel
 
I know that the sand I have can become anaerobic. Is this a big issue for plant growth? It's the best substrate I've personally experienced, although previously I had pea gravel. Obviously changing substrate is quite a big undertaking and fairly costly, would prefer to avoid.

The room the tank is in does get a lot of natural light outside of the normal photoperiod for the tank. I know this can't be helping but I don't have an alternative location.

In terms of flow, I have removed the large power head based on previous advice. So now I just have the Koralia Nano and the Eheim filter. That equates to 1650l/hr, according to Charterhouse Aquattics for the filter at least. Is this about right, or do I need to adjust? I read a lot about the flow should be 10x the tank capacity.

For the TPN+ dosing, can anyone recommend an automatic doser - if there is such a thing? Dosing should be nice and regular I imagine, I'm not sure I can stick to that too well to be honest so an automatic doser could help.

I know that crushed oyster shell is used in chicken grit, although I imagine there are other ingredients which may be undesirable for this use. Found some pure crushed oyster shell over on eBay - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/900g-CRUSHED- ... 1e6588d918 - does this look reasonable? What sort of quantity do you think I'd need for the tank size?

Thanks for the offer of plants Darrel, I shall PM shortly. Aside from floating plants, are there any other types I should get? Also, how many extra plants should I be looking at?

Thanks for your replies so far,

Dan
 
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