NeilW
Member
Hello everyone!
This is my first post on this forum, sadly not with good news as I was after a solution to a slight green water issue... (sorry about the long story in advance, and please say if I'm not making any sense!)
My tank has been running for approx. 5 weeks now and has finally decided to cycle. Ammonia and Nitrite readings are at 0 whilst nitrate is at 5 mg/l
(sorry about the poor photo quality.)
Tank specifications - 12"x8"x8"/ 12 litre nano
Lighting - single 11w Arcpod currently set to 6 hour photoperiod
CO2 - reduced to 0.5ml EasyCarbo daily
Filtration - eden 501, 300lph
Fertilisation - none yet / ADA Amazonia soil, Tropica plant substrate
Plants - HC cuba, Pogostemon Helferi, Java Moss, Heteranthera zosterifolia
Fish/Inverts - none yet.
When I started the tank I was originally dosing 0.7ml of EasyCarbo with an 8 hour photoperiod which resulted in very slightly green water. However I decided to keep this routine up as it resulted in good growth from the HC Cuba and I was unable to do a water change to reset the levels of everything (including the nitrate) as the tank hadn't finished cycling.
For the past week I have been on holiday and entrusted a housemate to look after the tank. Before the holiday a couple of patches of HC had started to go brown/yellow and die which was remedied by planting an additional pot of HC (to fill the gaps and boost the biomass to help combat the green water) and stupidly I added 1ml of Easy Life Ferro as I took the yellowing to be an iron deficiency. I contacted said housemate in the week who said the water had gone green so I said to reduce the photoperiod to 6 hours and dose only 0.5ml EasyCarbo daily.
Due to the excess iron yesterday I came back to a swamp of a tank, and after checking the stats to see if it had finally cycled (which it had) I performed a 80% water change, cleaned the filter media, glass etc. and made sure the the timer was set to 6 hours. Despite this the old green water is back again. The photo is from today, although the water is greener in reality. This confused me as I had done the water change after the photoperiod and thus the tank has had no additional light or CO2 and the Nitrate is reading at 5 mg/l (maybe still to high?). Ammonia and Nitrite are both at 0. I have read up on several algae articles (http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/ and http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=29494) but cannot decide on what to do...
I have narrowed my options down to carrying on with the reduced photoperiod of 6 hours and 0.5ml EasyCarbo and do 25% water changes every-other day and see what happens when it stabilises, doing a 3 day black out (although this wouldn't remedy the initial cause) or buying some Daphnia to eat it up (although I'm not sure as to how effective this would be etc.)
Once again sorry for the long story! Any suggestions/help would be welcomed and greatly appreciated.
This is my first post on this forum, sadly not with good news as I was after a solution to a slight green water issue... (sorry about the long story in advance, and please say if I'm not making any sense!)
My tank has been running for approx. 5 weeks now and has finally decided to cycle. Ammonia and Nitrite readings are at 0 whilst nitrate is at 5 mg/l
(sorry about the poor photo quality.)
Tank specifications - 12"x8"x8"/ 12 litre nano
Lighting - single 11w Arcpod currently set to 6 hour photoperiod
CO2 - reduced to 0.5ml EasyCarbo daily
Filtration - eden 501, 300lph
Fertilisation - none yet / ADA Amazonia soil, Tropica plant substrate
Plants - HC cuba, Pogostemon Helferi, Java Moss, Heteranthera zosterifolia
Fish/Inverts - none yet.
When I started the tank I was originally dosing 0.7ml of EasyCarbo with an 8 hour photoperiod which resulted in very slightly green water. However I decided to keep this routine up as it resulted in good growth from the HC Cuba and I was unable to do a water change to reset the levels of everything (including the nitrate) as the tank hadn't finished cycling.
For the past week I have been on holiday and entrusted a housemate to look after the tank. Before the holiday a couple of patches of HC had started to go brown/yellow and die which was remedied by planting an additional pot of HC (to fill the gaps and boost the biomass to help combat the green water) and stupidly I added 1ml of Easy Life Ferro as I took the yellowing to be an iron deficiency. I contacted said housemate in the week who said the water had gone green so I said to reduce the photoperiod to 6 hours and dose only 0.5ml EasyCarbo daily.
Due to the excess iron yesterday I came back to a swamp of a tank, and after checking the stats to see if it had finally cycled (which it had) I performed a 80% water change, cleaned the filter media, glass etc. and made sure the the timer was set to 6 hours. Despite this the old green water is back again. The photo is from today, although the water is greener in reality. This confused me as I had done the water change after the photoperiod and thus the tank has had no additional light or CO2 and the Nitrate is reading at 5 mg/l (maybe still to high?). Ammonia and Nitrite are both at 0. I have read up on several algae articles (http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/ and http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=29494) but cannot decide on what to do...
I have narrowed my options down to carrying on with the reduced photoperiod of 6 hours and 0.5ml EasyCarbo and do 25% water changes every-other day and see what happens when it stabilises, doing a 3 day black out (although this wouldn't remedy the initial cause) or buying some Daphnia to eat it up (although I'm not sure as to how effective this would be etc.)
Once again sorry for the long story! Any suggestions/help would be welcomed and greatly appreciated.