@Natthanon
Both Algae and plant require the same nutrients for growth weather you have it or not in your aquarium.
Both Algae and plant require the same nutrients for growth weather you have it or not in your aquarium.
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Excess nutrient doesn’t cause algae growth?
- Thread starter Nont
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MichaelJ
Member
Stable CO2 and/or low(er) light intensity in your low-tech might be the main reasons you don't see BBA.
Cheers,
Michael
Hi @swyftfeet
There is a lot of free information about BBA on the Internet. Some of it is in the form of scientific papers, some is in the form of articles and there are books about Red Algae/Rhodophyta. It is fascinating stuff.
There are some important clues in your tank.
May I ask - what is your tank water pH and KH?
Are you able to test for iron in the tank water?
What lighting are you using and how is it set up - photoperiod and intensity?
JPC
Hi @brhau
Healthy plants release organic compounds into the water column. And, it appears that unhealthy plants release even more organic compounds into the water column. So, one could infer that a build-up of dissolved organic compounds may be one of the factors that cause algae. Somehow, we need to methodically investigate and eliminate the many variables that may contribute to algae growth. Personally, I've wondered many times where the statement "excess nutrient doesn't cause algae growth" originated. If anyone knows, perhaps they could let us all know. If there's any truth in this statement, where is the scientific evidence? Does anyone know? As this would be of interest not just to we aquarists but limnologists, ecologists and aquaculturists, then it shouldn't be too difficult to answer.
JPC
brhau
Member
Hi @jaypeecee,
I guess it depends on what your definition of "cause" is. 🙂 The only evidence I've seen offered so far in this forum (and I haven't come close to reading it all) is the observation that many aquarists dose their tanks with EI and don't have algae. What this shows is that excess nutrients aren't sufficient for algae. It does not address whether or not excess nutrients are permissive for algae, but require an additional set of inputs.
-B
MichaelJ
Member
Hi @jaypeecee I hear you... but since we lack that rigorous theoretical and throughly tested and extensively peer reviewed scientific evidence that you ask for (I don't think that will happen anytime soon specific to our hobby), we have to rely on the the empirical justification made by many in the community. From experience, I believe that the nutrients we provide to our tanks, almost exclusively as in-organic compounds, won't cause an algae problems. The "nutrients" provided by organic waste (fish, food and plant waste) might cause or exacerbate an algae problem. If you have a lot of organic waste buildup, due to lacking maintenance, I can see (I'm not entirely sure though) how you might compound an established algae problem with the dosing, otherwise not.
I would like to hear from someone running a stable mature squeaky clean planted low-tech tank at low light intensity dosing full EI levels of fertilizers who still suffers from an actual algae problem? That would be an interesting, if not disruptive, situation to explore and learn from.
Cheers,
Michael
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According to scientists the algae they grow in the lab is grown with fertilizer weather it's organic or inorganic, they use the same chemicals that we use in our hobby to grow the plants.
utex.org
You can decide which algae you want to grow simply by using inorganic chemicals listed in these recipes for different algae.
Also, It would be false to say that "all EI dosed tanks are algae free" and actually any tank in general.
Here is the recipe for cyanophycean, also known as cyanobacteria:
utex.org
Apparently the recipe uses KNO3, K2HPO4 the inorganic salts.
Algal Culture Media
Recipes for algal culture media used at The UTEX Culture Collection of Algae.
utex.org
You can decide which algae you want to grow simply by using inorganic chemicals listed in these recipes for different algae.
Also, It would be false to say that "all EI dosed tanks are algae free" and actually any tank in general.
Here is the recipe for cyanophycean, also known as cyanobacteria:
Cyanophycean Medium
UTEX Cyanophycean Medium Recipe | UTEX sells complete media at 1X concentration.
utex.org
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MichaelJ
Member
Hi @Happi, I absolutely agree with that, and of course my point is if you avoid the waste buildup, moderate your light to the available CO2 levels, keep parameters stable, your plants will thrive and algae will not... As for fertilizer, you can do it "lean" or you can do it "fat" (EI) and obtain great results either way as you have shown.
Cheers,
Michael
I believe the OP wants the exact answer weather the nutrients causes algae or not. The answer is YES. It can be backed by scientific approach and evidence.
Far as organic goes, ofcource it's best to keep them low in our aquarium.
MichaelJ
Member
Of course @Happi... Its just not a very meaningful question without being qualified/defined, as it depends on the constituents of the nutrients. It's akin to asking if nutrients kills people... and the answer would be YES as well, if all the nutrients you get is saturated fat from French fries and fried pancakes
But anyway... I dont see a disagreement here either way.Cheers,
Michael
OP's question as reflected in the thread title is whether excess nutrients causes algae.
My own experience is "No." I was previously dosing 2.5ml/day of APT EI into my tank, and currently only dosing 0.9ml/day. I think 2.5ml/day was clearly 'excess' (i.e. it was the manufacturer's recommended dosing, but the EI philosophy is to dose 'excess' to prevent nutrients from being a limiting factor) . If excess dosing causes algae, then a reduction of the dosing should reduce the amount of algae, but the truth is, I'm scraping the same amount of GDA off the glass every week, and my Lily Pipe turns greens with algae after a month or so, despite a 60%+ reduction in water column dosing 😅
MichaelJ
Member
Agreed. I used to pummel both my tanks with "nutrients" ... weekly 25 ppm of NO3, 10 ppm of PO4 +40 ppm of K and God knows how much traces.... at least 2ppm of Fe, without having any algae. I did dial down my dosing - slowly! - for the sake of my livestock (TDS) and in no small part due to @Happi and others insights on actual nutrients requirements, and needless to say, I still don't have algae. I am still working on dialing down my dosing, but I am doing it in ridiculously small steps to give the plants and livestock time to adapt. Both my tanks are very clean (some might say hysterically clean) and the light levels are low (+12 hours/day though) and I do go out of my way to avoid fluctuating water parameters - including letting my WC water de-gas CO2 before using it. It all works very well and appears to be very consistent with the experiences of other hobbyists following a similar regime.
Cheers,
Michael
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If it's 40 or 5mg/L NO3 being tested in the water column it's still excess nutrients sitting there in the water column ready for the algae to take up. EI approach proposes a relatively straightforward way to keep all the nutrients in excess at suitable concentrations rather than play nutrient limitation of the week. Algae handle low nutrient concentration pretty well. Plants may do better with substrate supplementation when the nutrients in the water column are kept low.
It's even worse, say you really want no excess (as in no nutrients) in the water column, 0 on the test kit often may not mean an actual 0 mg/L. This is why the saltwater hobby required kits with even lower detection levels, and we have low range PO4 test kits in the freshwater. At one point in the PO4 limitation era the paranoia and fear of nutrients got so bad that people were concerned about PO4 trace contamination of the activated carbon they used in their tanks... reason why you see some activated carbon packages with "PO4 free" in a old-school bubble.
So algae starvation by nutrient limitation may not be the best strategy in a planted tank. Luckily algae and plants also compete for space and light and ultimately dominance of the ecosystem. There is also a great algae predator lurking around making sure the aquarium is maintained 😉
It's even worse, say you really want no excess (as in no nutrients) in the water column, 0 on the test kit often may not mean an actual 0 mg/L. This is why the saltwater hobby required kits with even lower detection levels, and we have low range PO4 test kits in the freshwater. At one point in the PO4 limitation era the paranoia and fear of nutrients got so bad that people were concerned about PO4 trace contamination of the activated carbon they used in their tanks... reason why you see some activated carbon packages with "PO4 free" in a old-school bubble.
So algae starvation by nutrient limitation may not be the best strategy in a planted tank. Luckily algae and plants also compete for space and light and ultimately dominance of the ecosystem. There is also a great algae predator lurking around making sure the aquarium is maintained 😉
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Hi @Natthanon, @arcturus & Everyone,
Returning to the small matter (!) of DIC* stability, this will be coupled with water pH and KH. I've read conflicting information about preferred pH values for BBA. If I remember rightly*, Audouinella hermanii and A. pygmaea are the most likely species of BBA in our tanks. And, again, if I remember rightly*, these species prefer slightly acidic water (i.e. pH < 7.0). In other words, they prefer CO2 to bicarbonate and carbonates. Now, what happens at night when the aquarium lights and CO2 go OFF? Then, aquarium lights + CO2 turn ON the following morning? The pH will fluctuate significantly, won't it? And, BBA can grow in near darkness.
@arcturus, what would you consider to be 'rapid fluctuation'?
* DIC = Dissolved Inorganic Carbon
* I will check these
JPC
Returning to the small matter (!) of DIC* stability, this will be coupled with water pH and KH. I've read conflicting information about preferred pH values for BBA. If I remember rightly*, Audouinella hermanii and A. pygmaea are the most likely species of BBA in our tanks. And, again, if I remember rightly*, these species prefer slightly acidic water (i.e. pH < 7.0). In other words, they prefer CO2 to bicarbonate and carbonates. Now, what happens at night when the aquarium lights and CO2 go OFF? Then, aquarium lights + CO2 turn ON the following morning? The pH will fluctuate significantly, won't it? And, BBA can grow in near darkness.
@arcturus, what would you consider to be 'rapid fluctuation'?
* DIC = Dissolved Inorganic Carbon
* I will check these
JPC
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Hi @brhau
Yes, I try to avoid using that term. At least, in the singular. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking 'one cause, one effect', isn't it? I know that I do it - and then I have to give myself a ticking off!
JPC
Andy Pierce
Member
I'm not sure that is strictly speaking true in all cases, and specifically there is data (Anderson MA and Morel FMM. 1982. The influence of aqueous iron chemistry on the uptake of iron by the coastal diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii. Limno. Oceanogr. 27:789-813) that chelated iron can be utilised by higher plants and cannot be utilised by algae. I'm doing a high-phosphate experiment along those lines and starting to believe it.
Hi Everyone,
I need to correct myself here. The two species mentioned in post # 36 are to be found in habitats where pH < 8.5 and their preferred form of inorganic carbon is bicarbonate (Necchi and Zucchi, 2001). In other words, they prefer alkaline water, NOT acidic water as stated immediately above. It would be very interesting to hear back from others about this. If you have BBA in your tank(s), please measure the water pH and post your findings on this thread. I hope that the OP, @Natthanon doesn't mind my requesting this on his/her thread. If necessary, I'll try to correct this.
JPC
