Brown fuzzy algae, unhealthy plants and dosing questions

[dennish]

Notwithstanding ferts/CO2, what do you have in the way of clean-up crew? Any CRS/Amanos/Nerites? They are not an answer on their own, but in my limited experience to-date they are part of an answer.

Since the ammonia spike disappeared I am about to. I want to add about 10 Amano shrimps and and a couple of different Nerites quite soon. The rhizo is something I think I can fix eventually. Wether it's with the help of a clean up crew or something else.. It's mainly the dying plants that are making me nervous ATM. 😅

Hi all,



That looks like you might have some iron (Fe) issues, are you using the FeDTPA?

cheers Darrel

I didn't yet, but I certainly should focus on this now.

Also, eventually I want to get my rotalas (rotundifolia, colorate, hra) go red. So based on what I've read with other peoples experiences, I will eventually work to more intensive lighting (when I tackled the rhizo) and go with lower nitrate levels.

So to sum things up, I like to lower my nitrates, increase the iron (with fe DTPA) and maybe increase the phosphates a little as well (since I often read 0 ppm and noticed some GSA). Bearing this in mind, I probably should switch to dry salts instead of using liquid brand ferts? I still prefer lean dosing instead of the EI method as I'm not chasing fast growth, but just healthy growth.

What amount of dosing per week would be my targets on everything if I use dry salts? Can't find much info on dosing dry salts with lean dosing in mind.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Can't find much info on dosing dry salts with lean dosing in mind.

You could try 1/4 EI or the <"Duckweed Index">. I like Limnobium laevigatum (Amazon Frogbit) as my <"Duckweed">, have a look a these two threads <"Duckweed Index says......"> and <"Frogbit taken a turn......">. Apologies to @jameson_uk as I see these are both his threads.

You still need all fourteen of the essential plant nutrients, plant growth <"is like an assembly line">, you need all the bits or you don't get a complete "car", lower nutrient levels just reduce the rate of plant growth.

are you using the FeDTPA?..........I didn't yet, but I certainly should focus on this now.

OK, it will take a little while for things to improve after you add the FeDTPA. This is because of the <"non-mobile nature of iron within the plant">. When iron becomes available the plant can't move it to existing leaves, it is only new leaves, leaves that grow after the plant available iron addition that will be normal and green.

cheers Darrel

 

[dennish]

Thanks much again, Darrel!

You still need all fourteen of the essential plant nutrients, plant growth <"is like an assembly line">, you need all the bits or you don't get a complete "car", lower nutrient levels just reduce the rate of plant growth.

Absolutely, I'm well aware of Liebig's law.

You can use the nutrient <"Dosing Calculator">, you want to aim for about 0.5 ppm Fe. Have a look at this <"threads links">, which chelator you need depends upon how hard (dKH) your water is.

You said a couple of posts before I should aim for about 0.5 ppm Fe. Do you mean with this weekly?

 

[aquascape1987]

Also, eventually I want to get my rotalas (rotundifolia, colorate, hra) go red. So based on what I've read with other peoples experiences, I will eventually work to more intensive lighting (when I tackled the rhizo) and go with lower nitrate levels.

I would concentrate on getting rid of the algae issue before you start to mess around with leaning out your fertilisers to make plants colour up. The colouring up process in response to low N is a plant defence mechanism, rather than a sign of health, so I think having a negative effect on the plant health, whilst already experiencing an algae issue wouldn’t be a good combination.

I once had a killer episode of brown fuzzy diatoms. See picture below:


The only two changes I made was to add Siamese algae eaters, and to improve my flow by using spray bars, and it went away. I believe that it was a synergy effect of both of these that resolved the problem. The algae eaters definitely were the thing that mechanically removed the fuzz that already existed, which took them around two months to complete.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Do you mean with this weekly?

Yes, but it is just a <"ball-park figure">. With most of the trace (micro) elements the difference is really just between <"some" and "none">.

cheers Darrel

 

[Yin91]

I have an almost similar setup with you and battling the longbrowndiatom too but its lessening consirably in my case its almost 2month. I found the china LED 24W is pretty much insufficient with a CO2 setup lowering it would just make your plant to struggle more to outcompete this particular diatom. I found this out when looking for review for these light on facebook, Indonesia and Malaysia scaper having good growth with 2unit of these cheap LED. I'm not sure but I had one time cleaned the diatom before going to bed and woke up seeing it grow a pretty significant amount when the light is off, hence my decision to not decrease lighting (its brown not green ...so I think lighting doesn't bother it much). Hence I didn't decrease photoperiod but ramped it up further with additional lightning after a month. I also noticed that when I exceeded 0.15ppm of weekly Fe this particular diatom went crazy . So far my plant are growing healthy my rotala blood red almost reaching surface and its pink red, hairgrass growing shooting runner and growing but still not fast enough for my liking, buce showing little growth and the diatom is slowly disappearing but lessening considerably. I do have some tiny bits green dust algae on rock that is not covered with plant but its not growing much. I try to brush out the hairdiatom with a little pipe cleaner out when I'm in the mood too. Hope this will help you

Tank size: 66 x 30 x 30 cm
Filter: 500lph hang on back + 300lph skimmer
Co2: Pressurised Co2 injection with neo diffuser, 2 bps, 2 hour before light on, turns off 30 min before light off.
Light: 2 X 24W Leds Kandila S600 basically rebranded chinese wrgb, started with 1 for 1month then added another unit started with 6h now 7h
WC: 50% per week
Substrate: Fluval Stratum
Fertilizer: DIY (6ppm no3, 1.5ppm po4, 18ppm K, 1.7ppm mg and 0.15mg Fe +traces(fluval) ) weekly ppm target with daily fert regime
Algaecide: Aquaforest Carbon Boost 2ml twice a day ...depend on my mood spot treating or dumping it but I found spot treating is better and dumping it doesn't make the diatom turn white at all...
Plants: Rotala Rotundifolia Blood red, Buce, AR mini, Crypt and hairgrass
Fauna: 8 embers tetra, 2 new borneo hill loach, a few platy to tear these diatom, 4 small nerite

Temp: 27~32 Celcius
pH: 5.5
KH: 0~1
gH: 5~6

 

[dennish]

Hi everyone,

I know it's been quite a while.. months actually now But I wanted to share my solution in case anyone reads this thread facing the same problems.

I tried so many things, including black-outs and dosing with excel. Which worked, but only short term. Also, my newly started nano tank was facing the same problems. And I couldn't bare the thought of keeping my lights on an extremely low intensity for only 4 hours a day for the rest of my aquarium hobby life.

As a little side note, never tried adding Siamese Algae eaters or Amano Shrimp, since my tanks were too small to house them. (So this could work, just not for me)

In my case, the solution was switching to RO water and remineralizing it with SaltyShrimp GH/KH+. After a couple of weeks, the filamentous brown fuzzy stuff went away. So it had to be something in the tapwater, or just a major coincidence.
One great perk of using RO water is that I can now just lean dose Tropica ferts without using powders or battling with too hard water.

Nevertheless, after months of fighting this, it's gone now!

 

[eminor]

since i visited this website i now think that everything is related to CO2 and too much light, i now don't think that tap water can cause algae except if there is ammonia in high dose in which i don't think it can be possible developped country

i learned more in months here than my father in 25 years of aquarium, this website by this i mean the community is a myth destroyer