Hi All,
I’ve got a planted Aquamanta 60 (90 litre) tank, which is probably a bit overstocked with 2 pairs of dwarf gourami, 6 neons, 4 cardinals, 6 sparkling gourami and 4 false julli corydoras (and one rogue ember tetra that should have moved to my 40l tank with the others but refuses to be caught). I’ve also got 2 zebra snails and 3 bamboo shrimp. The tank has been running since January 2019 but recently had a major algae problem when someone else was looking after it for me for a few months. When I moved it home I broke it down and cleaned it up then rescaped it with new substrate, sand and plants: cryptocorynes, echinodorus, java fern, moss and floating limnobium.
That was four months ago and I’m now dealing with green spot algae, BBA and some green algae. My lights are the stock LEDs that came with the tank and I’ve pretty much kept them off trying to deal with the algae. I run them for about 3hrs in the evening. The tank is in a bright room but no direct sunlight.
I do 30-50% water change weekly, using tap water conditioner and dosing about 2ml liquid carbon and 10ml TNC complete after the water change. Ammonia and nitrite always 0 and nitrate about 40. PH is somewhere between 7-8 (it’s hard to tell with my test strips).
Until today I always had the nozzle of the return pump outlet pointing directly up at the surface of the water to agitate it but now I realise this meant there was next to zero flow in the tank. I’ve now pointed it downwards and there is some movement in the plants. I’ve also ordered a spray bar.
I guess my questions are - am I doing anything else wrong that I should change?! I figured consistency was important so had stuck to the lighting schedule and dosing but is it worth switching anything else up? Also will a spray bar be sufficient for good flow? The tank is 60x40x47cm but don’t know if worth getting a small wavemaker or similar?
Whilst I don’t want to change too many things at once, I haven’t seen any improvement from just keeping the lights low and regular dosing for a month so ready to try something! Am trying to keep it low tech and avoid CO2 injection if I can.
Thank you!
I’ve got a planted Aquamanta 60 (90 litre) tank, which is probably a bit overstocked with 2 pairs of dwarf gourami, 6 neons, 4 cardinals, 6 sparkling gourami and 4 false julli corydoras (and one rogue ember tetra that should have moved to my 40l tank with the others but refuses to be caught). I’ve also got 2 zebra snails and 3 bamboo shrimp. The tank has been running since January 2019 but recently had a major algae problem when someone else was looking after it for me for a few months. When I moved it home I broke it down and cleaned it up then rescaped it with new substrate, sand and plants: cryptocorynes, echinodorus, java fern, moss and floating limnobium.
That was four months ago and I’m now dealing with green spot algae, BBA and some green algae. My lights are the stock LEDs that came with the tank and I’ve pretty much kept them off trying to deal with the algae. I run them for about 3hrs in the evening. The tank is in a bright room but no direct sunlight.
I do 30-50% water change weekly, using tap water conditioner and dosing about 2ml liquid carbon and 10ml TNC complete after the water change. Ammonia and nitrite always 0 and nitrate about 40. PH is somewhere between 7-8 (it’s hard to tell with my test strips).
Until today I always had the nozzle of the return pump outlet pointing directly up at the surface of the water to agitate it but now I realise this meant there was next to zero flow in the tank. I’ve now pointed it downwards and there is some movement in the plants. I’ve also ordered a spray bar.
I guess my questions are - am I doing anything else wrong that I should change?! I figured consistency was important so had stuck to the lighting schedule and dosing but is it worth switching anything else up? Also will a spray bar be sufficient for good flow? The tank is 60x40x47cm but don’t know if worth getting a small wavemaker or similar?
Whilst I don’t want to change too many things at once, I haven’t seen any improvement from just keeping the lights low and regular dosing for a month so ready to try something! Am trying to keep it low tech and avoid CO2 injection if I can.
Thank you!