Algae or not enough C02?

[aaronf]

Just getting into this so i am sorry if this is an obvious question.
I have had this tank up and running for about 4 weeks, and have been monitoring water parameters (for two weeks). I want to have shrimp in this tank eventually, once it has settled down / cycled. The fish are from a previous ran down tank. I also bought a CO2 device.
Last week I thought i had my CO2 too high, and hence the pH of the water was overly acidic, so I reduced it. Now I am starting to see brown fuzzy bits in the plants, which I assume is from lack of CO2.
I guess the question I am asking - is this because I turned the CO2 too far down (the indicator says adequate levels...) or is this an algae problem?

Overview of the scape

Brown fur on Dwarf Hair

Browning of Monte Carlo

Browning of Java Moss

Date	pH	gH	kH	Nitrates	Nitrite	Ammonia	Temp	TDS	Chlorine	C02
11/07/2021​	6.4​	7​	8​	40​	0​	0​	28.4​	175​	0​	35​
17/07/2021​	7.4​	7​	8​	10​	1​	0​	28.4​	210​	1.5​	15​

 

[aaronf]

PS any tips on making the Pleco not uproot all the plants?

 

[Valodia]

Hi. I think the number one problem here is inadequate plant mass. Get some floaters and fill the empty background with fast growers.

Another question is your fertilisation regime, level/duration of lightning and flow in the tank?

 

[Libba]

You turned your CO2 down too far and the plants have gone into a shocked state. The old plant mass is now melting and algae will grow/feed on it.

 

[Gorillastomp]

We would need a bit more details on what you are currently doing like @Valodia suggested :

• What is your current fertilisation regimen ?
• How many hours of lighting ?
• Did you do a Co2 Profile using PH Pen ? (Monitoring your ph during Co2 injection every or so hours)

From the picture it seems there is a flow issue, Is all your plants leaves moving/waving in the motion of water? Any biofilm at the water surface ?

PS any tips on making the Pleco not uproot all the plants?

Not much you can do about this, moving it to another tank maybe until the plants are rooted but even after that it is not guaranteed it wont unroot/eat some.

You did mention you want to add shrimps to the tank, Did you use already cycled filtration ? if so even if not, 4 weeks is enough to cycle the tank and it seems you have already fish in there.

Last week I thought i had my CO2 too high, and hence the pH of the water was overly acidic, so I reduced it.

1. You will need to know your degassed water PH. You can put your fish tank water in a container , add a lid, shake it strongly, remove the lid and wait couple hours and test the PH. This will be your Starting Point.

2. You want your PH to drop 1 full point from the degassed PH prior the light goes on. Depending of the flow and type of injection, it can take between 30 min to 4 hours.

3. You will want that PH to be constant through the photoperiod time. This is when you test your ph every hours or so to see if it move up or down. You can post your result here and pretty sure some will be able to help you to set it correctly.

4. Check if Your Ph is back around your starting PH prior the injection after a day. (Could reveal if you have enough surface agitation or not to degass the CO2 during the "night" time)

Makes sure to be at home when setting up your CO2, you will need to check you livestock in-case you overdose it.


I would fix all about the above so the plants start to grow healthy and add some algae eaters crew(shrimps, otocinclus or snails) to help clean some out. Once the plant start growing back, you can cut/remove the damaged leaves by the algae etc.

I think there is nothing irreversible(exempt the plant in image 2, they seems really yellowing but it still can comeback) in there, you will need a bit of patience and work that's all.

 

[Zeus.]

Like Gorilla said, you need good flow with filter output x10 tank size and optimised to create flow in tank, pH needs to be stable from lights on for first 4-5 hours of photoperiod and same every day. Plus CO2 needs to reach the substrate level with good/acceptable flow at substrate level when you have a carpet

 

[dcurzon]

4 week old tank, that looks likely to be diatoms. Plop some otto's in there. 4 for a tenner at Pets at Home, pick the plumper ones.

 

[aaronf]

@Gorillastomp
@Valodia

1. I have the light on 12 hours a day (8 am till 8 pm)
2. I haven't turned off the C02? Am I meant to during the night to reduce the pH? Or do you mean that it should go 1 below without any changes to the C02 level? Also when you say drop 1 full point you mean to become more alkaline (i.e. 6.14 -> 7.14)?

You will need to know your degassed water PH. You can put your fish tank water in a container , add a lid, shake it strongly, remove the lid and wait couple hours and test the PH. This will be your Starting Point.

On it! I Will post back later.

From the picture it seems there is a flow issue, Is all your plants leaves moving/waving in the motion of water? Any biofilm at the water surface ?

There is not a lot of plant movement, however, I have the water inflow from the pump pointed slightly upwards which agitates the surface of the water. See here:

In terms of biofilm - how would I spot this? Sorry if this is a basic question!

• What is your current fertilisation regimen ?

2.5mls of this once a week (the tank size is 90ls - Aquamanta Nano 60 LED Aquarium)

• Did you do a Co2 Profile using PH Pen ? (Monitoring your ph during Co2 injection every or so hours)

No, because I didn't realize this is needed! I had set the CO2 amount by the colour indicator and thought that was adequate. So I would just check every hour or two during the on period?

Did you use already cycled filtration?

I used some RO water from the aquatic store. I didn't add the fish till about 2 weeks ago.

add some algae eaters crew(shrimps, otocinclus or snails)

Going to get some today.

 

[aaronf]

@dcurzon

4 week old tank, that looks likely to be diatoms. Plop some otto's in there. 4 for a tenner at Pets at Home, pick the plumper ones.

Am going to buy some today!

 

[Valodia]

@aaronf In my subjective opinion some fundamentals are wrong here:
1. CO2 - normally it should be switched off at night to allow a tank to naturally/partially degas and switched on 1-2 hours before your photoperiod starts. In those 1-2 hours you should reach an optimal concentration of ~30ppm and try to keep it stable till the end of photoperiod. Yes, the pH in this case will drop around one point and should remain until the end of photoperiod. There is nothing bad in these daily fluctuations.
2. Your fertilizer looks like contains NPK + traces and it is good in principle, but I do not see any actual ppm of each component added with a single dose. Normally, in a high tech setup your would need to increase recommended dosage. (Ignore "Take care to avoid overdosing, otherwise you may experience algae growth." in the description). However, note that your plant mass is insufficient for high light, high CO2 and high nutrients regimen.
3. I afraid that you have not cycled your tank properly and you have added fish too early. You have immature tank, fish were added two weeks after the start, you want to add more fish + shrimps. If your soil is new, it will leach some extra ammonia on top of all fish/dying plants created levels. These spikes will trigger more algae.

I would say for now make partial WCs as frequent as possible, avoid doing it within your photoperiod to keep your CO2 level stable, add a dose of fertilizers back every time.
Reduce your light level and duration to 6-7 hours, your water temperature is too high as well and make sure your have good flow/distribution/surface agitation.
Get some fast growers asap (stems, floaters)

 

[aaronf]

@aaronf In my subjective opinion some fundamentals are wrong here:
1. CO2 - normally it should be switched off at night to allow a tank to naturally/partially degas and switched on 1-2 hours before your photoperiod starts. In those 1-2 hours you should reach an optimal concentration of ~30ppm and try to keep it stable till the end of photoperiod. Yes, the pH in this case will drop around one point and should remain until the end of photoperiod. There is nothing bad in these daily fluctuations.
2. Your fertilizer looks like contains NPK + traces and it is good in principle, but I do not see any actual ppm of each component added with a single dose. Normally, in a high tech setup your would need to increase recommended dosage. (Ignore "Take care to avoid overdosing, otherwise you may experience algae growth." in the description). However, note that your plant mass is insufficient for high light, high CO2 and high nutrients regimen.
3. I afraid that you have not cycled your tank properly and you have added fish too early. You have immature tank, fish were added two weeks after the start, you want to add more fish + shrimps. If your soil is new, it will leach some extra ammonia on top of all fish/dying plants created levels. These spikes will trigger more algae.

I would say for now make partial WCs as frequent as possible, avoid doing it within your photoperiod to keep your CO2 level stable, add a dose of fertilizers back every time.
Reduce your light level and duration to 6-7 hours, your water temperature is too high as well and make sure your have good flow/distribution/surface agitation.
Get some fast growers asap (stems, floaters)

Thank you very much! I knew I was doing something very wrong and I think you've hit the nail on the head.

So the aquarium had no floating plants / snails. The fish were added as a necessity as the old tank had broken. It wasn't ideal but I had no where else to store them 😭.

I have
1) reduced the photoperiod to 7 hours
2) added co2 to go on an hour before the photoperiod and an hour after
3) checked the degassed pH - it's was 6.84 with a corresponding live tank pH of 5.84 (which I think is about right?)
4) reduced the tanks heating to 23c. Unfortunately it is REALLY hot where I'm at currently and I can't reduce the temperature easily

Would there be a fertilizer you would recommend?

I will
1) have daily water changes for the next two weeks
2) run a hourly pH check prior and during the photoperiod

Again, thanks for the help

 

[Driftless]

FWIW - your Gold Rams will happily devour any shrimp that you put into your tank.

 

[Gorillastomp]

2) added co2 to go on an hour before the photoperiod and an hour after

You want it to cut off one hour before lights off.

Would there be a fertilizer you would recommend?

I would recommend to look into dry fertilizer. They cost nothing and will last long with this size of tank. Here's an article on how to fertilize your aquarium properly with dry salts. Like @Valodia said there is no much information on what the fertilizer you are using contains in amount of each ingredients.

I used some RO water from the aquatic store. I didn't add the fish till about 2 weeks ago.

Are you using only RO water in your aquarium,is it mixed with tap water or remineralized ? The little graph in your first post shows that you have a GH 7 and KH 8.

3) checked the degassed pH - it's was 6.84 with a corresponding live tank pH of 5.84 (which I think is about right?)

Yep that is one full point drop. Related with the point above, with a KH of 8 you should get a degassed PH of around 7,8 +.It could be that something acidify your water not that it matter much, but i am curious about it maybe someone can enlighten me on the subject. I would keep that degassed water and check if ph change tomorrow just to make sure it is completely degassed.

 

[aaronf]

You want it to cut off one hour before lights off

Sorry I mistyped - co2 switches off an hour before the photo period.

Will look into the dry fertiliser.

I'll post an update in 7 days (if anything survives my gas chamber... )

 

[aaronf]

Are you using only RO water in your aquarium,is

RO water.

 

[aaronf]

FWIW - your Gold Rams will happily devour any shrimp that you put into your tank.

I will have to hold off on shrimp then.

 

[foxfish]

Ha ha gas chamber maybe but only holding a fraction of your living rooms C02 content!

 

[Zeus.]

added co2 to go on an hour before the photoperiod

Unless you have a low pH drop I cant see one hour being enough to get the drop, their is only one person I know who can drop their pH in an hour or less and that takes deul injection and twin solenoid valves, 2-3hours is about normal for pre CO2 on time the reasons are-

We have a fairly well grounded, basic understanding of the photosynthetic processes.
A. We understand that Rubisco's job is to capture CO2 molecules and to deliver the molecules to the Calvin Cycle reaction centers. We know that Rubisco is hugely expensive and consumes a lot of resources to produce and to maintain. In low tech tanks, where the CO2 concentration is low there is a much higher density of Rubisco in the leaf because you need more of the protein to capture the small amounts of CO2. In gas injected tanks, the Rubisco density in the leaf is lower.

B. We also know that during Calvin Cycle, the fixing of Carbon involves some intermediate carbohydrate products until the final product is a type of glucose.

So, for item A. we know that when the plant senses that high concentrations of CO2 is available, it responds by reducing the production of expensive Rubisco. When it senses a lower CO2 concentration it must increase Rubisco production, however because this protein is so complicated and heavy, the increased production requires 2-3 weeks in order to change the density in the leaf to match the new gas concentration level. So it is much easier to reduce production than it is to increase production. When increasing gas injection therefore, it hardly takes any time to see an improvement in health. When lowering the concentration, the plant will suffer because it must now ramp up Rubisco production to account for the loss of CO2 availability.

When increasing the light, the plant must reallocate resources from Rubisco production/maintenance in order to deal with the increased radiation. This may entail new pigment production for protection. When the light is reduced, the plant then reallocates the light gathering proteins and can devote them to Rubisco production/maintenance.

So when we mess around with light and gas, we have some degree of predictability.

 

[aaronf]

Unless you have a low pH drop I cant see one hour being enough to get the drop, their is only one person I know who can drop their pH in an hour or less and that takes deul injection and twin solenoid valves, 2-3hours is about normal for pre CO2 on time the reasons are-

Okay, I'll update the co2 on time to three hours pre photoperiod!

It's interesting, because I think that's exactly what I've seen ... The high c02 at the start initially resulted in fast growth, but my reduction has rapidly lead to the plants going Brian

 

[Gorillastomp]

RO water.

You need to remineralize/rebuffer your RO water since it should be at 0 GH and 0 KH.Maybe it's why the growth is stunted atm, you are lacking of calcium and magnesium in the water. Why aren't you using tap water ?