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Banff Mountain Springs

17 Days in, After a fairly painless few weeks Im starting to get brown algae on the rocks which is slowly getting worse day by day. I know this is fairly normal with new setups. Not sure what more I can do apart from keep brushing it off and doing 40% Daily Water Changes? I didnt expect to still be doing daily changes after 2 weeks.

I upped the CO2 yesterday and there is a noticeable difference on the Drop Checker, also the plants seem to be standing to attention a little more. Ive also upped the lighting to 87%

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As for bubble count, my 30cm cube was on 1.5 bps and It still needed more.

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I would probably try to up co2 (as you have) and maintain or even lower your lighting levels. Personally, I have been surprised at how much I could reduce the light as long as co2 is fairly high. Of course, you will not get super fast growth, but it will be stable and, most importantly, you will reduce chances of algae. It takes a lot of tweaking to find the right light/co2 balance (I am still not quite there myself 😛).

Thomas
 
Upping the light isn't going to help. Here's what I'd do...

Go back to daily water changes, up the c02 (which you've done), unless you're confidence with these lights take the intensity down a few notches, add some shrimp to the system as well.

I'm using the same set up as you at present, and I find that the tips of rock and wood that are towards the light do get a little GSA on them, this is normally easily remedied by a little easycarbo directly squirted on to the rock or wood (switch the filter off first), I always find that as the system matures, this cures itself.

The period you're in is what's known as the transitional period and this is the period people get pee'd off with planted tanks. Stick with it though Richard, it'll come right, it may take a few weeks, but it'll be alright.

Nice scape by the way!

Remember...shrimp!
 
I only use my tile on 50% if I go any higher I get into trouble with algae. I only ever go up to 100% for photos.

Shrimp should be fine at this point your plants should eat up any nasties 😉

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aliclarke86 said:
I only use my tile on 50% if I go any higher I get into trouble with algae. I only ever go up to 100% for photos.

Shrimp should be fine at this point your plants should eat up any nasties 😉

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Mine has seemed ok at around 79%, not sure if that's just because its new?

I had considered getting 1-2 Amanos, and 10-15 Cherries to sort the rocks out. I may leave out the Amano though because I want breeding cherries and no fights over food.

Will Cherries clear algae in the same way?
 
This is my personal experience...

I add shrimp after a couple of days of set up. As long as you keep up with water changes, the shrimp do well. At the moment, in mine I have about 12 cherries, 6 Amanos and about 12 glass shrimp. Cherries are good, but I always find that Amanos work harder, as do the glass shrimp.

As Ali, states they will clear any rotting plant mass that you can't see. At this point in a planted set up, shrimp are a must tbh, they add very little to a bioload, so get as many as you can afford.
 
Ian Holdich said:
This is my personal experience...
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Ian Holdich said:
I add shrimp after a couple of days of set up. As long as you keep up with water changes, the shrimp do well. At the moment, in mine I have about 12 cherries, 6 Amanos and about 12 glass shrimp. Cherries are good, but I always find that Amanos work harder, as do the glass shrimp.

As Ali, states they will clear any rotting plant mass that you can't see. At this point in a planted set up, shrimp are a must tbh, they add very little to a bioload, so get as many as you can afford.
Click to expand...

Ideally Id like both Amano and Cherry, but I saw the size difference in the shop and ive heard about Amano being quite aggressive with food and also causing Cherry Shrimp not to breed…Due to my empty bank account having set up the aquarium I was hoping to get around 10-15 and watch them breed. I wouldn’t like to have non breeding shrimp just because Amano’s work harder if that makes sense.

Have yours bred at all? Im not even sure if they are easy to breed to be honest.
 
Mine breed with amanos and barbs that like to eat the baby's. Some still survive 🙂

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If you have one male and one female they will breed, it can take 4-6 weeks to see the babies, but once they get going they'll breed like rabbits.

Again, if you want a decent sized colony, you'll have to be careful with your fish choice, ime, most small tetras will leave the babies well alone.
 
Ian Holdich said:
Again, if you want a decent sized colony, you'll have to be careful with your fish choice, ime, most small tetras will leave the babies well alone.
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I was likely going to go with Cardinal Tetras. I like Harlequins but think they may get a little big.

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T.Espei ? Instead of Harleys. IME they jump though.
Paracheirodon simulans (Green Neons) ?
 
stu_ said:
T.Espei ? Instead of Harleys. IME they jump though.
Paracheirodon simulans (Green Neons) ?
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I considered Espei when I saw them advertised as Harlequin Tetra but when I googled them under the tetra name I started doubting whether they were the same thing as rasbora. If they jump I'll avoid, had issues losing jumping white cloud mountain minnows before.
 
Mine don't whine but I don't use a controller maybe that's where the problem lies?

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