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Brown algae

ian_m said:
Brown algae is generally diatoms. They will disappear with frequent water changes or get some Otto's, as I did, and they scoffed the lot in a day or two.

James' Planted Tank - Algae Guide
Click to expand...

I am planning to add some Ottos. They are helpful in keeping the tank clean.
But they are not the solution.With all the help I have been getting here I am more interested In sorting out whats causing the algae problem.
Which in this case seems to be flow and co2 distribution troughout the tank.

It will not just sort my algae problem but make my setup much more efficient.

P.s sorting the problems plus adding the ottos might be a good way to get rid of the algae already in the tank without going for the blackout.
Someone correct me if I am wrong.

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A black will hopefully stop the algae spreading any further than it has already. Otos and shrimp will eat it either way. Get your flow and distribution sorted and you should be back track 🙄 fingers crossed

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But then you'll have to worry about fish in your tank, and if the root cause isn't solved, then making corrections is going to be a lot more difficult.

As far as I can see in the photo the plants are not very happy, and ottos can't fix that.
Getting diatoms a month into a setup means trouble generally.

You'd better stop thinking about algae as something to get rid of. If you have algae that means plant health has taken a nosedive, so you should be thinking in terms of getting your plants healthy.

Cheers,
 
I just spent the morning with the tank.
Here's what was done:

- moved all the outflows to the right side. Spray bar working the full lenght of the tanks right side, and the fluval outflow and wavemaker working paralell to each other on the same side.
All my flow in now coming from the right side of the tank to the left.

- moved the glass difuser to be located under the all pond solutions canister filter intake. I am hoping some of the co2 will be sucked by the filter and difused trough the spray bar.

- cleared all the rocks and glass out of brown algae.

- vacuumed the substrate. I did a very thorough cleaning, there was another type of algae looking like cotton covering the substrate and plants I vacuumed most of it out.

- dosed 50 ml of macros and 15 ml of easycarbo.

I am now ready to do a ph test troughout the day to see how well my co2 is distributed around the tank.
Also preparing for a 3 day blackout during the week.
I just to try to sort the co2/flow before doing it.


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Well it's lights out and my ph test results are in.

Lights off co2 off
13:00 p.h 7.6

Co2 on
14:00 ph 7.6
15:00 ph 7.4
16:00 ph 7.4

This clearly was not good enough. So here I increased co2 output.Results follow.


Lights on
17:00 ph 7.2
18:00 ph 6.8
19:00 ph 6.6
20:00 ph 6.6
21:00 ph 6.6

Co2 off
22:00 ph 6.8

Lights off

These are my test results today. After all the adjustments done this morning.

Tomorrow I will test the current co2 output from beggining to end without adjustments.


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I get a drop from 7.3 to 6.3 between co2 on and lights on (1 hour). I would increase co2!

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aliclarke86 said:
I get a drop from 7.3 to 6.3 between co2 on and lights on (1 hour). I would increase co2!

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Click to expand...

I did increased at 16:00 as I mentioned above. The drop only happened after the increase. 3 hours to go from 7.4 to 6.6.
So tomorrow I will test it again to see how this increase in output will do before lights on.

My co2 is being sucked up by one of the filter intakes and difused by the spray bar.

The only side effect is a gurgling noise every now and then.
Looking at an inline difuser as next purchase.

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Another day has gone. And some more testing was done. This time with no adjustments after the test started.
Here are the results:

Lights off , co2 off.
13:00 ph 7.6

Co2 on

14:00 not checked/ not home
15:00 ph 6.8
16:00 ph 6.6

Lights on

17:00 ph 6.6
18:00 ph 6.6
19:00 ph 6.6
20:00 ph 6.6
21:00 ph 6.6

Co2

22:00 ph 6.6

What do you guys think of the results.



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aliclarke86 said:
Fingers crossed on the distribution side

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Click to expand...

Can't do much better with this setup I think. All the outflows are on the same side + wavemaker.

Co2 being difused into the filter and coming out trough the spray bar.
Water does seem to flow much more efficiently trough the tank and there is much less co2 just going straight to the surface now than before the changes.
I hope its ok.

Today I started the 3 day blackout.
I hope my plants survive and the algae don't.



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Blackout finished.
Plants look to have survived.
No algae on rocks. The ones on the glass seem to be falling off.
Plants still covered with algae but seems to be dying.
Need to vacuum everything out now.
I am sick today but it has to be done.
Any suggestions.

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Despite being sick I dragged myself yo the tank yesterday.
Here's a rundown of what was done:

-50% water change
-vacuumed the substrate
-cleaned the glass
- dosed e 15ml of easycarbo
- dosed 50 ml of micros as part of the fertilization regime.

There is still some algae ob the plants that did not come off.

I have some amano shrimps in another tank and I was thinking of moving them to help clean the algae left overs.

What do you guys think?

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